Roanoke CC, Hidden Valley CC, and Hunting Hills CC maintain golf as an important draw, but are adapting to new realities, focusing on youth activities, building fitness centers, and boosting recreational offerings.
One hundred years ago, Roanoke (Va.) Country Club boasted more than 900 members, while today’s membership totals 448. The decline reflects the financial and social realities that have battered private, full-service country clubs in the Roanoke Valley and elsewhere across the country, the Roanoke (Va.) Times reported.
Many clubs are embracing a new, family-friendly paradigm to grab a share of the discretionary income of American households. Clubs are abandoning buttoned-down exclusion for a more relaxed spirit of inclusion. Nationally, many surviving country clubs are becoming less golf-centric. Although the sport remains an important draw at Roanoke Country Club, Hunting Hills Country Club and Hidden Valley Country Club, these clubs have been adapting also to new realities and demands, the Times reported.
And they report feeling a measured optimism as economic recovery continues and they offer more varied membership options and activities, the Times reported.
“You have to change; you have to evolve,” said Michael Pace, a longtime businessman who agreed last year to become General Manager at Hidden Valley Country Club in Salem, Va., which occupies acreage in both Salem and Roanoke County. “We spend a lot of time and effort on youth activities. We’ve become a very family-oriented country club.”
Hidden Valley’s comparatively new additions include a fitness room and an in-house wine shop, the Times reported.
Recently, 74 members of the Roanoke Country Club, as investors in the RCC Equity Group, pitched in to pay off lingering club debt that had been shouldered in 2004 by a group of 47 club member investors who had then paid Wachovia Bank nearly $5 million. In exchange for a payment of about $3.2 million, the RCC Equity Group investors received an equity stake in the club property, the Times reported.
And the club got the sort of relief from debt that could help Roanoke’s oldest country club survive, with money available for capital improvements, said George Vogel III, one of the RCC Equity Group investors and a former president of the club’s board of directors.
“Since we no longer have the cost of servicing the debt, we are currently self-sustaining with excess cash flow to reinvest in the club,” Vogel said. “Our current goal for membership is 550 members.”
Hunting Hills in Roanoke faced a bleak future in 2003. Like the Roanoke Country Club at the time, it owed a substantial sum to Wachovia. Old Heritage Corp., with the late Gordon Willis Sr. as chairman, bought the club’s golf course for $1.9 million and leased it back for 30 years to Hunting Hills Country Club, which Willis helped found in 1976. Old Heritage also granted a loan to help the club tackle capital improvements, the Times reported.
Some observers wondered then whether there were enough people of means in the Roanoke Valley to support three full-service country clubs—clubs that offer golf, tennis, swimming and dining. That question remains relevant in an era when fitness clubs and recreational sports opportunities abound and the Roanoke Valley offers a host of dining alternatives, the Times reported.
Hunting Hills’ membership peaked in 2008 at 780 and is now about 465. Kimberly Eakin, a former businesswoman who is president of the club’s board of directors, said the economy was stronger in 2008. And she noted that Hunting Hills offered a very low, flat membership rate at the time to encourage people to join, the Times reported.
“As recent treasurer and present president, I can tell you that we are very, very close to running a self-sustaining club without any additional memberships,” Eakin said.
She said the club sticks to its budget while also focusing on keeping members happy. “Thirty more memberships would allow us to quickly improve key operations and communications with new technology, give us additional buying power and create an adequate sum for ongoing capital improvements,” Eakin said.
Pace said Hidden Valley Country Club, founded in 1949, has about 535 members, the highest count in the Roanoke Valley and about 65 below Hidden Valley’s previous peak. He said Hidden Valley’s board of governors asked him to run the club more like a business, the Times reported.
Pace said the Roanoke Valley’s three full-service country clubs “are vying for the same members,” a reality he said informs Hidden Valley’s efforts to retain current members while also recruiting. “You’ve got to listen to what your customers want,” he said.
Hidden Valley was “slightly in the black” in 2014, “for the first time in a very long time,” Pace said. “But if we could get back up to 600 members we’d be tickled pink.”
Hidden Valley’s new fitness room, though small, provides a facility that national trends suggest could help keep and recruit members. Eakin said Hunting Hills has a strategic alliance with the Carter Athletic Center, on the campus of North Cross School in Roanoke County, for a fitness facility.
Vogel said Roanoke Country Club does not have a fitness center, but said such a facility has been considered and will likely be discussed again this fall by a newly configured board of directors, the Times reported.
As a member of Hunting Hills, Susan Still, president and CEO of HomeTown Bank, said she believes full-service country clubs and the activities they provide can be “very advantageous to members engaged in networking or business development activities.”
Ellis Gutshall has served as president and CEO of Roanoke-based Valley Bank, which has merged with the Bank of North Carolina. Gutshall, a member of Roanoke Country Club who describes himself as an avid golfer, said the expense of club dues “was built into my initial salary structure back in 1995 when I was recruited to join Valley.”
He said Bank of North Carolina will reimburse him directly for monthly club dues, the Times reported.
“Regarding country clubs here in the Roanoke Valley, I do still believe they provide a very valuable place to conduct business and to stay connected with business associates,” Gutshall said.
Monthly dues to cover a family’s full membership, which provides access to all the club’s facilities, range from $320 per month at Hunting Hills to $545 at the Roanoke Country Club. Hidden Valley’s comparable membership dues are $509 a month, the Times reported.
Each of the clubs offers a variety of membership options. They include pool, tennis and social memberships and specific categories aimed at target demographics, including, for example, “young executives.”
Hidden Valley offers a “social membership,” with dining and social privileges but no privileges for golf, tennis or swimming, for $55 a month. Hunting Hills’ options include a “single tennis” membership for monthly dues of $135. Club expenses can also include initiation fees for new members, quarterly minimums for food and other charges, the Times reported.
“If you stay true to what your members want, I just don’t see any problem with having three [full-service country clubs],” Eakin said.
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.