Jade Kiosse, club manager

Astoria Golf & Country Club

33445 Sunset Beach Lane

Warrenton

The Astoria Golf & Country Club, founded in June 1923, formally opened in June 1924 and ironically sporting a Warrenton address, is approaching its 90th anniversary. The complex includes 18 holes of golf, a country club with restaurant, a clubhouse and store. For information, call 503-861-2211 or visit info@astoriagolf.com or www.astoria golf.com

What do you do?

We are a private golf and country club. We have 18 holes of golf, and of course we have a clubhouse here. We do a lot of parties, things like wedding receptions, things like that. Of course we have dining rooms that serve our members dinner and things like that. Our motto is the St. Andrews of the Pacific. For anyone who knows gold, of course, St. Andrews is kind of the home of golf, where it all began in Scotland, so we liken ourselves to them. Its pretty unique, in the layout we have. Were on a lot of sand dunes, so when you get out there, you hit between a lot of sand dunes, and theres a lot of within the club microclimates. Theres some where you get down in the valleys and you dont feel the wind. Theres other times the wind can be blowing big gusts with Sunset Lake on the west part a lot of unique characteristics to the course.

How did you get started doing this?

We were founded in 1923 by a gentleman named Charles Haldeman. They had looked at some different sites. I know that Warrenton High School is one site that they looked at. At the time, the Gearhart public golf course was here there was nothing else. People wanted to put together a private club. The city approved it in 1923, but the course wasnt actually built, and opened in 1924. Next year, gosh, is going to be our 90th year that weve been around. We have a lot of third-generation members of the club and things like that. I worked at a country club in high school, all through college just kind of fell into a management job at a country club as I was graduating from college, starting to look at What am I going to do now that Im graduating. All these years later, Im still doing it. I came out here in October of 2010.

What is the volume of your business?

We do approximately 30,000 rounds of golf per year. We certainly can do more. One of the advantages of belonging to a private club is youre not stacked up so much on tee times. Its pretty easy for our members to, as we say, drop and hit. In here (the restaurant), it can vary. Because were not open to the public, we have a limited audience we can draw from. We have the potential of 800 members is what we have total. If you get 80 people in, you figure thats 10 percent of your membership. If we can get 80 in here in a night, thats a great night.

How does the economy affect your business?

The economy is certainly something that affects all of us. Were kind of in the luxury business. Were not exactly the heat or electricity in a persons house that might take priority for some people. Weve definitely had a focus on membership right now to try to recruit new people. Overall, our numbers were not bad. We were down 1 percent in total revenue in 2012 compared to 2011.

Edward Stratton