The transformation of Boothbay (Maine) Country Club reached an effective culmination recently when the private club capped its membership rolls at 300.
When Harris Golf purchased the property in 1994, Boothbay Country Club was a public, nine-hole course that, like many Maine golf facilities, just happened to sit in close proximity to an Old World summer-home and tourist destination. Harris Golf promptly renovated the old nine, added a new one, took the club semi-private, developed 21 real estate lots, courted and hosted prestigious tournaments (like the 2005 Maine Amateur) before taking the club private last winter.
“The response to Boothbay’s conversion from semi-private to private club has been overwhelmingly positive,” says Jason Harris, vice president of Harris Golf, a course development, construction and management specialist based in Bath, Maine. “We’re great believers in the primacy of market forces as they relate to golf. It’s clear to us that the repositioning of this property responded to a market need — otherwise it would not have gone so smoothly and quickly.”
The decision to take Boothbay Country Club private was announced in March 2006, meaning the process was completed in just less than 16 months. Memberships were offered in three categories: couples ($3,000), individual ($2,400) and resort/corporate ($3,000).
There is no cap on the amenities Harris Golf plans to provide Boothbay CC members. Harris noted that planning is well underway for a new pool, tennis courts, and golf practice facility. He added that the club is now accepting applicants to the waiting list by invitation only.
The capping of memberships at Boothbay CC stands in stark contrast to the uncertain fates of several new private club projects across New England. At Turner Hill in Ipswich, Mass., and the Bay Club at Mattapoisett, south of Cape Cod, members were recently obliged to bail out first-time golf developers whose spending had outpaced home and membership sales. [At Turner Hill, the members purchased only the golf club portion of the club, not the real estate component].
At the private Renaissance Golf Club in Haverhill, Mass., members were unable to raise the money necessary to buy their foundering club, which was ultimately sold at auction on July 14. [New Jersey-based First National of America, a major golf course lending company, purchased the club for $11.9 million.]
According to Harris Golf President Jeffrey Harris, each of these markets is distinct and each project is a study unto itself in terms of its capitalization, the scope of its particular offerings, the specific type of member it sought to attract, and a dozen more project-specific details. However, Harris believes they all have something in common.
“Highly questionable decisions made by inexperienced developers,” Jeffrey Harris says. “They start with the best intentions, great community concepts and golf courses, but somewhere along the line they fall in love with the golf and spend too much money. Most of these guys are one-timers; they build office buildings, and they probably do it very well. But they spend too much and have to charge too much. And they don’t know golf: how to work memberships, how to offer services. We do — it’s why we don’t build office buildings.”
Harris Golf, as its long-time retail advertising campaign has made clear to Maine consumers, knows golf. But Harris Golf sold its off-site golf shop operations in 2006, to concentrate on course development, something it is pursuing with great relish and skill on sites all over northern New England.
The extension of Boothbay CC was Harris Golf’s first development project. Its success paved the way for Sunday River Golf Club, named by Golf Digest magazine the 6th best new course in the nation for 2006. Located in Newry, Maine, next to the famed ski resort, the 350-acre Sunday River GC also includes a 10,000-square-foot log-and-stone clubhouse and 57 housing lots bordering the course.
Elsewhere, Harris has scheduled a July 2008 opening for the semi-private Old Marsh Golf Club in Wells, where a resort-style course designed by architect Brian Silva serves as centerpiece for 131 real estate units. The club will feature a membership program, but the course itself will be open to public play. In New Hampshire, beside the Attitash ski area, Harris is poised to undertake an 18-hole project with golf’s hottest architect, Tom Doak, the man responsible for Pacific Dunes in Bandon, Ore., and Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand.
At Boothbay, and on all of these current/pending projects, Harris Golf has created and works to maintain what Jeffrey Harris calls a project’s “momentum and integrity”.
“By that I mean we follow through and actually build what we promise to build,” Harris says. “This sounds elemental, but this is exactly what you don’t see at projects where the memberships have to bail out the developer — no clubhouse, or a manor house that is never converted or refurbished as promised, or a golf course that had to be cobbled together at the last minute. Members see those things and feel betrayed; potential members see those things and run for the hills.
“Private club development and golf real estate development are like anything else: You’ve got to maintain your momentum and build the whole thing as planned or people smell blood. You can’t develop half an office building, half a golf project, and expect people to ‘feel the dream’. They have to be able to see and touch it.”
For more information on Boothbay CC or any Harris Golf project, contact the firm at 207-442-8725 or visit harrisgolfonline.com
