I was a few months shy of my 13th birthday when my family moved into The Country Club of Louisiana neighborhood in 1986. The club was launched as a premier golf, tennis and social club centered around a golf course designed by legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus. Back then, the club itself was a remote destination—the exit off the interstate at Highland Road only sported a stop sign. Kleinpeter cows dotted the landscape. And no streetlights obscured the stars on clear nights.

Fast-forward three decades and much more has changed besides the traffic flow on Highland Road. The faces of country clubs across the nation are going under the knife. These private organizations that once catered to single-income families are now supported by dual-income families who want more focus on casual dining and fitness facilities. Recognizing that CCLA needed to keep up with this movement to ensure survival and growth in the upcoming years, its membership overwhelmingly voted in favor of an $8.5-million renovation that will improve the clubhouse, its restaurants and the tennis and fitness facilities.

“This will be a game changer for the club,” says Omar Manriquez,  CCLA general manager and COO. “These improvements will help us cater to the entire family and are based on what current members want and what prospective members have told us they need.”

To make these improvements possible, CCLA partnered with Chambers, a leading national full-service design firm whose specialty is private club renovations. The overhaul will begin this month and will take 12 to 18 months to complete. Expect transformed event space for everything from weddings to meetings, a couples’ bar and grill, indoor and outdoor family dining, a state-of-the-art fitness center and updated golf course amenities.

“It’s really about transforming CCLA to meet the expectations and desires of both the current and future membership,” says Jay Bruno, CCLA Board of Directors president. “We want to maximize member enjoyment in 2018 but also for the decades to come.”