Come for the Golf, Stay for the people

Western Chester County Life|

Over the 100-year life of the Coatesville Country Club, it has welcomed generations of golfers, families and community members on the strength of a simple but poignant saying: ‘Come for the golf. Stay for the people.’

By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer

Since it first opened as a five-hole course in 1921, Coatesville Country Club has grown to be a timeless classic, tucked within the bucolic outskirts of an industrial city. Spread across more than 6,000 yards, the 18-hole course’s tree-lined fairways and immaculate greens offer some of the best views of Chester County.

For every family and individual who has ever been a member Coatesville Country Club, there is an equal number of ways it has been defined. Like its wedding reception venues both indoors and out, it is elegant and refined. Like its popular tavern, it is casual and unpretentious. Like its 25-meter pool, it is comforting and cooling.

Like its many events held throughout the year – from concerts to clam bakes and from movie nights to Independence Day fireworks celebrations, when the entire Coatesville community is invited – it is the feeling of being welcomed into someone’s backyard, because for generations of members and the Coatesville community, that’s exactly what Coatesville Country Club has come to represent.

While the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Coatesville Country Club in 2021 has been highlighted by a family pig roast on June 12, a centennial ball on Aug. 6 and golf events for members and non-members on Aug. 7, to name just a few events, it has also been a year of reflection on its rich history.

New book chronicles Club’s history

Much of that history is catalogued in the new book “Coatesville Country Club: Our First 100 years,” published this year and written by Club member Dr. William J. Castro, whose family joined the Club in 1987 when Castro was just six years old.

Throughout the book’s 172 pages, Castro followed what he called “the breadcrumbs” of the Club’s history, spending hours reviewing old newspaper articles, maps and government documents “to attempt to fashion a narrative history of the Club that is worthy of the remarkable people who are its custodians,” he wrote in the book’s introduction.

With each story told and from the hundreds of archival photographs included in it, Castro’s book is a breathtaking sweep of the Club from its humble beginnings, when in September of 1920, a group of Coatesville businessmen – many of them employed by the Lukens Steel Mill

and the Parkesburg Iron Company -- gathered with the idea to form a country club that they would be able to call their very own.

In the audience that evening was Alexander Findlay, who just a year later would serve as the architect for the first nine holes on property located near the banks of the Rock Run Reservoir.

On Sept. 1, 1921, the dream of Coatesville businessmen became real, and Coatesville Country Club was born. Over the decades, the Club has weathered the storm of the Great Depression, World War II, as well as enjoyed the postwar prosperity of the 1950s and the tough resiliency of the Club’s Board of Directors and leadership teams to steer the Club through COVID-19. Through it all, each chapter is a family album of change, an overview of the tearing down of the old in favor of the new, from infrastructure to policies and generations to generations.

The people’s country club

If the lifeblood of Coatesville Country Club over the past 100 years has been the infrastructure of its members, then at no other time in the Club’s history was that proven more than during the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008, when the economy of Coatesville took a nosedive in productivity. The impact also had a devastating effect on Club membership, as more than 100 members resigned their memberships.

After purchasing the land from the City of Coatesville and constructing a new clubhouse and expanding its parking lots, the Club found itself in heavy in debt.

In 2010, in an effort to reduce its fee maintenance costs, the Club purchased Imprelis herbicide, promoted as an effective weed control for golf courses. It proved to be an ecological disaster for the course; the herbicide severely damaged the root systems of its evergreen trees, and later forced the Club to remove 200 diseased trees from the course.

The Club filed a class action lawsuit against the manufacturer that led to a future settlement that paid for course improvements, but by September of 2013, the Club’s debts were beginning to pile up, and in September of that year,

All photos by Rachel Cathell the Club’s Board of Directors were delivered a severe blow, when they were notified by the Club’s mortgage holder that they were going to foreclose.

The Club was included in a Sheriff’s Sale for the price of $3.15 million.

Instead of letting one of Coatesville’s most treasured commodities, many of the Club’s members stepped up with substantial funding that eventually closed the mortgage. Others stepped up through their professions -- attorneys, leaders in business, accounting, human resources, insurance and finance – all of whom lent their expertise, as well as support and counsel for then course supervisor Chris Walton and his staff.

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One of those members was Riesinberg, who had been a 43-year veteran of the healthcare IT industry, with ample experience in business reengineering. Together with his fellow members, he created an entirely new business plan and set up an entirely new computer system that both modernized and simplified operations at the Club.

“All I had to do was organize an agenda and sit 13 people around a table, and we got the benefit of all of their expertise,” Riesinberg said. “I am a big believer in divine intervention. Things like this just don’t happen. We have a nice facility now, a great course, and great sand traps. This course is now running in fine shape.”

“Fortunately, we had some great members who were able to make substantial financial contributions, and about 80 percent of the membership helped keep the Club going in any way they could,” member Kim Breuninger said. “During a difficult time, we had a lot of volunteers – a lot of people who just believed in the Club. There is something about this place that just makes it too special for people to give up on.”

Teeing off on the next 100 years

Walton, who is now the Club’s Director of Golf Operations and General Manager, said the Club’s turnaround is reflected in many ways beyond the many upgrades that have been made to the course in the last few years. In addition, he praised the Club’s personnel and human resource reorganization that has streamlined operations and led to the appointment of Melissa O’Hara as Event Manager, Mackenzie Aldridge as Membership and Marketing Director.

If there is one intangible that continues to set Coatesville Country Club apart from its competitors, it is seen in the diversity and inclusivity of its members, who come from a wide spectrum of the backgrounds and professions – from doctors and attorneys to stonemasons, electricians and schoolteachers.

Walton said that Coatesville Country Club also includes an influx of people who will help usher the Club into its next century.

“When I started here, you didn’t see a lot of kids on the golf course and there were no organized activities for kids’ golf,” he said. “Now we have a six-week summer camp that gives young people the opportunity to pay golf in the morning, get instruction from our pro staff, have lunch by the pool, receive a swim instructions, as well as games and activities.

While Castro’s book serves as a document of history, the living history of Coatesville Country Club is still being defined in one of its frequently-used tag lines: “Come for the golf. Stay for the people.”

“We are extremely family-oriented and it’s a feeling that extends from generation to generation,” said Breuninger, whose family association with Coatesville Country Club dates back 80 years.

“My daughter is still friends with the kids she grew up with here. It is unique to a country club to have that kind of longevity with its families, but it’s just part of the culture of Coatesville that families grow up together, and they come back together.”

To learn more about Coatesville Country Club, visit www. coatesvillecountryclub.com.

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email rgaw@chestercounty.com.