"People would come here and play golf and stay the whole day."

Howard Cohen on the demographic demise of Miami's Westview Country Club, which, while closing as a historic Jewish club with an emphasis on family activities (and hefty $15,000 a year dues), is at least closing to reopen as a golf driven club.

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.

This was interesting about the social aspects of the club ultimately bringing it down...

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. Northwest 119th Avenue is a highway surrounding the “paradise” tucked behind eight-foot hedges. To run the venue today as a full-service country club with its big parties, lavish dinners, bar mitzvahs and business meetings proved prohibitive.

“When I came here in 1976 this used to be the place in Miami,” Garcell said. “There was Riviera and La Gorce but we were mainly a Jewish club and a very family-oriented club. People would come here and play golf and stay the whole day.”