New owners set to tee it up at Blue Heron

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In the nearly three decades since its opening, The Golf Club at Blue Heron Hills LLC has welcomed golf greats such as Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. In later years, however, it nearly closed.

The Macedon golf course, which sits on 217 acres including wetlands, has new ownership.

Thomas and Debra Mayberry, owners of QES Solutions Inc.—a packaging, contract services and precision measurement and quality engineering support firm on Lyell Avenue—are now the club’s majority owners.

There are four B-share investors: Daniel Cordaro, Peter Diesel, William Larson and Timothy Lambert. Roughly 20 members are C-share investors, who each own one-unit shares.

The deal to acquire the course from Eric Geoca closed Feb. 13 for an undisclosed price.

The club’s new investors laid out a two-year, $250,000 investment plan to update the facility and grounds. In just 40 days, $25,000 has been spent on major renovations to the lower floor’s pub, kitchen and decor. 

The bulk of funds will be spent on the course to make sure the greens are maintained properly.

“Blue Heron is unique from the wildlife perspective. The land and the environment are unique to the Rochester area, making it one of the attractable venues to play,” said Thomas Mayberry, managing partner. “We want to continue to see the place exist and (see that) it also embraces the community. This is an opportunity to give back to Gananda community.”

Next Friday at 6 p.m. the club will hold an open house to unveil the owners’ new vision for the business.

Traditionally a private course, the club has been a semi-private operation since 2010.

“Private country clubs are somewhat hard in this day and age. … To survive, we need to have the public revenue,” said Daniel Cordaro, general manager and PGA head golf professional. “But we do want the members to feel like they’re getting a private club experience. They get their lockers, they get their bag storage, they get discounts in the pro shop and they get member billing numbers.”

This year the goal is to add some 30 memberships to the 100 now. Previous members are beginning to take another look at the establishment, officials said.

“I’m hearing from former members, they’re coming back,” Cordaro said. “We’re on the upward swing here, but we’ve got to walk before we run.”

The club’s business is expected to be 70 percent memberships and 30 percent public use. Shaking the fully private designation is not going to be easy.

“It makes people feel uncomfortable sometimes to just peek their nose in because there’s always been the idea that there’s the driveway, don’t go down that driveway,” Cordaro said. “You can just come here and have dinner; you don’t have to be a member. I’d put that pretty high up as a roadblock.”

The club is located at One Country Club Drive in Macedon. It is home to the golf course, the Gananda Pub at Blue Heron Hills restaurant and wedding and banquet facilities.

The company employs six full-time staffers and expands to 40 to 45 total employees during the high season, the beginning of May through September.

The club will play host to community groups and local and regional tournaments; it also will serve as the home course for the Gananda High School golf team.

“Here’s the strange thing about golf; the grass is the draw,” Cordaro said. “In terms of your biggest revenue, it should be your golf course because you’re going to get all this public play and you’re going to get your memberships.”

The course has been converted back to the championship rotation, meaning the club is flipping the nines so the course will start with the No. 1 hole on the old No. 10 hole, which makes the course more challenging.

“It plays better, it finishes better and it maintains better,” Cordaro said. “It’s not an easier rotation to get around. Flipping of the nines is monumental.”

The golf course was built in 1987 by developers Norman and Nelsen Leenhouts. Major players such as Nicklaus and Palmer frequented the course back when it held the Hillside Skins Challenge, an annual competition that raised money for the Hillside Children’s Center and brought a variety of professional players to the area.

Mayberry said he believes their legacy is worth preserving.

“We have a lot of respect for Norman and Nelson Leenhouts, who were the developers,” Mayberry said. “They’re the reason we actually moved to Gananda. To continue the legacy that they once started is an honor.”

Troubled times
Despite the success of the course, it began to decline and in the mid-2000s it ran into financial difficulties. In January 2010, the keys were handed back to the bank. 

For four months it was closed—until April 2010 when Geoca and his business partner purchased the property.

“When we bought it, it was not in operation,” he said. “Our goal was to buy it and put a business model in place that would make it successful, and we were able to do that.”

Geoca’s timing was everything, he said, since without his intervention, the course greens would have been severely damaged due to lack of maintenance he said.

“We got in there in April, which was really late because the grass had already started growing and it was right on the verge of losing all the greens,” Geoca said. “We got in there right in the nick of time to save everything.”

He spent the last five years getting the operation back on its feet by making it semi-private and adding services such as wedding and banquet offerings.

Up to that point the entire first floor of the building was being underutilized. The facility went from servicing no weddings in 2010 to 25 weddings last year.

Geoca had never played the course when he purchased the property and viewed the deal as a business opportunity.

He never put it up for sale, but when the members reached out with the desire to purchase it, he realized the club belonged in the hands of the community and golf-minded folks, he said.

“I had a group of members that wanted to buy it, and it made sense for me,” Geoca said. “I also own a construction company, and as the course was more successful it took up more time so it was timing for me as well.

“It just seemed right because it had been membership-owned. I made the changes that needed to be made to make the business viable again, and now they can take it over and run with it,” he added.

Challenges remain
Today’s challenges for Blue Heron include informing the public that they are welcome to play there, changing the perspective of the “out there” location and getting people to choose golf over the various forms of entertainment available.

“The current challenges are the economy and time,” Cordaro said. “We’re trying to find a way to get people out here so they can play in four hours, get their meal and go home.

“The country club lifestyle is not what it used to be. It used to be part of your life; that was your entertainment. Now there’s so many avenues for entertainment, it’s mindboggling. We’re competing against Netflix,” he added.

Rochester is a golf town. There are more than 60 venues to play golf across Monroe, Ontario and Wayne counties.

“The golf industry in Rochester will forever be strong because there is a very good solid commitment to golf in this county,” Cordaro said.

Community members have rallied behind the golf course so far, officials said.

“We were able to get some small group of investors to back our vision, which was rewarding,” Mayberry said. “That was quite satisfying to know how many people actually backed the process.”

“Gananda is a great community,” Geoca said. “There’s a tremendous sense of community in that area and I think the golf course is a source of pride for the people that live there.”

4/10/15 (c) 2015 Rochester Business Journal. To obtain permission to reprint this article, call 585-546-8303 or email [email protected].