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Muransky's Lake Club Sets the Golf Pin High
POLAND, Ohio -- When Ed Muransky first visited the former Fonderlac Country Club in Springfield Township, he felt it had all the attributes of what he believed an ideal golf club could be. It just needed something – or someone – to coax it out.
That someone turned out to be none other than Ed Muransky. He purchased Fonderlac in 2008 and immediately embarked on a multimillion-dollar renovation that has transformed the club and its reputation, and with it the golf-club industry in this region.
Since renamed The Lake Club, the complex is on the verge of yet another expansion that likely will add even more to its appeal to its members and the public. His latest venture, Muransky reports, is the Lake Club Lodge, a new building planned on the grounds of the club that abuts Lake Evans.
“We have a 207-year-old barn that’s ready to be repositioned,” Muransky says. The barn, since disassembled, should be shipped to the site by next year, reassembled, renovated and converted into a venue for smaller gatherings and weddings, he reports.
The upstairs of the new lodge would host the public events while the downstairs would serve as a storage area and what Muransky calls “The Grotto,” an indoor party area for members.
Bocce courts are planned for just outside the new addition and the outdoor patio would be open to nonmembers as well, Muransky says. “It takes advantage of what the area gives us for the six or seven months people can be outdoors. They love to be outside. They love the water.”
Demand for the Lake Club’s banquet and catering services is so great – it recently booked its final Saturday evening wedding for 2014 – that additional space is necessary. “It gives us an opportunity to make more brides, grooms and their families happy that the Lake Club is not taken and they have to go someplace else,” Muransky says.
The Lake Club is a business but Muransky sees his venture as “a labor of love.”
“Every time I’d come out here, especially in the last 10 years, I would see beautiful Lake Evans,” he recalls. “I also saw the bar inside turned away from it and I saw trees blocking the beautiful view. I figured it had to be fixed.”
His father-in-law, the late Don Pipino, had helped transform Fonderlac from a nine-hole golf course into an 18-hole course during the 1970s. But over the years, membership in private clubs declined as the region was hit hard by the double-punch of the retrenchment of Big Steel and a shrinking population.
When Muransky took control five years ago, only 111 members remained. Today, there are more than 700 plus a waiting list.
“The old model for country clubs is broken,” Muransky says. “I felt that people still liked to golf, but maybe they didn’t like to golf as much.”
He assessed, correctly, that the reason people were fleeing the country clubs was because they felt they paid too much for too little. Minimum monthly fees, being charged for services they didn’t use, high initiation costs – all were part of a system that he thought in need of reform.
“I felt that I could tweak the model and give this place a chance,” he says.
First, all of the trees blocking the view of the lake were removed and the clubhouse gutted. A first-floor members grillroom was installed, stack brick was used for the clubhouse façade, and a new roof built. Upstairs, a new banquet room was added as one large, single area that offered a perfect view of the 800-acre Lake Evans.
The banquet room, as well as the ground floor “Don Pipino Room” is marketed to the public for weddings and other group events. And a fitness center was incorporated into the renovation and the locker rooms expanded.
The final projects of the initial plan are nearing completion – workers were busy April 25 pouring the concrete floor for a new halfway house. “In a couple of weeks, we’ll be double the size with a new fireplace,” Muransky says.
Outside, the grounds near the clubhouse have been sculpted into an English garden, says Chris Sammartino, vice president of the Lake Club. “There’s an area here where people can have their wedding ceremony in the rose garden,” he says. A fire pit and veranda were also added, and the pro shop was completely revamped.
As for the golf course, new landscaping was installed and tee boxes enlarged while water hazards and sand traps were added, Muransky says.
But the main objective was to beautify the course, he emphasizes, noting his father-in-law advised him that the course should play fair and be an aesthetic marvel to the eye.
“Most of what I’ve done was add trees and flowers,” Muransky says. “We have a full-time employee who just does flowers.”
Among the most notable attractions to the club, Muransky notes, is that “there are no rules.” He smiles. “All we ask is you be respectful.”
The Lake Club enforces no dress codes, no minimum fees, no initiation fees, no scheduled tee times and no required limits on the number of golfers in a single group. “You could have a fivesome,” he says, “as long as you are respectful and don’t hold up other players.”
The Lake Club recently replaced its fleet of golf carts. The new fleet is equipped with some of the latest gadgets such as portable heaters, auxiliary inputs for iPhones or iPods, and leather seats embossed with the Lake Club logo, Sammartino notes.
And, each year, the club hosts what is known as “demo day,” a date when some major vendors of golf club display their wares for the season and allow members to try out the new clubs.
“Callaway, Titleist, TaylorMade, Ping and Mizuno are all here,” says Michael Ferranti, the Lake Club’s head golf professional. “It’s a good way to get the members fitted out because I can’t carry all the options in the shop. It gives members a chance to hit everything and try it all out.”
When spring breaks, members get in “golf mode” and have this pent-up desire to play, Ferranti says. “They’ve been reading about these clubs all winter and they’ve been waiting to get back out. So, we want to get them in front of these clubs as early as we can, so they can play with them for the year.”
Muransky reflects that he’s pleased that the venture has evolved as it has and allows he owes his father-in-law a debt for the initial groundwork.
“It’s been a real labor of love, especially when you think about all the work he put in here,” Muransky says. “The population of this area has responded very favorably.”
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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