The new guest lodges would be similar in design to the Foundry’s existing guest lodge. (Photo courtesy The Foundry)
A Powhatan golf course is in the early stages of teeing up a plan to transform part of its grounds.
The Foundry Golf Club, a private 300-member club at 3225 Lee’s Landing Road, recently earned approval from the county board of supervisors to rezone nine acres of its property to allow the development of three “country inn” structures for overnight lodging for its members and their guests.
The proposal, approved at the board’s meeting in late September, calls for construction of a 5,000-square-foot principal inn structure and two smaller, 2,500-square-foot structures on the eastern side of the club. The larger lodge building would house eight guest rooms, while the two smaller would each have four rooms.
Those 16 lodging rooms would add to an existing 4-room lodge that’s been onsite at the Foundry since the 1990s, for which members pay $1,000 a night to access. Sandy Oliver, the club’s general manager, said the lodging expansion project is driven by demand for overnight stays from the Foundry’s 50 or so non-resident members, those that live outside the Richmond region and come to visit the club.
A sketch of one of the new lodging buildings included in the Foundry’s rezoning application.
Oliver said she ends up booking Airbnb rentals and rooms at the nearby Mill at Fine Creek for those visiting members because the demand outstrips the current lodge’s four-room capacity.
“We have a group coming in next week, 36 guests for a two-day event and we only have four bedrooms. If we had three more lodges we could keep that revenue in-house,” Oliver said.
Oliver emphasized that the project is still in its early stages and is likely to take up to two years to come to fruition. The club enlisted engineer Tommy Houston from Towne Site Engineering to handle the rezoning process.
The next major step in the process is financing the project and Oliver said the Foundry is looking to its members as the main source of funding.
Oliver said some members have come forward to pledge their financial support for some of the total needed and that the club will eventually reach out to all members and set a meeting to discuss the plans.
Guest lodges are not uncommon at golf and country clubs. Locally, Kinloch Golf Club in Goochland has guest lodging facilities, as does Independence Golf Club on the border of Powhatan and Chesterfield.
The Foundry’s clubhouse sits adjacent to Fine Creek.
While the lodging project takes shape, the Foundry has also kicked off a long-term renovation plan for its golf course.
It recently hired golf course architect Andrew Green to design course upgrades on which the club plans to spend $1 million a year over the next five years. Those funds have already been earmarked from a capital improvement fee from members.
Hunter Hankley, Foundry’s superintendent, said the ultimate goal of the course improvement plan to increase the length of the golf course to more than 7,000 yards.
“Andrew Green is going through hole-by-hole and making sure every hole is playing the best it can for all handicap golfers,” Hankley said.
On the list for this year’s leg of that improvement plan is to redo and lengthen the 14th hole and revamp the tee boxes on the 15th.
In other local golf news, the owners of Sycamore Creek Golf Course in Goochland are in discussions with a local developer to ponder the club’s future as the county continues to grow.
Over in Henrico, The Crossings Golf Club was recently purchased by the county’s Economic Development Authority as part of a public-private partnership ultimately aimed at transforming the public course into the new long-term home of the popular Dominion Energy Charity Classic PGA Tour Champions event, which is set to lose Country Club of Virginia as it host site after next year.