Very sad, although we have numerous examples of great golf clubs who have rebuilt and as time passes the new structure becomes part of the club again. What great clubs have lost their clubhouse to fire? I know Shoreacres did in the 80's and think Chicago Golf lost their original early. Bel-Air didn't even have a fire, but are totally tearing down and building a brand new clubhouse as we speak and they had a pretty darn good one.
What others lost theirs to a fire?
I caddied at OHCC in the mid-80's. While this is a tragic and sad event, it does and doesn't come as surprise. For starters, a similarly built and constructed clubhouse at Western Golf and Country Club in Redford, MI (Ross), where I was a member at the time, caught fire and burnt to the ground several years prior. It was an all wood clubhouse, same as OHCC, designed by the same architect, Albert Kahn. Western's clubhouse did not have a sprinkler system installed at the time of its demise, which made it impossible to suppress or extinguish the flames once the building caught fire at 5:30 AM on June, 1 2018 with no one present in or outside the building. Given its proximity to OHCC, the history the two clubhouses shared and the money that club has, you'd hope they would have a sprinkler system installed to prevent such a historic structure from realizing the same fate as Western's. I can't speak to whether they did or didn't, but it seems odd that like Western, it caught fire and once it did there was no stopping the clubhouse from being engulfed in flames, as the wood used to build these structures was so dry and had so many layers of paint applied that they went up like tinderboxes.
Unlike OHCC, Western didn't have the money to attempt to replicate the original clubhouse. Instead, it had something more contemporary looking built using a combination of stone, wood and vinyl (low maintenance). While the clubhouse is nice (I played there last Oct.), it doesn't have the same feeling or character the original, old clubhouse had for sure. The building stands out like sore thumb sandwiched between the pool house (also constructed by Albert Kahn) and the Pro Shop/Admin building. These buildings were designed with the intent to complement the original clubhouse. Now it looks like a cobbled mess between old and the new. Fortunately or unfortunately, OHCC has only one building or structure to concern itself with. Rumor has it that they are going to try and attempt to rebuild the original clubhouse, which I think is a mistake, unless they are going to use vinyl for the exterior. All wood clubhouses are impractical from a cost and maintenance standpoint. You're only asking for trouble, as it's not a matter of if the structure will one day catch fire, but when.
The original clubhouse at Washtenaw Golf Club in Ypsilanti, MI (oka Washtenaw Country Club) caught fire and burnt down in 1980. It was a beautiful all-wood manor style clubhouse. They replaced it with an all brick ranch-styled clubhouse and painted it white on the exterior to have it somewhat feel like the original. It was poorly designed and the club had to borrow money to pay for its completion. With declining membership, they could never hope to repay they debt they owed and the club filed for bankruptcy in the early 2000's. OHCC doesn't have to concern itself with that happening to them regardless how much the rebuild costs, but I think it would be foolish on multiple levels for them to go with an all-wood building again, as why tempt fate - even with a state of the art sprinkler system installed?