The plan is to preserve a recreational use of the property while rehabilitating the site with a set of structures, facilities and surrounding landscape that is fit for purpose and capable of sustaining tennis, fitness and a community gathering place for decades to come.

The reimagined layout and approach is devoted to outdoor recreation with buildings and facilities that present seamlessly within downtown Larkspur and sit quietly within the natural beauty of the local landscape. The existing 50,369 sf structure - built as a discount emporium fifty-plus years ago (at the time of the parcel’s last transition) - would be replaced with eight clay tennis courts organized in a garden setting with designated tennis viewing areas, a swimming pool, fitness studios, changing rooms and a clubhouse intentionally-designed as a local social gathering hub.

We have owned the property for over two years already and we are just now starting the public application and approval process. To date, the steps we have taken involved carefully analyzing the site and determining what is possible. We are now at the stage to share the vision and proceed with the public review.

In the meantime, the application process is a deliberate one. We have partnered with MTRC ownership to keep the club in place and operating the last two years and we intend to keep that going as long as we are in this phase of pre-development. We want the community to continue to enjoy the service offerings of MTRC for as long as is practical, as no one benefits from this parcel sitting fallow. Thus, our intent is to make the property and buildings available to MTRC until the start of a future construction phase.

Eventually, the owners of Mt. Tam Racquet Club will cease operations. The MTRC has served this community admirably for over 50 years, providing an invaluable and cherished service - a place not just to exercise, stay healthy and pursue passions but a safe space to gather, meet friends, do homework and celebrate milestones.  Well before we purchased One Larkspur Plaza Drive, the owners of MTRC intended to transition away from operating and owning the club and the land. 

We purchased the property but not the existing business because we recognized that the investment necessary to make tennis, swimming and fitness a functional use in this location - at this moment in time -  would require a significant re-imagination and rehabilitation of the site. The facilities are over half-a-century old and built initially for another purpose (what was once a storehouse of sundries as a discount supermarket had been creatively repurposed to house indoor tennis, swimming pools and gyms). We felt the most pragmatic way to preserve this parcel as a local hub for recreational and social gathering was not to retrofit what was once built for other uses, but to start again and anew. We concluded that we had to take a step back in order to move forward with a concept and approach that would be durable, reliable and sustainable for the next half-century … if not longer. 

The new facilities will house the same recreative uses but under the banner of a new business with new ownership. And once the project is eventually completed, our hope is that many of the existing club members will choose to become members in the new facility.

Visually and experientially, we intend to create an outdoor tennis garden with modest human-scale structures that convey a sense of companionship with Larkspur’s adjacent historic district. 

The exterior architectural language is consistent with other historic structures in Larkspur - clapboard siding, hipped roofs, louvred shutters framing traditional windows and doors with divided lights. The design intent is understated and unadorned, solid and simple … allowing the garden and surrounding beauty (ridge lines and views of Mt Tam) to remain the main attraction. 

The interiors will be welcoming, cozy and feel like home with enough irreverence to not take themselves too seriously and to remind us we’re there to have fun. 

The gardens and landscaping will serve as the focal point of the site, instilling a sense of natural beauty and calm. 

While some of this is still a work-in-progress, the overarching intent is to provide a wholesome, healthy outdoor reprieve from this modern life where sport, games, family gatherings and social interaction win out over screens and other stressors of every-day  life.

The new club facilities will have a structural footprint of approximately 10,687 square feet, which represents an 80% reduction compared with the existing building envelope of 50,369 square feet. The majority of the property will be made up of CaliClay tennis courts, a beautiful collection of gardens, and a couple of lawn areas for kids to run around and families to gather, play games and be outside. Overall, we expect the reimagined property to reduce impervious cover by a significant margin, reducing water run off and otherwise representing a meaningful win for the local environment.

We are not proposing any housing. While this property was included within the City’s most recent Housing Element, we intend to maintain the current recreational use within our concept.

We are not changing the use of the site. We do not anticipate any increase in traffic moving forward nor any meaningful changes in the patterns of usage or traffic across the day.

While we can’t foresee every possible use or opportunity, we have no plans to host large-scale tennis tournaments or major events. We are motivated to create a local amenity and communal gathering hub for Larkspur and its immediate surrounds. To that end, we expect programming to remain similar in frequency and character to what takes place today.