Coosa Country Club: Rome, GA.

One doesn't often meet an architect who decides move in with his client after a project is finished. But Gene Surber FAIA, couldn't resist his urge to stick around well after his completion of the Coosa Country Club project, and ended up becoming a full-fledged member of the club. Surber worked closely with the management and membership of Coosa Country Club in Rome, GA, and evidently enjoyed the results of the project as much as the design process itself.

Founded in 1910, the Coosa Country Club was originally a two-story, bungalow-style structure. A first renovation was prompted by a need for additional space, but was quickly followed by a second after a fire destroyed the entire building. Like many clubs from that era, Coosa drastically changed the look and structure of their clubhouse during those renovations, responding to many contemporary architectural trends of the 1960's.

Unfortunately, those trends would not prove lasting enough to carry the clubhouse into the 21st century. When Coosa's membership needed to expand the club's facilities, they used the opportunity to give the building a long overdue facelift. They set out to recreate a clubhouse whose design could more appropriately speak to the warmth and tradition of Coosa's rich history.

Before addressing asesthetics, the design team for Coosa initially had to work on addressing some operational problems with the old layout. "The clubhouse just didn't function well," said Surber. The main access from the kitchen to the service area was also the access path to the ballroom. You might be going to a ball and the people from the kitchen would walk by with the garbage," he said.

Fortunately, the existing kitchen was in good shape, which saved the club close to a million dollars. The kitchen and the original men's locker room were kept intact, with the rest of the renovation built around that core. In every other room, Surber raised the ceilings and created a Georgian-style clubhouse aesthetic with painted white brick exteriors, Tuscan columns, French doors, and divided-light windows.

"I think people with older clubs are beginning to appreciate their club's heritage more than they did in the '70s and '80s," Surber stated. "We have just completed another big clubhouse renovation where we undid the '70s renovations, and the results were absolutely wonderful."