Commodore Whitey Limes – August, 1981
The original “Clubhouse” of BLYC was a combination of a Boat House and Club Rooms.
In June of 1907, a year after the Club was organized, a contract for a building was awarded to the company of Walters & Norris. The contract called for a boathouse with the necessary piling, a covered bridge and walk, a two· story addition to the boathouse providing a locker room and a club room. Also a flat boat to expedite construction over water. All of this was accomplished for the sum total of $1811.00. The building was completed in November of 1907.
In the summer of 1908 a porch was built across the front of the building, extending heyond the east and west walls.
When the new (existing) clubhouse was built several years later the clubroom was removed from the boathouse, part of the porch was enclosed to make a shower room and locker room. The concrete base for the shower stall was still in place when the boat houses were torn dowm in 1978.
The original building of the present Clubhouse was included in a building extending from the East wall of the present dining room to the West wall of the “Commodore’s Lounge,” and from the existing South wall to the North wall of the “Gob’s Mess”. It had a porch on the south side of the building, extending well beyond the east and west walls of the building This “new” clubhouse was officially dedicated at the Semi-Annual Meeting of the Club on May 4, 1913, the first official function to be held in the building.
In 1925 the present West dining room was built. The width of the overhang of the front porch beyond the west wall of the original building was the deciding factor in the width of the dining room.
In 1973 the nresent “Commodore’s Lounge” was built and a downstairs Men’s Lavatory was added.
In 1978 the original “1907” boathouses were torn down and new covered slips were built.
In 1979 the new North dining room was completed and the kitchen expansion finished.
Buckeye Lake Yacht Club has certainly come a long way from a pair of clubrooms over a boat house in 1907 to the present fine building.
Editor’s Note: Much has changed since Commodore Limes’ 1981 article. The Gob’s Mess, Kitchen, and Dining Room were remodeled in the late 1990s; the upstairs was renovated in the mid-2010s, and the “covered slips” that stood where the original boathouses were built along the east side of the island were removed and replaced with wider, open slips built with more modern materials.
– SGH 8/2023