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Editorial: New clubhouse beginnings
Op-Ed · February 15, 2018
Depending on who stood at the edge of the rubble after the Cedars Edge Golf Course clubhouse came down by fire Jan. 27, the memories change.
Golfers who came into the bar for a cold drink after a hot nine holes, or parents who did the same while their sons and daughters played for the West Branch Bears. Team members who cheered after a winning meet. Classmates holding a reunion. Wedding parties for a reception. Teen athletes called up to the front of the crowd for end-of-season accolades. Civic groups hosting banquets. Families gathered for milestone birthdays or anniversaries. And how many thousands passed through the locker rooms on their way to the swimming pool?
The clubhouse at 19 Greenview Lane served as the backdrop for 49 years of gatherings before owners Jerry and Tammy Sexton decided the old building “lived its life,” and needed to make way for a new one.
West Branch Fire Department used the building for a training session before setting it ablaze while dozens gathered to snap pictures or shoot video.
“Here’s to new beginnings,” West Branch High School Head Boys Coach Randy Sexton wrote on Twitter.
Well put. (Putt?)
The Sextons said the new building will provide roughly the same square footage, yet the new building will offer a different footprint as even the old foundation will come out.
Of course, the bar will return for golfers seeking air conditioning, a drink and a chair. The new building will offer higher ceilings, too.
The new clubhouse designs are getting their final revisions, but we do know that Little Lights Wedding & Events will manage a “nice, big, open reception area” upstairs. Owner Erin Morrison-Vincent made her downtown location a success, and we look forward to what she can accomplish with even more space surrounded by a golf course setting. No doubt, Morrison-Vincent, also a professional photographer, has quite a few ideas already.
The West Branch golf course reached a turning point when the Sextons took over the business, for good, in May 2017. Now this new clubhouse is a big step in further revitalizing and preserving one of the city’s bigger attractions that less than two years ago golfers and residents feared might turn into farmland or a housing development.
Many of us have already taken time to reminisce on our memories of the old clubhouse. Now we look forward to what the future brings with the new.
We look forward with eager anticipation to seeing what the Sextons do.
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