Snowmass Sun file
Change is on the horizon for the Snowmass Club.
Under new leadership announced Aug. 6 during the biannual State of Snowmass Village address, plans for an overhaul of renovations to the club’s facilities and a better balance between public and private amenities are in the works.
“My wife and I are just thrilled to be here. It’s an awesome place and it looks like a fabulous place to live and work and be part of the community,” said Rick Sussman, the Snowmass Club’s new general manager/chief operating officer, at the Aug. 6 address.
Sussman, who moved to Snowmass Village from Texas about two weeks ago, brings more than 35 years of private club, operational and executive management experience to his new role heading management and operations of the Snowmass Club.
Just a week after his new role was announced, Sussman was at the clubhouse meeting with a handful of contractors and consultants to get the ball rolling on the plans for renovations, which will be made to virtually every facility on the club’s 212-acre property.
“The club is starting to show it’s age and members are excited for what’s to come,” said Rick Sussman, noting that the renovations and refurbishments are in the early planning stages. “Right now I’m just trying to meet the members and get to know the staff because they know what the club needs much better than I do.”
But while Sussman has decades of expertise and professional knowledge, his transition into the general manager position came as a sort of surprise to many Snowmass locals and club members, who had been interacting with Scott Brown as general manager since December, when he and three other partners purchased the Snowmass Club from the Toll Brothers for $18.5 million.
Brown has been acting as both the general club manager and the main Snowmass Club spokesperson for the past seven months. On Aug. 6, he was slated to speak at the State of the Snowmass Village address, according to the agenda.
Instead, Sussman and Eric Witmondt, a majority club owner involved in the December purchase, filled in and spoke with the roughly 50 attendees about the recent leadership change and plans for the club’s future.
“We need to prove ourselves as newcomers to the community and to take a lot of input from the community at large and be able to filter all of that input to be able to do the right things to improve the club,” Witmondt said.
Witmondt is a full-time northern New Jersey resident with a second home in Aspen, and owns three private country clubs and a tennis club in New Jersey. He said he has been visiting the Aspen-Snowmass area with his family for more than 35 years, and plans to act as the leading spokesperson for the Snowmass Club moving forward.
When asked why both Witmondt and Sussman were seemingly taking over Brown’s role with the Snowmass Club, Witmondt said Brown’s transition out of a major management position has been in the works since December
“It was always in the business plan for Scott not to act as the general manager long term,” Witmondt said via phone Aug. 12.
Witmondt said the Snowmass Club has been working with an executive recruiting firm for several months to hire a general manager, which they anticipated to bring on in June.
After some delay, Sussman was hired and transitioned quickly into his new role, which Witmondt feels may be why the move comes as a surprise to members.
“Scott always planned to step down (as general manger), it just happened much quicker than we thought,” Witmondt said. “He will still be a minority member but he has other interests he plans to pursue and will not be involved in the day-to-day operations.”
Witmondt said he and the Snowmass Club ownership group are excited to bring Sussman in at the start of the club’s planned renovation and refurbishment overhaul because he’s dedicated his entire professional life to managing and rebuilding private clubs.
“He has a history of elevating clubs to another level, which is exactly what he plans to do here,” Witmondt said of Sussman. “He knows one size doesn’t fit all and plans to do a lot of listening. … He knows there are no boiler plate fixes and will treat the Snowmass Club like the little gem that it is.”
As talked about with locals at the Aug. 6 State of Snowmass address, Witmondt and Sussman plan to shape the club’s improvement plans, including the public and private amenities it offers, around member and community feedback.
Since it was purchased in December, the Snowmass Club started to establish a harder line between the private and public amenities the club has to offer, which Brown talked with the Snowmass Sun about in the spring.
That hard line included eliminating the majority of outside use of the club by non-members, except for the Black Saddle Bar and Grill, which is open to the public, and significant membership fee increases to help foot the bill for an extensive list of planned updates and improvements to the club.
Right now, the club has 1,200 members. Non-members may access the Black Saddle Bar and Grill year-round and the golf course over the winter.
But in the summer there is limited golf course use allowed by local residents, per the 2002 recreational agreement made between the town of Snowmass Village and then-owners Snowmass Club Associates. Any year-round Snowmass Village resident who is employed 30 hours a week or is a full-time student in Pitkin County can golf as many as five times per year as space is available, according to the agreement.
Sussman and Witmondt implied they plan to continue the club’s exclusivity, but that there will be no membership fee increases made to help pay for the club’s capital improvements.
However, at the Aug. 6 meeting, Witmondt expressed the top management’s desire to become a larger part of the Snowmass Village community, hoping to strike a better balance between its private and public ties.
“We have a membership group that has paid for the use of the club and has bought homes there and are a part of HOAs and they believe they have the right to have a private club environment,” Witmondt explained Aug. 6. “Conversely, the club is underutilized, it certainly should involve the entire community. … We hope to have a better plan than the current plan that’s in place.”
Brown could not be immediately reached for comment.