Bad food, dwindling membership and an elegant but crumbling building
- Montreal's storied Mount Stephen Club had achieved an unenviable
trifecta of decline by the time it was quietly offered for sale last
year.
''We were at a point where something had to be done,'' said
Joseph D'Onofrio, then president of the 80-year-old private club. ''The
membership fees could not support the cost of upkeep.''
Tidan
Corp., a privately held real-estate company, stepped forward, paying $4
million for the Drummond St. club. More important to D'Onofrio and 400
other members was management's pledge to preserve the Mount Stephen
Club's vocation as a private club, to inject serious money into
improvements and not to increase membership fees.
The Mount Stephen Club story is familiar to other private clubs around town.
The
Montreal Badminton and Squash Club and the Montreal Amateur Athletic
Association, both facing recent financial difficulties, were rescued by
private investors, while the Montreal Thistle Curling Club on Fort. St.
closed and was converted into a supermarket.
Even the venerable
University Club has been forced to make tough economic decisions. It
recently sold a prized canvas by Group of Seven painter Lawren Harris
to pay for much-needed foundation work.
The challenge of
crumbling infrastructure is nothing compared with the challenge of
crumbling membership. Tidan has made plumping up its rolls with younger
members from every corner of multicultural Montreal a top priority.
''Clubs
are coming back,'' said Mike Yuval, who along with Jack Sofer is a
partner in the Tidan Group. ''They were considered very stuffy and
formal, but the younger generation is beginning to see value in having
a nice, quiet place to socialize and bring the family.''
As it
stands, the once WASP-y Mount Stephen Club's membership leans slightly
more toward francophones than anglophones, with an average age
somewhere between 40-something and 70-something, executive manager
Silvio Sicoli said.
''Obviously, we'd like to bring that number down and we're looking at different ways of doing it,'' he said.
One
way is by making the offering more attractive. Another is by offering
breaks on the fees. The initiation fee is $2,000, while the annual
membership costs another $2,000 and the bar minimum is $600, though the
charges may be negotiable for particularly attractive nominees, Sicoli
said.
At the University Club, there is such a thing as an
intermediate membership open to younger members whose income is not yet
at the top of the pay scale but will be one day.
Recruitment
hasn't been helped by changes to the federal and provincial income-tax
laws, which closed the loophole that made fees partly deductible
business expenses.
''Membership is always a challenge,'' said
Maurice Forget, a longstanding member of the University Club. ''There
are a gazillion places to eat in Montreal. Society is much less rigid
than it used to be. People mix more freely. It used to be that you'd
belong to a club and summer at a place and see fundamentally the same
group of people. That is no longer the case.''
Since taking over the Mount Stephen Club on May 25, Tidan has
spent $1 million ''polishing the hidden jewel,'' as co-owner Yuval puts
it.
The house is a stunning example of late Victorian
architecture, with exotic woods imported from the four corners of the
world, 24-karat gold doorknobs and hinges, and priceless antiques in
each of its 11 rooms. Job One was repairing the exterior stonework.
Even
bigger changes are taking place behind its massive Cuban mahogany front
doors. The building has central air conditioning for the first time in
its history, which means the club no longer must close during the
sweltering heat of July and August.
The front garden is being
landscaped, and a new washroom for people with disabilities, wheelchair
ramp and elevator ramp - all firsts - are being installed.
The banquet hall is being enlarged, and a games room and members-only wine cellar are planned for the basement.
''We
spent $4 million to buy the place and it will easily cost that again to
accomplish all the changes we have in mind," Yuval said.
A new
chef, Frank Barbusci, has banished grey beef and mushy peas, replacing
them with an international menu that favours duck breasts in a balsamic
and honey reduction and warm apple pie with a cream cheese, rosemary
and honey filling, and homemade pistachio ice cream.
''We've kept
roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on the menu once a week,'' Barbusci,
dressed in immaculate kitchen whites, said with a twinkle. "Most of our
members are open to trying other things.''
Tidan bought the Mount
Stephen Club as a business proposition. The company owns other
properties in the hospitality sector, including the Nuns' Island Tennis
Club and Hotel Mont Gabriel, which has its own golf course. Yuval says
it will take three to five years to pull the club out of the red and
set a new course.
