Members and guests at Royal Lytham & St Anne’s Golf Club are enjoying the comfort of their new-look restaurant and member’s bar following the completion of a major clubhouse refurbishment at the historic Open Championship venue.
The upgrade was carried out by leading interior designer Sacha Dunnett, whose company, Sacha Interiors, was chosen to reinvigorate the clubhouse restaurant and repurpose the members’ bar as an intimate function room.
Dunnett said: “The club celebrates the best of history and tradition, yet it is also progressive and forward thinking and realised it needed to better utilise existing spaces to improve the experience for members. In particular, the large restaurant room was underused as members opted to sit in the cosier bar, so this became the focus of the project.
“The idea was to create that same ambiance in the restaurant and enable members to enjoy the spectacular views across the links. To achieve this, we created a bespoke bar, beautifully made by local firm Fylde Joinery and Building. Importantly, I wanted it to feel as if the bar had been there for years. We used antique mirrors to help emphasise this.”
Dunnett said that was also inspired by the existing architecture and interior features of the clubhouse, particularly the curved arches above the honours boards and the doorways.
New furniture was also a key part of the redesign, with all the chairs embossed with the club’s crest, coordinating with the bespoke patterned carpet that celebrates one of the club’s prestigious competitions.
“It creates a feeling of luxury and quality that reflects the status of the club,” she added. “The leather embossing is done using hand-carved copper plates, which very few places can do today and is very time consuming but is something special and beautiful.”
To complete the refurbished room, new circular lights were installed to soften the square room. By remarkable coincidence, they turned out to be similar in style to lights used in the club in the 1950s.
Mike Wilson, Chair of House and Captain Nominate of Royal Lytham & St Anne’s Golf Club said: “All of the members are of the same opinion that when you enter the new bar there is most definitely a “Wow!” factor. What Sacha has done so well is bring refreshing change but also keep the Royal Lytham look – our unique character has been retained with the benefit of opening up this wonderful space to relax, enjoy conversation and hospitality, while taking in the most amazing views of the links. The project has been a great success.”
Sacha Interiors previously oversaw the interior redesign of the iconic Art Deco clubhouse at Royal Birkdale, including the much-admired links carpet design.
“It’s great to see golf clubs and sports clubs in general upping their game and thinking about the member experience in their clubhouses,” said Dunnett. “It’s so important from a value-added perspective, retaining members as well as attracting new members who may have different needs and expectations.
“Royal Lytham and St Anne’s Golf Club was a pleasure to work with and it gives me such great job satisfaction to now see the members enjoying their new clubhouse interior.”