Grosse Pointe Yacht Club - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Grosse Pointe Yacht Club is a private marina

Marina

A marina is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats.A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or cargo from freighters....

and sailing

Sailing

Sailing is the propulsion of a vehicle and the control of its movement with large foils called sails. By changing the rigging, rudder, and sometimes the keel or centre board, a sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails in order to move the boat relative to its surrounding medium and...

club founded in 1914 and located on the shore of Lake St. Clair

Lake Saint Clair (North America)

Lake St. Clair is a fresh-water lake named after Clare of Assisi that lies between the Province of Ontario and the State of Michigan, and its midline also forms the boundary between Canada and the United States of America. Lake St. Clair includes the Anchor Bay along the Metro Detroit coastline...

in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan

Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan

Grosse Pointe Shores is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. With only land area, the city is the smallest of the five Grosse Pointe communities. The city, which is entirely residential, is the location of the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club on Lake Saint Clair. The city's population was 3,008 at the...

. It originated in 1914 through the efforts of a group of 25 sailing and iceboating enthusiasts.

The club is prominently visible and a well-known landmark along the shoreline of the lake north of Detroit

Detroit, Michigan

Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...

. The 18th century Italian Renaissance

Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...

-style clubhouse was designed by Boston architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

Guy Lowell

Guy Lowell , American architect, was the son of Mary Walcott and Edward Jackson Lowell, and a member of Boston's well-known Lowell family....

and dedicated on July 4, 1929. The clubhouse features stucco

Stucco

Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...

and red tile roof and a 187-ft bell tower, which serves as a navigational aid for boaters on the lake.

Upon entering the club, members stroll the length of a 50-foot foyer, arriving to a impressive rotunda, which leads to points throughout the club. Standing watch is the Wheeler Williams

Wheeler Williams

Wheeler Williams was an American sculptor, born in Chicago, Illinois.-Life and career:Williams studied sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He attended Yale where he graduated Magna cum Laude in 1919. He received a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard in 1922...

' bronze sculpture Rhythm of the Waves. Amenities of the club, besides the marina itself, include a bowling alley open from September until May, an olympic sized pool, several clay tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

courts, two lighted paddle tennis

Paddle tennis

Paddle tennis is a game adapted from tennis and played for over a century. Compared to tennis, the court is smaller and has no doubles lanes, and the net is lower. Paddle tennis is played with a solid paddle as opposed to a strung racquet, and a depressurized tennis ball is used along with an...

courts and a sailing

Sailing

center with a large fleet of club owned sail boats.

The club has 3 restaurants: The Spinnaker, The Binnacle Room and the Main Dining Room. The main ballroom can serve food as well. The club also has three bars, located in the Spinnaker, Binnacle, and Tower Pub. Other rooms in the club include the Lakeshore room, the Venetian room, the fo'c'sle, and the Wine Cellar (all popular areas for private dinners and business meetings).

The club facilities have been updated and modernized several times. The harbor has been enlarged and improved as membership quadrupled. However, the architectural integrity of Lowell's original design and the spectacular view of Lake St. Clair have been meticulously maintained. A view of the club is shown as a background to the rolling credits at the end of the movie Gran Torino (2008) starring Clint Eastwood.

External links

Official site

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See also

External links