Since 2019, developers and planners have insisted that the best and highest use of the Calumet Country Club property is industrial. But golfers have not given up on the historic if somewhat raggedy course that was built in 1917.
A new partnership, Calumet Collaborative, formed recently led by two golfing organizations, the Chicago District Golf Association and the Donald Ross Society. The leaders of the group believe the golf course can be saved, restored, and with new facilities and a new business plan, continue as a golfing destination.
Michael Grandinetti, a director and past president of CDGA, has a long history with the course. He joined the then-private country club half a century ago when he was in his late 20s. He served on the club’s board for years, including as president. He was not a member of the LLC that sold the property in 2019 to Diversified Partners, an Arizona real estate firm led by Walt Brown.
The attempt to acquire the property is rooted in his history with the club.
“I’m doing it for the good of the game and to save the historic value of Calumet,” Grandinetti said. “The course means a lot to me.”
Leaders of a new partnership that hopes to save and restore Calumet Country Club are not sure the clubhouse will be salvageable, but if not, they hope to build a new clubhouse with more amenities in order to operate as a year-round recreation destination. (Eric Crump/H-F Chronicle)
He believes the course means a lot to the golfing community and to the South Suburbs. It would also be an asset to CDGA, which will not benefit financially from its operation but could use the course for its tournaments and its programs that support adaptive and therapeutic golfing for youth, disabled veterans and people with physical and cognitive disabilities.
For Vaughn Halyard, president of the Donald Ross Society, the course’s historic character is a primary motivation to help save it.
Ross was one of the most respected and prolific golf course architects in the country during the 20th century.
Halyard said Ross is to golf courses what Frank Lloyd Wright was to building architecture.
The mission of the nonprofit DRS is to preserve Ross-designed courses and their heritage in the golfing world. He said although Calumet is in rough shape, the collaborative will be able to restore it if its proposal is successful.
“The bones are still there,” he said.
The collaborative’s plan is to bring the course back up to standard and create amenities and programs that will attract golfers from the region and beyond. The course will be open to the public, and they plan to keep greens fees low enough to make the course accessible to a wide range of golfers.
They also plan to include environmental sustainability into the operation. Environmental impact was a key point of community opposition to proposals for industrial use.
After Diversified Partners purchased the course, it presented plans to the village of Homewood for a warehousing complex. The rezoning request was ultimately denied by the Homewood Board of Trustees in 2021. The firm then successfully petitioned to disconnect the property from Homewood, and it was annexed by Hazel Crest in 2023.
A second effort to redevelop the property as a town center with retail, office, housing and recreational uses surrounding a warehousing center was promoted by Catalyst Consulting. After several months of public outreach, the plan faded away.
In October, another developer, Ryan Companies, gave a presentation to the Hazel Crest board. A representative said the company planned to listen to the community to learn its views about how the property could best be redeveloped. When pressed by Trustee Merle Kimbrough-Huckabee, the representative acknowledged that industrial would likely be the best and highest use of the property.
Grandinetti acknowledges the industrial uses developers have proposed would have an advantage in terms of financial gain for Hazel Crest. He thinks the partnership’s plan will create a viable business that contributes to the community in ways a warehousing use wouldn’t.
“We’ve done our homework. We think we have a lot of support. We think we have a good team put together. We think we can tell a great story,” he said.
The collaborative also has support from South Suburbs for Greenspace. The organization formed in 2021 in response to the original warehousing plan. SSG founder Liz Varmecky said the group would help the collaborative’s effort.
“We’re pleased that they’ve reached out so that we can help them in any way possible,” she said. “They seem to care about environmental justice.”
South Suburbs for Greenspace protesters rally in front of Homewood village hall in 2021 to oppose the
redevelopment of Calumet Country Club as a warehousing center. (Chronicle file photo)
