ClubCorp, the nation’s largest owner and operator of private golf clubs, said it will run golf course operations at Engineers Country Club in Roslyn Harbor, and Nicklaus Design has been retained to make “enhancements and changes.”
RXR Realty, which purchased the property in 2017, is planning to develop 92 condos on 18 acres of the 140-acre country club. The realty group purchased the country club as an investment at a time when the club was nearly bankrupt and invested about $5 million in maintenance, Joseph Graziose, RXR executive vice president of residential development and construction, said in 2019.
Regarding the partnership, Garziose said the partnership lets the realty group focus primarily on land development.
“We are thrilled by ClubCorp’s vision and flexibility to enter into this extraordinary partnership that allows us to focus on what we do best which is continuing to enhance, own and develop the real estate surrounding this historic club,” Graziose said in a statement.
“ClubCorp will manage every aspect of club operations with a commitment to raising the profile of Engineers Country Club as well as bring the exceptional ClubLife lifestyle experiences to the club’s members both on and off its historic fairways.”
The current development plans are a scaled-down version of what the realty group originally wanted at the time of purchase. Graziose, in 2019, said RXR was thinking of developing something similar to its six-building, 230-unit Ritz-Carlton Residencies in North Hills. However, a village moratorium on subdivisions at the time halted those plans.
RXR also owns the Beacon Residences at Garvies Point in Glen Cove.
Graziose said that the club, home to the second PGA Championship in 1919, will be better suited as a hybrid community to preserve the land.
“In order to have 100 plus acres of open space always for 100 years known as Engineers Country Club, something has to give and the give is to put a residential community within that,” Graziose said in 2019. “Otherwise it just goes away.”
The club was incorporated in January 1917 by the Engineers Club in Manhattan when the W.R. Willet Manor estate was put on the market. The plan for the 210 acres was to fit two courses onto the property, but original designer Herbert Strong dedicated 150 of the acres to the course.
A house was destroyed in a fire in 1919 and the stable was converted into the course clubhouse.
The club was redesigned in 1921 by golf course architect Devereaux Emmet, and the course was listed in the Frank Menckeís Encyclopedia of Sports as one of the best in the country.
