One year after a devastating fire leveled the iconic clubhouse at the Mineola Country Club Aug. 20, the new and improved facility will soon reopen at Loop 564 and Hwy. 80.

The official opening is tentatively planned the first week in October, although a soft opening is anticipated in mid-September.

And the club is busier than ever.

Manager Allen Brock said the club has added more than 100 new members since the fire which left MCC scrambling just to get the course open for golf.

A couple travel trailers served as the makeshift pro shop until a structure could be built to house the pro shop, bar and restrooms, adjacent to the swimming pool.

That facility will continue to serve the club as a venue, hosting pool parties and other events, as well as the headquarters for golf tournaments.

The new putting green has recently been put into service on the south side of the clubhouse, overlooking the eighth and ninth holes.

The course routing has been modified, with the former first two holes now as the 8th and 9th, and the old third hole serving as the first tee, with a clear view from the new pro shop, which is on the north end of the new building.

It also features a set of restrooms accessible from the outside and a golf simulator.

The bar includes two complete bartender set ups as well as outdoor walkup windows from the patio, which is large enough to accommodate a small entertainment area.

The restaurant will be operated by Logan Belcher, the chef and owner of Logan’s Place in Mineola.

A large walk-in cooler has access to the restaurant kitchen and the bar.

The restaurant and bar feature plenty of windows with views of the course.

Additional parking has been added on the east side of the club, with plans for more parking spaces with access to the restaurant.

Eleven TVs are scattered throughout the building, featuring a system that will allow posting of internal messages, such as tee times, tournament scores and such.

A board room is included along with the manager’s office and plenty of room to display merchandise in the pro shop.

The club’s board president, Dan Carroll, is serving his second term in that post.

“It’s been quite a journey, to say the least,” he said.

Kris Rinks was president at the time of the fire, and Carroll said he and Brock did a great job working with the insurance company squeezing out every penny.

Carroll received a call about 5:30 a.m., the morning of the fire. It had started sometime after midnight after the bar had closed, and it burned out of control before it was reported, too late to save the structure, parts of which dated to the club’s origins in the 1930s.

He arrived on scene about 6:30 to his worst nightmare, “Total shock.”

The building committee met for the first time the following Thursday and once or twice a week until the plans for the new facility could be presented to the stockholders in February.

The challenge was coming up with a classic design that fit the space and is visually appealing.

“We promised bigger and better, and we did that,” Carroll said.

The old clubhouse held a lot of memories, Carroll noted, and those cannot be replaced.

He recounted some of the stories he heard after the fire, of a woman now 90 who had her first date there and a couple who were married there in the 1950s.

“Hopefully this will last another 90 years and make more memories,” he said. “You can’t put back that character, but you move on, and we are excited about the future.”

Construction manager Michael Cain has done an unbelievable job managing the project, to have it almost completed just a year after the fire.

The next challenge, according to Carroll, was to put a course out there that matches the clubhouse.

That has been what the board has been putting its resources into, time and money. New tee boxes, redesigned fairways with a first cut and drainage improvements are among the upgrades.

For the first time in a long time, maybe forever, the course will be over-seeded with winter ryegrass so the fairways will be green year-round.

“A lot of people have put in countless hours to get to this point,” Carroll said. “We appreciate everyone’s blood, sweat and tears.”

“We can’t wait for the community to see it.”