GHYC to buy tennis & swim club
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Great Harbor Yacht Club is under agreement to purchase the Nantucket Tennis & Swim Club for an as yet undisclosed amount that is likely to be more than the property's assessed value of $4,001,800.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent With the acquisition, the controversial GHYC will add to its member offerings beginning this summer.

Great Harbor Developer Gary McCarthy said on Friday they hope to close on a deal around May 15 to buy the Nantucket Tennis & Swim Club at 23 Nobadeer Farm Road from its owners, Gary D'Ambria and John Luyrink.

"We have a contract to acquire the real estate of the tennis and swim club and we're, in essence, buying the shares of the operators," said McCarthy. "The current membership, we're encouraging to remain as members."

The tennis club would function as is for the 2007 season, but McCarthy said Great Harbor is considering some conceptual changes to the facilities for the fall that might include eliminating one of the nine clay tennis courts to make room for an expansion of the swimming pool and the construction of a squash court.

"Our longer-term plans are nothing other than that, conceptual plans that would have to be fleshed out and brought before the town boards," McCarthy said.

Existing members of the tennis club are invited to retain their memberships by paying dues that will drop from $2,875 a year to $2,500 under Great Harbor's ownership. Members of the Great Harbor Yacht Club will now have a pool to swim in and tennis courts to play on at the out-of-town location, in addition to their water-related yacht club privileges. Great Harbor annual membership dues for all their club's amenities, that now include tennis and swimming, will be $2,500, said McCarthy.

"The logic from the Great Harbor Yacht Club perspective is it gives us what we think are adequately sized swimming facilities," he said. "In addition, it would enable us to contain all of the racquet sports in one location."

This transaction will not interrupt the public's use of the property. When Luyrink and D'Ambria purchased the 3.09 acres in 1999, they did so only because the Nantucket Islands Land Bank assigned a right of purchase to them, the Nantucket New School and Strong Wings for a portion of 10 acres when the Land Bank had the opportunity to buy 40 acres running north-south between Hinsdale Lane and Milestone Road. The Land Bank then bought the remaining 30 acres.

As part of this deal, the Land Bank required the tennis club to allow public use of its courts on a payper hour basis, and to provide 30 club memberships to year-round residents. Luyrink, who is happy about the deal between the two clubs, said the public use remains the same, but the number of islander memberships is going up to 35.

Currently, new memberships cost a one-time fee of $60,000, of which 80 percent is returned after a certain period if a member wants out. "We are allowing any of the existing members of the [tennis] club to resign and we will agree to give them their redeemed amount of membership proceeds within six months of the closing date," McCarthy said.

Luyrink and D'Ambria started the Nantucket Tennis & Swim Club because the club Luyrink was running, the Brant Point Racquet Club, folded.

"I'm very excited," said Luyrink. "Number one, for the long term, it's a benefit to my members, to yacht club members, including my local members. The deal seems like the right thing at the right time because things are going to remain relatively unchanged. It will be here forever. I needed more members and this just seems like the right sort of marriage."

Luyrink will keep his existing job of general manager, and the tennis club as it exists now will not change this year. He added that the Nantucket Tennis & Swim Club was not on the market but instead, that he and McCarthy, who is a member, had entertained the idea since the club opened in 2002.

Although there is no limit on the number of memberships the tennis club can sell, when Great Harbor takes over and melds its 300 memberships with the Nantucket Tennis & Swim Club's 100, use of the club is likely to quadruple. If and when Great Harbor decides to expand the pool and make other changes, town Senior Planner Leslie Woodson said it might need to get a modification of its major commercial development special permit.

McCarthy said that any work on the tennis club would not happen until at least this fall, after the

club closes for the season. I