Lost and Found: How The Club at Lost Lake Went Private and Found a New Lease on Life
Written by John Pacenti
Photos by Cari Lager
By John Pacenti
On a spring morning, Richard Aycock made the turn at The Club at Lost Lake, looking like he could play 36 holes. The retiree said he was thrilled that his home course had gone from semi-private to fully private.
“I think it’s wonderful. They are going to make many improvements. I think the previous echelon was just burned out,” Aycock said. “They’ve already made major improvements to the clubhouse.”
The transformation started when the Hobe Sound Tom Fazio designed golf course was purchased in October 2023 by the family owned J & K Holdings, LLC. One of the new owner’s first moves was to lure out of retirement Bob Coman, who has earned the reputation as a golf course whisperer over the decades. Coman helped establish Lost and Found: How The Club at Lost Lake Went Private and Found a New Lease on Life
Palm Beach Gardens’ PGA National Resort & Spa as a golf mecca from 1985-1995. After transforming The Boca Raton & Club’s golf experience from 1995-2005, he returned to PGA National in 2005 and landed the Honda Classic, a PGA Tour event that remains today now the Cognizant Classic. Bob moved on to make the golf & club operations financially successful at The Fairmont Turnberry Isle - Miami in Aventura from 2008-2013. He then breathed life back into The Biltmore in Coral Gables (from 2013-2020), a National Historic Landmark Hotel and beloved municipal course, restoring the course to its original 1926 Donald Ross design. He returned to The Boca Raton Resort & Club from 2020, endured COVID and then retired. Now, Coman is back in the game in Hobe Sound looking to work his magic at The Club at Lost Lake – neighboring some of the most exclusive golf clubs in the area, such as Apogee, The Grove XXIII, MacArthur, and Medalist.
The dining room at The Club at Lost Lake has undergone a million-dollar renovation as part of the overall project to upgrade the facilities. Also on tap are course improvements, new practice facilities, and re-grassing the course.
Taking a golf course private can be hard – especially for neighborhood golfers who play a course three times a week. So first, Coman needed buy-in. “There’s always resistance to change, but then when people sit back and look, they go, ‘Well, my property value is going to increase because it is a private course, the quality and the maintenance of the golf course will improve and the entire community is going to be elevated because of the change,’” he said. Coman said he wished he had bet the over on the number of semi-private members who would convert to private members. “Everybody was predicting I won’t get anymore than 20 or 25 members out of the semi-private members to join. Well, I thought there would be at least 50,” Coman said.
The Club at Lost Lake got 76 former semi-private memberships to convert to private members at the $25,000 initial Joining Fee offer by September 30, 2024. Now the fee is $45,000, and there are 126 full golf memberships. It’s still the best private club value available. Coman says most golf memberships start at least $75,000 in the area.
The owner behind this transformation wants to keep in the background. He didn’t comment on this story, but Coman said ownership’s desire is simple, “He wants a club that he’s proud to bring his family and friends to,” he said And to do that, he plans to transform what was once known in 1993 as the Double Tree Country Club. The Lost Lake clubhouse. Improvements include re-grassing tees, fairways, and greens, among other things. First, the golf facilities. Coman says there are no plans to mess with the original Fazio design. Part of the capital improvement plan is to re-grass the tees, the fairways, thegreens, refurbish the bunkers and repair cart paths.
The practice facilities will be breathtaking to the golf enthusiast, in line with what courses – both private and public – are increasingly offering. The driving range will be redone with new drainage, target greens,
laser leveled tees, 20 synthetic tee stations, and will be re-grassed. Coman is still mulling over whether to install Top Tracer technology that tracks the flight of the golf ball. The practice putting green is going to need its own zip code as the plans are to expand it to 25,000 square feet, stretching from the cart barn to the end of the clubhouse. The short-game area will be reinvented with five target greens created with bunkers for golfers’ practice pitching, chipping and sand game.
The clubhouse will also see significant upgrades. “We’ve done over a million dollars in renovations already,” Coman says, pointing to the newly renovated dining room. “The dining room was very dated and not appealing. Now we’ve modernized it and made it more welcoming and warm.”
The golf shop will be expanded and relocated. The patio will be extended to the putting green so people can sit outdoors while watching the golf activity around them. The plan is to integrate golf into the social atmosphere, as opposed to keeping them separate. “Many changes happen when a course goes private but none so much as how it creates a sense of ownership and community amongst the members,” Coman said. “When you pay money to join a club, you are vested and committed to making that club successful,” he said. “Members will support what they feel they’ve helped create.”
