Columbia Club Blues

An Indianapolis landmark is at a crossroads according to this week's Indianapolis Business Journal. The Columbia Club, a 118-year-old private club, is facing financial stress as a $5.5 million loan the club took out a few years ago to make renovations comes due this summer. The IBJ's Peter Schnitzer reports the club has been losing money in recent years, and it recently dumped its general manager after hiring an outside consulting firm. The club is still losing membership even after the Athletic Club closed in 2004. It's membership, according to Schnitzer, now stands at 2,100, which is about a third less than it had in the late 1990s.

There's no mistaking the beautiful architecture and rich history of the club's building on Monument Circle. I must confess that I was drawn to it when I moved to Indianapolis in 1990, and I became a member of the club in 1993. At that time, Circle Centre Mall hadn't opened and there still weren't many restaurants downtown. I soon figured out, however, that the club just wasn't my cup of tea.

Anyone who has ever been a member of the Columbia Club quickly learns that there are about a few dozen members who make the club their life. The rest of the members just sort of join for social/networking reasons and visit the club only on occasion. These die-hard members are there early in the morning, at lunchtime, after work and even weekends. The die-hard members I often found to be very materialistic and driven by the need to appear as having made it in this world. The incessant name-dropping, cigar puffing and superficial ways of these folks was unbearable. The only time these folks wanted anything to do with you was election time, and then you were their best friend.

Outsiders may find this hard to believe, but these people would actually spend several thousand dollars campaigning for a position on the club's board. Direct mail pieces, candidate slates, ads in the Columbian (yes, it has its own magazine) and drinks on me were all a part of their campaigns to win a coveted seat on the board. A cynical employee once told me they coveted the position for the prestige and the free booze and food some of them managed to finagle out of the position. I'll never forget a fight in the French Room between two competing board candidates. A three hundred fifty-pound attorney exchanged shoves with a much smaller guy. The big guy's custom-made suit was fit for a homeless man after the bout ended without bloodshed.

While we're on the subject of the French Room, it is one of two bars in the club. When I first joined, the Harrison Bar on the first floor was the only bar. It is truly one of the city's classic bars as far as appearances go. Later, the members who live and die at the club decided they needed their own private bar where non-members would not be permitted. Thus, the French Room (named after a local liquor distributor) on the third floor was born. One of my favorite stories is how quickly the French Room got broken in. Soon after it opened, a prominent local businessman threw a blow out bachelor party for his son in the French Room, which included several ladies of the night. According to eyewitness accounts, the live entertainment soon became lude and lucivious. Lines formed to the bathroom for purposes other than to use the facilities. Reports indicated there were more than a few used condoms strewn about the place before the party ended.

During each legislative session, many lawmakers take up residence in the Columbia Club. As a consequence, the club is a popular hangout for lobbyists who like to spend a lot of money wining and dining legislators. As a former lobbyist, this made it all the less attractive to me. It can create more than a few awkward moments when a legislator thinks you're game for buying his drinks or meals simply because you're a lobbyist. For the lobbyist who's all about doing business that way, it's the place to be.

Before I finally dropped my membership, I found that the club's fitness facility was about the only use I was getting out of my membership. But even there, I found the encounters with the men who used the fitness facility for what I would call a "gentleman's workout" more than a little annoying. That would be the ones who simply get naked and spend their entire time rotating between the showers, the whirlpool and the steamroom, catching as many glimpses of other naked men as humanly possible during the process. There was more than one occasion when I felt like telling these trolls they should take their routine to a gay bathhouse. One retired doctor actually had the gall to bring what appeared to me to be young hustlers he picked up off the street as guests with him to the fitness center. That was more than some of the regulars could stand. The fine doctor was told by the staff not to bring his guests back. I found a lot of the members at the Columbia Club tolerated gays as long as they remained in the closet, like one of its board members who in between marriages visits the local gay bars.

The only real part I miss about being a member of the Columbia Club was checking out the delinquency list in the main hallway on the first floor. Like many private clubs do, the Columbia Club allows members to charge drinks and meals to their membership card. At the end of the month, you are billed for your next month's membership dues along with any charges you accrued the prior month. It's suppose to work like an American Express card where you pay off the full amount of the bill each month. A few members, however, were constantly in arrears. To shame these people, the club listed the member's name and the amount of his/her arrearage. The list usually confirmed to me who the people were who like living well beyond their means.

So if the Columbia Club should close its doors as a private club, I shall not shed any tears. I fear not that it will reopen as a charming, luxury hotel. There is a real history in that building which should be preserved for posterity. But the private club can go as far as I'm concerned.