Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Upgrades underway at White Manor
Concert Golf Partners of California bought the club at the end of 2016; group promised $1.5 million in improvements as part of the purchase
The new owners of White Manor Country Club have started making good on their promise to sink $1.5 million into the property.
Members in late December agreed to sell the club to Concert Golf Partners of Newport Beach, Calif., with about 90 percent of the votes cast being for the sale, the new owners said.
Concert Golf, which now owns 14 high-end golf clubs across the United States, agreed to take on the club’s debt of about $6 million as part of the transaction, said Peter Nanula, the company’s CEO.
As a result, club members no longer have annual assessments to pay off the debt and have had their dues reduced 10-to-15 percent as well, Nanula said.
“What happened to them is typical of what happens at most clubs,” Nanula said. “They take out debt to finance a big project and five or 10 years later they still have a large debt and they say, ‘how are we going to pay for all this?’”
The clubs then have trouble keeping their members or attracting new ones because of the large annual assessments above dues.
According to Golf Inc. magazine, White Manor Country Club
opened in 1962 and was redesigned and renovated in 2003 by Bobby Weed, at a cost of more than $6 million. It borrowed the $6 million and began assessing the members to finance the golf course and clubhouse renovations in 2003.
“We have assumed all of that debt,” Nanula said.
As for concerns the purchase will result in the club selling off property to housing developers?
“Absolutely not,” Nanula said. “There’s always a lot of concern about that. We are operators of private golf clubs, not developers.”
Concert has started on some of the $1.5 million in renovations it promised members in writing it would perform in the first few years of its ownership.
Michael Padden, corporate director of membership at Concert Golf, said the company is currently building paddle courts on the property. Other improvements include expanding and buying new equipment for the fitness area, buying a high-end golf simulator and “lots of sprucing up.”
As a result of the planned improvements and reduce dues, 20 families have signed up for memberships since the start of the year.
“There was uncertainty before the sale but once
they saw it would be professionally managed, they started signing up,” Padden said.
That – increased membership – is one way the private golf club operator is able to make money. With dues decreased, more people will sign up to be members while a company with 13 other courses has a certain amount of efficiencies and buying power that individual courses can’t match.
“The members tell their friends, and they spend more money, and they have weddings and events here,” Padden explained. “And when we have to go out for new equipment, the cost is lower.”
Most of the employees who had worked at White
Manor before the sale will be retained, Padden added.
Among the clubs Concert Golf Partners now runs are longtime member-owned clubs such as Blue Hill Country Club in Boston, Massachusetts, Crestview Country Club in Wichita, Kansas and MacGregor Downs Country Club in Raleigh, North Carolina, according to its website.
Concert Golf says it has $150 million in equity capital to invest and upgrade large-scale private clubs located in major metro areas.
White Manor’s course is already one of the best in the region, according to its new owner.
“It’s an awesome golf course with relatively few maintenance issues,” Nanula said. “The idea is to take it up half a notch.”
There are a couple of greens – on the 13th and 14th holes – that need to be worked on, but otherwise
the course is in “pretty good shape,” the Concert Golf CEO said.
While White Manor is its first foray into the Philadelphia market, Nanula doesn’t plan for it to be the last. He said he is in talks with another club in the region, although he would not identify it.
“It’s got a lot of nice clubs and fantastic golf courses,” Nanula said of the Philadelphia area. “There’s probably too many, so a bunch of them are struggling. We’re looking for more in that area.”
To contact Business Editor Brian McCullough, call 610-235-2655 or send an email to bmccullough@ dailylocal.com.