This was not the first financial crisis in the
Mount Stephen Club's history. The club was born out of crisis in 1926
when a group of local business leaders banded together to save the
former home of Lord Mount Stephen, formerly George Stephen, the
Scottish-born founding president of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The building was mortgaged again in the 1990s as a way of paying for needed repairs.
''Crisis
is nothing new for the Mount Stephen Club,'' said a philosophical
D'Onofrio, now president of the members board. ''It was born in crisis
and has survived. It will continue to survive.''
mlamey@thegazette.canwest.com
© The Gazette (Montreal) 2006
Le 357 de la Commune West
Montreal Badminton and Squash Club (MB&SC) 2002 | google
Located between the edge of downtown Montreal and Westmount, formerly the Montreal Badminton and Squash Club, Club Atwater has upheld a tradition of club excellence since 1926. Today, more than ever, we maintain a strong focus on tradition while offering our members a modern club experience second to none.
Fri 3/9/01 7:02 AM Proud history preserved By: L. IAN MacDONAL
No sporting club in North America can match the storied history of the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association, home to three Stanley Cup champions including the first one in 1893, and a century of Canadian Olympic medalists.
Founded in 1881, the old MAAA also came to symbolize much that was wrong with the city - living off its former glories, with an aging and shrinking English-speaking clientele and an old building on Peel St. that was falling apart.
Like Montreal itself in the 1990s, the MAAA desperately needed a rebirth of confidence and a renewal of its infrastructure. The city's proudest athletic facility was down to 450 members and was several million dollars in debt.
Two years ago, the place was on the verge of bankruptcy when its members bailed it out in partnership with a Toronto club-management company, the Cambridge Group. With a $4-million capital infusion, they paid down the debt and, in only six months, renovated the 95-year-old landmark building from the ground up.
The virtual MAA seems to be working as well as Montreal in the new economy. Membership is up by about a factor of five, to 2,100. The dining room, which used to run $30,000 a month in the red, is now making $10,000 a month. The MAA will break even this year and could be profitable as early as next.
The transformation, in both look and feel, is stunning. The musty old MAAA had somehow missed the Nautilus revolution and the culture of the personal fitness trainer.
The new MAA opens onto the street, literally, with a ground-floor workout area in a huge window that is a salesman for sweat. The workout machines are all from the digital age, as are the high-resolution TVs tuned to Canadian and U.S. cable news channels.
...It would have been very sad, if all that history had been lost in a bankruptcy. Sometimes, a proud tradition can be among the best reasons for creating a new one.
- L. Ian MacDonald can be reached at imacdonald@generation.net
Saturday 15 August 1998
Clubs adapt to survive City establishments that catered to the anglo
business elite have had to embrace some dramatic changes to stay afloat by DOUG SWEET
It's Haitian Night at the St. James' Club and the whirring noise in the background is the sound of long-departed members turning over in their graves.
But it is precisely through such diverse activities as an evening devoted to Haitian cuisine - and a membership that today is overwhelmingly francophone - that this former bastion of the WASP Montreal business establishment is able to look forward with a little confidence to a future in the next century.
As recently as three years ago, that was decidedly in doubt.
Like the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association, which is fighting for its very life at the moment, the St. James' and other private "city clubs" as they're known have had to adjust to dramatic social and economic changes in the decades since they were founded. (saved)
the MAAA
Thursday 6 August 1998
MAAA to stay open for now
by DOUG SWEET and STELLA TZINTZIS
The 117-year-old Montreal Amateur Athletic Association will be
keeping its doors open a little while longer - and perhaps for
good.
The historic Peel St. club was to close down this week under the
burden of a $1-million debt. But it has negotiated a bit of
breathing room with the city over its $300,000 tax bill and is
planning a significant restructuring to stay open beyond its Sept.
30 yearend, president Stan Smith said yesterday. No More Food or Drink
Tuesday 4 August 1998
MAAA has had its day Legendary club to shut down after 117 years of sporting glory
by STELLA TZINTZIS Reginald Russell's blue
eyes betrayed the pain he
felt at losing a sporting
club that for 71 years has
occupied a soft spot in his
heart.