westview golf clubs on sale

Its castle-like clubhouse survived Al Capone, who was rumored to have used it as a lookout tower during Prohibition. The red-tile roof building also housed soldiers during World War II. For more than 50 years, Westview Country Club has served as Miami’s social club for Jewish families who were once barred from joining, as recently as the early 1980s, similarly upscale clubs like Riviera Country Club in Coral Gables and La Gorce and the Bath clubs in Miami Beach. On Sunday, Westview, founded in 1959, will close its doors for the final time. Three investors, including Coral Gables developer Mark Kovens, son of the late developer Cal Kovens, and two other principals from Baltimore, Md., have purchased the club for $5 million and will convert it by mid-September into the Miami National Golf Club, a golf-only destination, club president Paul Cummings said Friday. For longtime club manager Louis Garcell, it’s a bittersweet ending. He’s staying on, having been hired to run the new golf venue as its general manager, along with a few key staffers such as golf superintendent Robert Anderson. About 60 to 75 of the club’s 220 members will stay for the transition, which is in the planning stages, Garcell said. Blame the demise of Westview on changing times. Despite a $3.5 million clubhouse renovation and redesign of its famed 18-hole golf course in 2000, membership had fallen from about 400 a decade ago to about half that number today.