{"id":2447542,"date":"2019-08-14T09:52:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-14T15:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/new-snowmass-club-leadership-explains-recent-management-changes-remodels\/"},"modified":"2019-08-14T09:52:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-14T15:52:00","slug":"new-snowmass-club-leadership-explains-recent-management-changes-remodels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/new-snowmass-club-leadership-explains-recent-management-changes-remodels\/","title":{"rendered":"New Snowmass Club leadership explains recent management changes, remodels"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The Snowmass Club sold to ABA Hospitality for $18.5 million on Dec. 6.<\/strong>
Snowmass Sun file<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Change is on the horizon for the Snowmass Club.<\/p>\n

Under new leadership announced Aug. 6 during the biannual State of Snowmass Village address, plans for an overhaul of renovations to the club\u2019s facilities and a better balance between public and private amenities are in the works.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife and I are just thrilled to be here. It\u2019s an awesome place and it looks like a fabulous place to live and work and be part of the community,\u201d said Rick Sussman, the Snowmass Club\u2019s new general manager\/chief operating officer, at the Aug. 6 address.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 212-acre property.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe club is starting to show it\u2019s age and members are excited for what\u2019s to come,\u201d said Rick Sussman, noting that the renovations and refurbishments are in the early planning stages. \u201cRight now I\u2019m just trying to meet the members and get to know the staff because they know what the club needs much better than I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d Witmondt said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

When asked why both Witmondt and Sussman were seemingly taking over Brown\u2019s role with the Snowmass Club, Witmondt said Brown\u2019s transition out of a major management position has been in the works since December<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always in the business plan for Scott not to act as the general manager long term,\u201d Witmondt said via phone Aug. 12.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cScott always planned to step down (as general manger), it just happened much quicker than we thought,\u201d Witmondt said. \u201cHe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witmondt said he and the Snowmass Club ownership group are excited to bring Sussman in at the start of the club\u2019s planned renovation and refurbishment overhaul because he\u2019s dedicated his entire professional life to managing and rebuilding private clubs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a history of elevating clubs to another level, which is exactly what he plans to do here,\u201d Witmondt said of Sussman. \u201cHe knows one size doesn\u2019t fit all and plans to do a lot of listening. \u2026 He knows there are no boiler plate fixes and will treat the Snowmass Club like the little gem that it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

As talked about with locals at the Aug. 6 State of Snowmass address, Witmondt and Sussman plan to shape the club\u2019s improvement plans, including the public and private amenities it offers, around member and community feedback.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Sussman and Witmondt implied they plan to continue the club\u2019s exclusivity, but that there will be no membership fee increases made to help pay for the club\u2019s capital improvements.<\/p>\n

However, at the Aug. 6 meeting, Witmondt expressed the top management\u2019s desire to become a larger part of the Snowmass Village community, hoping to strike a better balance between its private and public ties.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d Witmondt explained Aug. 6. \u201cConversely, the club is underutilized, it certainly should involve the entire community. \u2026 We hope to have a better plan than the current plan that\u2019s in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown could not be immediately reached for comment.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Snowmass Club sold to ABA Hospitality for $18.5 million on Dec. 6.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\u2019s facilities and a better balance between public and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 00:22:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}