The Clubhouse: More Than Food & Beverage
✨ What does $18 a month really buy you in Big Canoe? More than you might think—it helps sustain a beautiful, newly updated Clubhouse that serves as the heart of our community. Let’s take a closer look.
More Than Just Food & Beverage
When people hear “Food & Beverage,” they often think only of dining operations. But the Clubhouse is much more than that. It’s a multi-use amenity and the center of our community life.
- POA and committee meetings are held there.
- Community events, celebrations, and weddings take place there.
- It provides a place to welcome friends, family, and guests to Big Canoe.
It is a facility that enriches our experience of living here and enhances the value of our homes.
The Cost in Context
Now let’s look at it from a practical angle.
If, hypothetically, it costs around $700,000 per year to operate the Clubhouse, and we divide that across 3,345 property owners (lots plus dwellings), the numbers look like this:
- About $209 per property owner per year
- Roughly $18 per month
For that cost, each property owner and their guests have access to a beautiful, newly updated facility that serves as the hub of our community.
Here’s another way to look at it:
☕ 2 cups of coffee
🍕 1 pizza delivery
🎬 1 movie ticket
➡️ OR access for you and your guests to Big Canoe’s Clubhouse – the hub of our community
Transparency vs. Clarity
The word transparency gets used a lot. I’ll be honest—it’s overused. Transparency just means information is made available. But numbers without explanation can confuse as much as they inform.
What we really need is clarity. Clarity means putting information into context so that property owners can understand not only the “what,” but also the “why.”
The Clubhouse is a perfect example: a single dollar figure, standing alone, suggests “loss.” But when you look at the bigger picture, you see the real story—a modest per-property cost that supports a facility we all benefit from.
Looking Ahead: Weddings and Events
In the past, weddings at the Clubhouse often created challenges for property owners. At times, supporting those events required closing parts of the Clubhouse, limiting access for the very community that pays to sustain it.
The recent redesign has changed that. With the restaurant, bar, and dining rooms reconfigured to the opposite end of the Clubhouse, weddings and special events can now be accommodated without impacting property owners’ use of the facility.
The enclosed terrace and patio—now known as The Overlook—offers a perfect setting. A thoughtful model could look like this:
- Rental fees for the space, scaled higher for outside weddings and lower for property owners.
- Approved outside catering, so our kitchens and staff remain focused on serving property owners.
- Big Canoe capturing beverage sales, with the Black Bear Pub ideally positioned to service events.
This approach would allow us to host beautiful weddings and special events, generate new revenue for the Clubhouse, and reduce the overall subsidy required from property owners. Of course, any such program would need a solid business plan and pro-forma financials to ensure it makes sense long-term.
The Bigger Picture
The Clubhouse example is a reminder that we should always look beyond single numbers or headlines. What matters most is the whole story—the facilities, services, and shared spaces that make Big Canoe such a special place to live.
As a candidate for the POA Board, I believe property owners deserve not just transparency, but clarity. Because when we have the full picture, we can make informed decisions together—grounded in facts, not fragments.
💬 I’d love to hear your thoughts. What value do you see in having a community hub like the Clubhouse? Let’s keep the conversation going.
