Steve Quinn sees Beaver Meadow Golf Course as the 18-hole equivalent of Cannon Mountain.

It’s a true locals’ spot, one where the loyal regulars have returned for years and try to entice others to join them. The cars in the parking lot might not be as nice as those at other places, and the bathrooms might not always work, but the terrain is picturesque.

The parallels don’t stop there.

Like skiing, golf isn’t a poor person’s game. Being owned by government entities keeps both places humble and has nurtured more blue-collar roots in a way that their devotees wear with pride.

Quinn doesn’t want that to change. He learned the sport at Manchester’s Derryfield Country Club — the only other remaining municipal course in the state — and knows firsthand that municipal courses bring in new players who couldn’t afford to golf elsewhere. But when it comes to Beaver Meadow, the course rides the line between humble and shabby.

“Oh, it’s a dump,” he said, before quickly correcting himself: “The building is a dump.”

Quinn — who bought a membership when he retired four years ago but has played at the course for far longer — supports the idea of a new clubhouse at Beaver Meadow. He noted chronic issues with ugly backups in the bathrooms and pointed to rotting out corners of the wooden beams at the entrance.

The Henniker resident, though, won’t be among those on the hook for most of the costs to construct an $8 million new building. One of the foremost criticisms of the plan is the expense will largely be funded by city taxpayers. Many residents who have spoken out against the project don’t oppose it outright — though some do — but have urged the city to find other ways to pay for it.

‘Something’s gotto be done’

Over drinks on the patio, wrapping up a session on the simulator or loading their clubs into their trunks, Beaver Meadow golfers broadly agreed that “something’s got to be done” to repair and upgrade the clubhouse. Some want to see the building host more private events and beckon in more non-golfers and applaud the proposal to build a new one. Few were familiar with the particulars of the city’s plan or its price tag, especially those who lived outside the city. Others weren’t sold on it, citing the expense and seeing something more scaled back, like a renovation, as appropriate.

People who lived in neighboring communities, including Quinn, were more surprised that the course wouldn’t cover the cost on its own.

“I would think it would pay for itself,” he said.

Concord residents were more or less split on the idea – some cited a glaring need for an updated facility, others pointed to their ever-rising tax bills and hope for some relief.

Relying on money from golfers to cover the full cost of the clubhouse – like a private course would have to do – has been a non-starter for the leaders and politicians in the city of Concord, who say the city asset deserves public funding, no differently than the library or public pools. 

If the city didn’t build a new clubhouse, Quinn figured it might help keep greens fees down. That would be ok too, he said with a chuckle.

“I’m being practical about it,” he said. “But if I win the lottery, I’m donating the money to buy them a clubhouse.”

Chris Mulleavey, 27, and Trevor Stone, 35, see the Beav as their second home.

The two friends met at Beaver Meadow, while Mulleavey was playing and Stone was working in the restaurant. Now they play together a few times a week. Their families play often, too, and Stone is now engaged to Mulleavey’s sister.

“It’s the community around this place that keeps it going,” said Stone, who lives in Penacook. “Believe me, we’re not here for the bathrooms.”

Mulleavey, of Concord, said he has watched friends his age leave Beaver Meadow to play more appealing courses in Pembroke and Canterbury.

“It’s hard to see people leaving to go to nicer facilities and nicer areas,” he said. “But you see people realizing that we’re paying more in membership, more to golf here, but nothing’s changing.”

While significantly lower than many surrounding courses, the $2,295 annual membership at Beaver Meadow is up $1,000, or 77%, from where it was just four years ago. Daily rates are up around 30%. A $3 resident discount was added this year, but it’s only available for those playing 18 holes with no cart, according to the website.

The course has 322 current members, 188 of whom are residents, and 27,805 rounds of golf were played there last year, according to the City Manager’s office. 

Mulleavey and Stone like that it’s “homey” at the Beav. But they think it could be so much more — and see the clubhouse as holding it back. They favor a new building, they said, but they’ll take what they can get.

When golfers talk about the promise of a bigger restaurant — one without the simulator taking up space in it — they often say it’s for the sake of “the Broken Tee.”

Emily and Keith Duclos started their business inside the club this winter when the previous restaurant tenant left. They stayed because they love the community at Beaver Meadow, they said, but the kitchen isn’t up to par.

“With a proper building and an actual restaurant, maybe our winter business wouldn’t be so difficult,” Emily Duclos said.

In the colder months, “we’re leaning heavily on friends and family, essentially,” Keith added.

The restaurant’s few dozen seats are almost exclusively used by those hitting the links. The Ducloses believe the space could be more.

