Riverside Athletic Club in Hamilton gets into the social game

Unfortunately, the season ended last weekend.

Fortunately, owner Roland Lutz has created a new amenity the public at large ― the public at large who is 21 and older ― can take part in and honor a beloved Hamiltonian, Frank Prickett, who died 10 years ago this past August.

The wine bar was at one time a nursery and then a storage age for the club before Lutz turned it into what’s probably Hamilton’s first wine bar (there are others planned in the coming months, including next to Artspace).

“We decided to do something neat with it,” said Lutz, which included hanging several pieces of art by Prickett, a mentally challenged artist who created drawings of cartoon characters around downtown Hamilton.

Prickett was described in the Journal-News when he passed as a “simple man with a good heart.”

Lutz has owned the Riverside Athletic Club on Pyramid Hill Boulevard since 1999, buying it from Pat Carruthers, who started it in the early 1970s. Though it’s grown since Lutz owned the club with about 2,000 members, he’s focused on the social side of the facility, where you don’t have to be a member to enjoy it.

Hamilton advocate Kathleen Klink, who is a neighbor of Lutz’s, is not a member of Riverside, but has embraced what Lutz is trying to do.

“I’m just an advocate for these kinds of opportunities,” said Klink. “For families, for kids, for adults. Some place that’s wonderful to go and relax, and I think that’s special. I think this is unique for Hamilton; there’s nothing else quite like this in Hamilton.”

While that can be said about many amenities in Hamilton, Riverside has a unique feel: You’re in town without feeling like you’re in town.”

That’s a hard accomplishment given the exponential growth Hamilton’s seen in recent years.

From a tennis perspective, Riverside Athletic Club is a known commodity with people coming from as far out as Dayton, Northern Kentucky, and Indianapolis, and all parts in between just to train there. Miami University’s tennis team comes from Oxford to train and play at the facility.

But Lutz said they’re evolving as they’re shifting to include more social aspects, like their Friday night gatherings and the wine bar. He also wants to develop the unused several acres he owns along the river.

Lutz, though, doesn’t want his club to be a hidden gem anymore and has been working on the social piece for the public at-large over the last three to four years.

“I think it’s percolating in the right direction,” Lutz said.