Getting clubby at Rancho Santa Fe’s golf house Mecca

On the evening of January the thirtieth, beneath the murmuring eucalyptus and the glow of a descending sun, the Rancho Santa Fe Association board convened in quiet determination and, at last, gave its blessing to a grand design—an $8 million renovation of the clubhouse restaurant, a place of hushed conversation and the clinking of crystal under chandeliers that had witnessed decades of whispered confidences.

Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club clubhouse/Marsh & Associates Inc.

The clubhouse, a venerable retreat nestled within the Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club, had long been a gathering place where residents idled over lunches and lingered through dinners, where Sunday brunches stretched luxuriously into afternoon. The remodel, ambitious and deliberate, was more than a matter of mere brick and mortar; it was the reimagining of an institution, a vision of warmth and camaraderie, a renewal of something almost intangible—the quiet pulse of a community.

“We are all very excited about this project—this was a big step,” declared Courtney LeBeau, the board’s president, her voice carrying the confidence of someone who had, in some unspoken way, already seen the future rise from the bones of the past.

With careful hands, the board unlocked $1.5 million from their general services fund, the first step in a measured march toward securing a formal bank loan later in the year. Chief Financial Officer Chris Lake, a man accustomed to the fine art of numbers and negotiation, assured that this approach would afford the Association the nimbleness it needed—to secure not just any loan, but the right loan, one that would set the foundation for something lasting.

The budget, a meticulous composition, unraveled like the details of an elaborate Gatsby fête: $5 million for construction, $1 million for design and engineering, $800,000 for the subtle refinements of fixtures and furnishings, and a remaining sum set aside for the whims of fate—miscellaneous necessities and a prudent $1 million in contingencies.

Name of the game since 2019

Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club/File

The Association and the RSF Golf Club have been bound by an understanding—one of shared responsibility, of whispered agreements over polished tables and the soft clink of crystal. The terms, formalized in resolution, dictated that while the Golf Club would hold the reins of the clubhouse, the Association would supply $500,000 to keep the operation afloat, as well as shoulder the costs of its restoration—an undertaking that extended beyond mere necessity, into the realm of grandeur.

Even the parking lot, that prosaic threshold between leisure and duty, was due for its own transformation.

The clubhouse itself had long stood at the edge of time, its last revival now eighteen years past. Plans to resurrect its dignity had been murmured about as early as 2017, exchanged between board members with the quiet resolve of men who understood the burden of inheritance.

There were leaks—there are always leaks in such places, not just from the roof, but from the past itself, seeping into the present through warped floors and weathered beams. And if the structure must be saved, why not elevate it? Why not remake it into something greater than it had ever been?

“The restaurant,” Treasurer Phil Trubey declared, with the air of a man whose patience had worn thin, “looks and feels like a banquet hall.” And so, a vision was born—one of opulence, of a bar extended and a patio unfurled toward the horizon, where diners could look out over the greens with an air of satisfaction, martinis in hand, knowing they had a place worth admiring. It would not merely be a restaurant; it would be a statement.

But vision, like ambition, often outpaces reality

Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club clubhouse/Marsh & Associates Inc.

The board had yet to approve the design, and no renderings had been unfurled before the expectant eyes of the community. The Art Jury, that arbiter of taste and tradition, had glimpsed the preliminary sketches—a reimagined entrance, a great open expanse centered around a bar of undeniable allure, a patio sprawling out like a promise, and whispers of indulgences yet to come: a wine lounge, a card room, each an invitation to linger just a little longer.

Ocio Design Group had taken up the task of shaping these dreams into something tangible. Their hands had already shaped the contours of indulgence elsewhere—the gleaming façade of Mark Wahlberg’s flagship in Oceanside, the intimate hush of a cocktail bar in Seaport Village, the layered sophistication of Kingfisher in Golden Hill, its very walls adorned with the laurels of design.

Yet in the quiet corners of the meeting, voices rose, edged with something colder than doubt. There had been no vote, some protested, no great gathering of the people to weigh in on such an extravagant undertaking. They recalled past gestures of democratic deference—the fiber optic network, the Garden Club, the old and storied Osuna Ranch. Should this not, too, be subject to the will of the many?

“We are a homeowner’s association, not a restaurant,” declared Holly Manion, a resident whose words carried the weight of the past. Her voice called not just for a reckoning of priorities but for the ghosts of old promises, those vague assurances once murmured by past boards who had assured the people that a vote would come before such matters.

Trubey, steady in his resolve, met the concerns with a measured response: the law required no such vote. The board, bound by duty rather than sentiment, had chosen its course. The clubhouse would be restored, the vision realized, the money spent.

Director David Gamboa, hands resting on the weight of hard decisions, voiced the truth that many preferred to leave unspoken: “It sucks,” he admitted, with the bluntness of a man unafraid of consequence. “No one likes to be in the position of having to fix something for millions of dollars, but here we are.”

And indeed, here they were—caught between past promises and present necessities, between duty and desire, between the quiet decay of what had been and the golden mirage of what might be.