Boothbay Country Club Caps Membership

The transformation of Boothbay Country Club in Boothbay Harbor, Me., reached an effective culmination this week 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 semiprivate, developed 21 real estate lots, courted and hosted tournaments (like the 2005 Maine Amateur) before taking the club private last winter.

"The response to Boothbay's conversion from semiprivate 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). Harris Golf is not done with the membership amenities at Boothbay. Planning is underway for a new pool, tennis courts, and golf practice facility.

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 knows golf. But Harris Golf sold its off-site golf shop operations in 2006, to concentrate on course development, something it is pursuing with 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 as the sixth best new course in the nation for 2006. Located in Newry, Me., next to a ski resort, the 350-acre Sunday River 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 semiprivate Old Marsh Golf Club in Wells, Me., 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 will be open to the public. In New Hampshire, beside the Attitash ski area, Harris is poised to undertake an 18-hole project with 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."

Harris points out that homes at Old Marsh were originally to have been more up-market and upwards of 3,000 square feet. "But the market changed during our planning stage, and the market is king," he continues. "Now, some will be 2,500 square feet but most will be 1,500 to 1,800 - condos and what I call patio homes. That meant working with the right sort of housing vendor [Boston-based GFI] and doing everything I can to make it a home run for them."

There are 131 units planned for Old Marsh, and Harris has set aside 131 memberships at the semiprivate golf club for homebuyers, with no initiation fee. "I have no other reason to do that, other than we want our housing partner to be successful. We do what we have to do, but it’s all determined by the market."

For more information on Boothbay CC or any Harris Golf project, contact the firm at 207/442-8725 or visit www.harrisgolfonline.com.