Recordpub.com - Twin Lakes Country Club closes

RC Twin Lakes C.C. photo by Robert J. Lucas

Record-Courier staff report

Twin Lakes Country Club, a private golf and dining club and an institution in the Kent-Ravenna area since 1923, closed for good Saturday and is going into Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Tim Trowbridge, who serves as club president in a volunteer capacity, announced the closing in a letter to the membership this past week.

Twin Lakes had been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection since earlier this year and lowered its dues in an effort to gain the 250 members the bankruptcy court deemed necessary to keep the club operating.

According to Trowbridge, the membership campaign succeeded in raising the number of members to 180, but, he said, “it just wasn’t enough to pay the bills.”

Because the club is often used for holiday parties, he said club staff and officers were working to help those who had scheduled gatherings to find other locations.

“It’s a loss to the community,” he said, “but country clubs are closing all over the country. Lifestyles change. Country clubs are no longer the center for social life they once were.”

The downturn in the economy hurt, too, he said.

“Corporations and large organizations that helped us with corporate memberships have fallen by the wayside,” he said. “The members they once brought to us and their use of the club helped pay the bills.”

Formerly local companies that were once its mainstay have been merged into larger companies with headquarters far removed. If they have executives running satellite offices in the area, they often do not support memberships in local country clubs such as the one at Twin Lakes. Other local industries that were once economic lynchpins of Kent and Ravenna and supportive of the Country Club have gone out of business.

The leadership of companies with headquarters that do remain in the area sometimes do not live in Kent or Ravenna and when that happens their social lives are often played out elsewhere.

Kent State University and Robinson Memorial Hospital, the two largest employers in Portage County, have had to make difficult budget reductions. That has affected usage, too.

Trowbridge said the future of the Twin Lakes Country Club property will be decided by the federal bankruptcy court.

Twin Lakes Country Club is owned by the Kent-Ravenna Realty Co. It is located at 1519 Overlook Drive.

Its unparalleled view of East Twin Lake has given Twin Lakes Country Club a special ambiance that helped it attract members. It has had a well kept nine-hole golf course between S.R. 43 and Diagonal Road, a heated swimming pool and a pair of tennis courts. According to club personnel, its property totals around 100 acres.

In its own way, Twin Lakes Country Club set a tone for the homes in the Twin Lakes area, the golf course and clubhouse lending the neighborhood a quality of rural elegance, despite the suburbanization that occurred in Twin Lakes during the last 50 years.

Besides changing lifestyles, Twin Lakes Country Club has faced competition from other country clubs that grew up in Hudson, Silver Lake, and Aurora, although the Aurora Country Club, facing competition from Barrington and Walden, went out of business earlier this year.

In 1973, celebrating 50 years in existence, members of Twin Lakes Country Club buried a time capsule with various memorabilia from the club with instructions it be opened in 2023, the 100th year of the Club’s founding.