As Union League takes over Philly’s last corporate country club, lessons from DuPont

The Union League’s growth beyond its block-long Center City clubhouse has made what may be a final step, as it takes over the last corporate country club in the Philadelphia area, the 310-acre golf course, conference center and 120-room hotel complex in Lafayette Hill that had been operated by Chubb and its insurance-company predecessors since 1945.

The complex, renamed Union League Liberty Hill, “rounds out” the club’s earlier takeovers of the former Torresdale-Frankford country club, now the Union League Golf Club, in 2014, and the former Sand Barrens club, now the Union League National Golf Club, across the bay from Avalon on the Jersey Shore in 2017, said Jeff McFadden, general manager of the Union League for 23 years.

The Lafayette Hill property had been known as the ACE Club at the Chubb Hotel & Conference Center.

The Union League also owns a parking garage, and restaurants at the Shore and on the Main Line, part of an expansion campaign to offer outdoor and family recreation beyond the old Center City club.

The Union League is betting that’s a better way to sign new members, in an era where such locally based mass employers as Sunoco, Insurance Co. of North America, and DuPont Co., which formerly ran their own farm-sized recreation centers, have slimmed down or been sold. Companies no longer expect masses of local employees to play together, or spend hours on the links schmoozing clients at company-run resorts.

The 3,500-member Union League expects diners and business meetings will return and last year’s surge of golfers will continue past the COVID-19 shutdowns, McFadden said, and hopes to follow the success of the region’s largest former corporate retreat, the DuPont Country Club.

The DuPont club said it has more than doubled membership, to more than 4,000, after adding swimming and indoor golf facilities and planning other family-oriented amenities, said Ben du Pont, a member of the group that bought that clubhouse and its three courses north of Wilmington in 2018, and invested $21 million in initial upgrades.

Other former corporate country clubs in the area include the Hercules Club, now home to a hilly Toll Bros. housing development, and the former MBNA Corp.’s club near Newark, Del., now owned by the state of Delaware. The former Sunoco athletic center near Chester is now a video studio.

The Union League says it has waiting lists at its first two courses, and expects Liberty Hill will prove at least as popular. “Three-quarters of our membership is within 30 minutes” of Lafayette Hill, said McFadden.

The Union League has tapped Sean Palmer, former director of golf at Torresdale, among other Union League posts, to run Liberty Hill, replacing Chubb’s general manager Jeff Andes. Most of the recent staff of 100, reduced after a year of COVID-19 closures, was retained, according to McFadden.

Chubb agreed to sell the club earlier this year, about a year after the Hunterdon County, N.J.-based insurer suspended a search for a new office site in Philadelphia that would have consolidated more than 2,000 staff from across the tri-state area. The price has not yet been disclosed.

The name Liberty Hill recalls its location in a district where George Washington and his army fought but failed to dislodge the British who had seized Philadelphia, the new nation’s capital, in 1777.

Chubb members who want to continue using the course have until later this year to join the Union League, which requires an initial member bond of $7,500 and dues of about $460 a month.

Before buying Liberty Hill, the Union League recorded $34 million in accumulated debt, and was grossing around $4 million a month from all revenue sources, down from $5 million a month before COVID-19 restrictions limited dining and overnight stays, according to last year’s annual report.

“Buying a country club was not on my to-do list,” du Pont said. But keeping it as a country club, when development threatened as DuPont CEO Ed Breen cut back on corporate operations and sold assets, “was the right thing to do for our community,” said du Pont, a member of the company’s founding family who grew up in the Brandywine Valley a short walk from the club.

Du Pont bought the club in partnership with former DuPont Co. executive Don Wirth. The new DuPont owners ended the bond requirement and set monthly fees starting at an accessible $130.

What brought in all the new members, at that price? “One, there’s a big appetite for clubs that are more inclusive, working-family friendly, and multi-sport,” du Pont said. “That means embracing kids, at a price point families can afford,” and competitive with local YMCAs and gyms. “There’s a big opportunity for those sorts of clubs.

“And, we need to continue investing.” He would like “paddle tennis courts, a billiards room, a kids’ game room so Mom can have peace and quiet at dinner,” du Pont said.

“We want to be a mirror of society, welcoming all racial and economic groups. We want to be so awesome your grown kids want to come home so they can visit you at the club.”

While the Union League reported a 1% net decline last year, the DuPont club said it gained members even during the virus times, under manager Rob Wirth, co-owner Don Wirth’s son and previously the club tennis pro.

“There are these businesses that are flourishing” under COVID-19, du Pont said. ”Particularly, things you can do within 10 miles of your home. At the bike store over on [U.S. route] 202, they are so busy, May 2022 is now the delivery day for a new bike.” But you can sign up to golf a lot sooner, he said.