“We want to bring Concord in,” Emily said. “They would be stopping the growth of the community here if they don’t build a new one.”

Preparing for a Monday night league game, Chris Ralphs argued that opponents view a new clubhouse and the course itself too narrowly.

“Why are people so blinkered on it being a clubhouse for golfers?” said Ralphs, who described himself as a Concord taxpayer. “Why can’t it be a multifunctional city building, giving more opportunity for the city to make more money?”

He and others noted that a newer, larger clubhouse would create opportunities beyond golf activities, like birthday and retirement parties.

Projections from the city manager’s office expect to charge an additional $50,000 in restaurant rent and bring in an additional $35,000 in simulator fees every year in a new clubhouse.

Kim Delois-Fannie, who currently lives in Sanbornton but was a Concord resident for decades, agreed.

“To make this a more multi-purpose space, you need to make it bigger so other people can use it for other things,” she said. Space for skaters and cross-country skiers in the winter is among them, she noted.

“It doesn’t need to be Pembroke Pines,” Ralphs said, referencing a new, three-floor clubhouse at a neighboring private course with its own bridal suite for hosting weddings.

Frugalists in the city have made the point that if your house needs a new bathroom or has rotting wood, you don’t tear it down, you repair it – something the city distinctly decided against. 

To Ralphs, renovating what’s currently at Beaver Meadow would be “lipstick on a pig,” and would still cost a lot of money. The city committees that rejected the $5.4 million renovation option felt the same way, and project engineers have warned that a simple facelift won’t fix the building’s biggest issues. 

Gary Darby, who serves on the golf course advisory committee, gets why his neighbors in Concord are worried about their budgets. So is he.

“I’m worried about my tax bill. I’m on a fixed income,” he said. “I understand that people are worried that their taxes are going to go up, but it’s not going to be that much money.”

For reference, city estimates for a new clubhouse call for $6.8 million of the $8 million price tag to paid for by a taxpayer bond. Before other budget increases, it would add a little over eight cents to the tax rate, or $33.98 onto the bill of a $400,000 home, in the first year, according to city estimates.

Investing in city amenities that you don’t use is part of being a taxpayer, Darby said. The point was echoed by others.

“I’ve lived here all these years. I don’t use the parks. I don’t use the Everett Arena. I don’t use my library,” he said, “but I don’t have a problem supporting any of those things.”

‘It’s not worth it’

The clubhouse isn’t the only major project up for debate in the city’s 2026 budget, which councilors will shape over the next month. Councilors receive a copy of the city manager’s proposed budget on May 9. Capital projects will be taken up in detail on May 22. Public hearings on the budget and a final vote are scheduled for June 5.

City Councilors will also weigh $38 million for a police station, $2.6 million in tax dollars alongside federal grants to help pay for major repairs of the Loudon Road Bridge and $1 million for improvements to City Hall, according to projections in the current budget.

The $65 million slate of capital improvements, if undertaken in full later this month, would be more than four times the capital budget last year, which was itself the highest capital spending plan in at least five years.

Both Darby and Jim Zellers live mere minutes from the course. They both said that the current building needs far more than just a facelift.

But Zellers can’t stomach the money coming from taxpayers.

“Unless somehow it pays for itself, I would totally agree with a non-golfer that it’s not worth it,” he said. “I understand where those people are coming from.”

For the last few years, though not always, Beaver Meadow has ended the year with a surplus — and paid around $120,000 back into the city’s general fund. In this way, its operations pay for themselves.

That surplus isn’t big enough to cover the costs of a new clubhouse or other major improvements on its own. Capital improvements, like irrigation and a parking lot overhaul and a clubhouse, fall to citywide funding sources. The city manager’s office projects the course will pay an additional $115,000 back into the general fund every year to help cover the clubhouse debt payments. Course supporters have committed to fundraising $250,000 over ten years as well.

Zellers isn’t against the project, he said. He just thinks it needs to be scaled back. He figured this was probably an unpopular opinion, one others at the course wouldn’t thank him for putting out there.

The vision that others shared — for the clubhouse to become a community watering hole, where young couples tie the knot and neighbors bring their spouses for a weeknight dinner — it sounds nice to him. But affordability is his priority.

 “Maybe this is taking a chance that, once it’s there, people will come. Like that movie— what is it? Field of Dreams, right? ‘If you build it, they will come,’” Zellers said. “But I don’t feel they’ve justified the large expenditure.”

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at  concordmonitor.com.

Editor’s Note: This story  was updated to correct the first name of Broken Tee owner, Emily Duclos