MATTHEW THORSEN
Sunset view from the deck at the St. John’s Club in Burlington
Room With a View O
LIVING ON THE L AK E
34 FEATURE
SEVEN DAYS
08.13.14-08.20.14
SEVENDAYSVT.COM
Burlington’s St. John’s Club brings the private lakefront club experience to the average Joe
n the morning of my off-hours visit to Burlington’s venerable St. John’s Club, an Adirondack thunderstorm rolls and booms across the lake, threatening to disrupt the club’s vaunted view of Lake Champlain. But the massing thunderheads and occasional stabs of lightning only add to the beauty of the scene. Few forces on Earth could spoil this view. Later that day, the region’s finicky weather systems finally give way to a salmon-hued sunset that tints the undersides of the clouds. Despite a slight chill in the air, about 30 of the St. John’s faithful gather on the club’s several patios, most of them simply gazing westward as the sun settles into a mountain notch. On August 17, St. John’s Club will celebrate its 50th anniversary at its location on Central Avenue; prior to that, the establishment wasn’t anchored to any particular site, says bar and food manager Ken Ploof. Founded about a century ago, he reckons, St. John’s Club used to bounce around its lakefront
neighborhood, at least once finding temporary digs above a long-since-shuttered store. “It was just this little club upstairs” in those days, says Ploof, who’s also celebrating a milestone anniversary with the club. This is his 20th year behind the bar. The venue’s unassuming brick exterior and wobbly wooden fence conceal from passersby that its backyard boasts spectacular lakefront views. The pleasure of experiencing them is reserved for members, who pay $50 annually for access to what has become the club’s single most valuable asset. The club purchased the land on which the building was constructed in 1964 for the regal sum of $1. About five years ago, the last time anyone checked on the current value of the property, the figure cited was an even million. Much of that value is borne by St. John’s unobstructed lakefront access. From the building’s lower-level deck, the grassy land slopes downward. A lawn accommodates a line of deck chairs that beckons to lovers of the sunset. Beyond
that stands a landscaped and stonework patio with room for about eight round tables with chairs, a feature added to the grounds after Tropical Storm Irene and subsequent rough weather eroded the property’s waterfront border. Below the patio, a shallow beach extends a couple of hundred feet along the shore — and, in a sense, beyond the shore. The first several hundred feet of water are only one or two feet deep. “It’s a wonderful thing for children,” says Ploof, 54. “They can play out there, and it’s not a big drop-off.” St. John’s, though distinguished by its membership policy as a “social club” rather than a bar, has distanced itself from the men-only laborers’ drinking halls from which it descends. (Its founders were Francophone mill workers of the Union St.-Jean-Baptiste.) It now welcomes families — which explains the kids who gambol on the coastline — and Ploof makes a point of highlighting the club’s policy of nondiscrimination. Time for a petite disclosure: Though I’m not a member, I’m an occasional
B Y ET H A N D E S EI F E
off-key contributor to St. John’s Club’s Friday karaoke nights, the only weekly event where nonmembers are welcome. Invited there by friends who are members, my wife and I were struck immediately by the scene’s inclusiveness. Same-sex couples, dancing cheek to cheek, shared the floor with retirees, twentysomethings, and clients and employees of the HowardCenter. No single word describes the scene more aptly than “unpretentious.” Indeed, if the club’s spectacular view encourages people to become members, the welcoming atmosphere encourages them to renew their annual dues. Larry Forcier, 70, is a University of Vermont professor emeritus of natural resources. He and his wife, Anne, have been members for “five or six” years; Forcier’s son, also named Larry, joined a couple of years after his father, and a few years ago held his wedding reception at St. John’s. “The people in the club are really diverse … in terms of interests, economic backgrounds, that kind of thing,” says Forcier Sr., who