$20M renovated clubhouse opens at SWFL golf course

A golf club in Estero recently celebrated the grand opening of its $20 million clubhouse renovation. The Copperleaf Golf Club now offers 28,000 square feet of dining and entertainment space in addition to its 18-hole golf course.

“Copperleaf guests can experience indoor and outdoor dining, served by a massively expanded food service facility,” Copperleaf General Manager and COO David Dore-Smith says in a statement. “Meeting spaces have been doubled, the size of our golf shop has increased dramatically, the bag room has been expanded for our golf members and the employee work areas have created a great place to work.”

The 23-year-old clubhouse renovation began in June 2023 with Knapp Construction Management as the project manager.

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“Everyone on the team pulled together as they battled the challenges, and the project stayed on track,” Gordon Knapp, project manager and president of Knapp Construction Management, says in the statement.

Several hundred members joined the construction team and vendors at the newly renovated facility for an Oct. 21 grand opening and Champagne celebration. During the event, Executive Chef Justin Hornyak gave members a tour of his new three-section kitchen, which will be staffed by two sous chefs and 18 cooks when the club is at full capacity. Hornyak is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Culinary Arts Institute who has been a professional chef for over two decades and recently completed his first year at Copperleaf.

Thanks to the renovation, the clubhouse now includes three options for diners — fine, casual and outdoor dining. Main dining room The Leaf overlooks the 9th hole and offers fine dining, an expanded menu and bar offerings as well as special acoustic panels to absorb noise. Casual dining spot Greenside, which serves up cocktails and small plates overlooking the 18th hole, features 25-foot vaulted ceilings, 10 TVs and two multipurpose rooms. Outdoor dining venue Ospreys poolside cafe opened in March with a 22-seat oval bar that has multiple TVs with views of the golf course and lakes.

Before the renovation, the clubhouse did not offer outdoor dining. A membership survey found that 80% wanted to see this option, the Business Observer previously reported.

To accommodate its growth in dining offerings, Copperleaf will have more than 30 servers on staff, under the direction of Food and Beverage Director Carmine Spiro, who announced another new offering.

“With our expanded dining and entertainment facilities, we have decided to open our venues to non-members wishing an elegant location for weddings and other special events during May to October,” Spiro says in a statement. 

To suit all types and sizes of events, partitioning features were added with the renovation. Lighting was designed exclusively for Copperleaf by Loren Wegman of Wegman Design, who also handled the clubhouse interior, which features a palate of warm, welcoming tones as well as comfortable seating. On the exterior, the building incorporates hurricane-rated glazing and the addition of operable hurricane shutters.

“Copperleaf has always been admired for its golf course,” Copperleaf General Manager Dore-Smith says in the statement. “We now have first-class dining and entertainment options for club and associate members that are elevating our club with best-in-class features to serve our members for decades to come.”

Coppperleaf Golf Club is a 460-acre master-planned development built by Pulte Homes in 2000 that includes 570 single-family and carriage homes, in neighborhoods overlooking lakes, greens and fairways. The golf course was designed by Gordon Lewis and redesigned in 2015 by course architect Kipp Schulties. According to a statement from the club, Copperleaf is among 100 Audubon-certified golf clubs in Florida.