Enhancing the Membership Experience
Bent Creek Country Club strives to offer a membership experience focused on high-level amenities and services. To this end, they worked with Wohlsen and J.P.D Architects, LLC to update and modernize their ballroom and completely transform an existing space into a new patio bar and grill. The ballroom at Bent Creek was completely refreshed to provide a more updated and modernized venue for weddings and other corporate events. The transformed patio bar and grill, Tavern on the Turn, now offers members a place to enjoy lunch and dinner or grab snacks/drinks as they come around the turn at the ninth hole. Both of the new spaces provide club members with spaces they never had before, adding to the existing environment of Bent Creek and providing new amenities that can be used for different events.
Updating, Modernizing, and Revitalizing
The Bent Creek Ballroom, Patio, Bar & Grill project consisted of two distinct scopes of work. The first scope of work was the renovation of the ballroom. The Wohlsen team renovated the Bent Creek Country Club ballroom to update, repair, and modernize it. This involved repairing all the existing wainscotting trim, updating and installing new lighting fixtures and chandeliers, installing new flooring, and painting/wallcovering the entire room. The second scope of work was transforming an underutilized ground-level patio into a practical new bar and grill called the Tavern on the Turn. Tavern on the Turn seats roughly 60-80 people and features a pizza oven and full-service bar. To transform the blank and dull space into a new, practical place for members to enjoy, the Wohlsen team started by completing the demolition of the existing patio space. Once demolition was completed, the team renovated an old office into a prep room, installed new aluminum sunshades and an exterior beer tap, added a new walk-in cooler and freezer, and created space for a new prep room.
Challenges and Solutions
The Wohlsen team faced a tight schedule for both parts of the Bent Creek Ballroom, Patio Bar & Grill project. The team met with the owner at the project’s onset to establish key milestones and turnover dates. With these established, the Wohslen team worked backward to ensure the schedule aligned with these milestones. One of the key scheduling points for Bent Creek was ensuring that the ballroom and the new patio bar and grill would be open in the spring. The team could not start construction for the renovation of the ballroom until after the New Year’s holiday since the club was using the ballroom for various events. The club also wanted to complete the ballroom project by March so that it could be used for events in the busy spring/summer season. Once the team could get into the ballroom, they immediately began work and kept the project moving forward to deliver the finished space to Bent Creek in March. While the ballroom project was moving forward, the team was also working on completing the patio renovation. While this part of the project had a longer schedule, Bent Creek aimed to use the space in the spring, so all construction activities needed to be completed during the colder winter months. To facilitate construction during these colder months, the Wohlsen team built a temporary enclosure so that work could be completed. To keep both jobs on track, the team utilized many of the same subs so they could go back and forth between both phases of the project.
Replace or Patch
At Wohlsen, we strive to deliver one of the best building experiences to our clients. During the Bent Creek projects, the Wohlsen team worked throughout the project to exceed Bent Creekâs expectations. At the beginning of the project, the Bent Creek team expressed concern about the condition of the wood trim in the ballroom. They thought that the trim would need to be completely replaced since it was really starting to show its age over time. After evaluating the trim, the Wohlsen team believed that the trim could be patched versus completely replaced. Before deciding either way the Wohlsen team completed a mockup of what the wood trim would look like if it was patched. They then showed it to Bent Creek and allowed them to decide on replacement versus repair based on the mockup. Upon reviewing the mockup, the Bent Creek team decided that they were happy with the look of the patched trim and instructed the Wohlsen team to move forward in that direction. In the end, the patched trim saved the client money and resulted in a beautiful, refreshed ballroom for Bent Creek members.
