The 6,000-sq. ft. reception hall and events center at the Slidell, La., property will feature a barn structure with exposed beams and a second story with a bridal suite and balcony. The property’s golf course is getting updated as well, touching on cart paths and tee boxes.
The groundbreaking for The Sadie Jane, a 6,000-sq. ft. reception hall and events center at Pinewood Country Club in Slidell, La., was held on February 1, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported
Louis Ochoa and Chris Smith closed on purchase of the property in December. Construction of the facility on the golf course’s 10th tee is part of a plan for the new owners to pump new life into the half-century-old country club, the Times-Picayune reported.
“We’re hoping to be completed in August,” Ochoa said. “We’re booking weddings as we speak.”
C&RB reported on the pair’s purchase of the property in December.
Pinewood opened in 1963 and generations of Slidell residents grew up walking along its fairways or swimming in the pool. But over the years the club’s popularity waned. Ochoa and Smith stepped in to purchase the club and golf course after the ailing club’s board mulled selling the site to the city of Slidell, which planned to utilize it as green space and ponds to help the area’s drainage, the Times-Picayune reported.
Smith leads the team renovating and operating the golf course, now Pinewood Golf Club. Ochoa, who already had a contract to operate the club’s restaurant, will continue to run the restaurant, ballroom and The Sadie Jane once it’s built, the Times-Picayune reported.
Ochoa said his investment in the project is around $1.3 million. “I’ll be able to expand on the current venue,” he said of the reception hall, which he described as an elegant, vintage-type barn structure with exposed beams and a second story, with a bridal suite and balcony overlooking the golf course.
Ochoa, who also owns NOLA Southern Grill in Slidell, said the club’s restaurant has been doing great. “We were up in sales last year,” he said.
Ochoa thinks The Sadie Jane reception hall will prove just as popular, drawing events from across the region, the Times-Picayune reported.
The cart paths have received a lot of work and several new tee boxes are in the works, Smith said. The tee boxes on holes 10 and 11 have already been redone, and the course is also experimenting with an app, Quick.Golf, that allows golfers to pay by the hole in cases where they can’t squeeze in an entire 18 holes, the Times-Picayune reported.
The recent warm weather will turn golfers’ thoughts to getting back out on the fairways, Smith said.
“Since we took over in December we’ve had a lot of cold and rainy weekends,” he said. “But we’re coming out of winter and now we’re ready to get going.”
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