Columbia club open to all celebrates 20th anniversary

The view from The Capital City Club, atop Columbia's tallest building, is of a progressive, welcoming community.

To its 1,400 members, the private business club embodies the best of Columbia: a special place for leaders of any race, gender or religion to bond or cut business and political deals in a posh setting.

This week, Capital City celebrates 20 years of offering the city's elite an alternative to clubs whose membership excluded some leaders by gender, race or religion.

Capital City founders and members gather this morning for breakfast to reflect on the club's role in Columbia's cultural history. Saturday, a black-tie-optional gala will commemorate the club's success since May 23, 1988.

"We all wanted a better place to live," founder Carl Brazell said of the club's origin. "It was a very progressive thing to do. It needed to be done."

Capital City has grown to about 1,400 primary members, 18 percent of whom are women, said manager Sean McLaughlin.

That is a measure of progress to Shelvie Belser, one of two women on the founding board.

"I was like the token woman for the first few years," said Belser, a longtime lobbyist for BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina.

In the late 1980s, some Columbia-area clubs did not allow women to hold primary memberships. They could belong only if memberships were in the names of their husbands or fathers.

Capital City does not ask for or retain racial or religious demographics, McLaughlin said. But a visit to the 25th floor of the tower that overlooks the State House grounds shows its diversity.

Members enjoy 12 dining rooms with views of the Columbia skyline, a 1,500-square-foot lounge that just underwent a $250,000 renovation and a 4,000-square-foot kitchen that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner most days.

It is owned and operated by ClubCorp., which runs about 65 similar clubs around the nation.

In June 1986, a handful of leaders were quietly talking among themselves about a business club with an open-door policy.

The driving force was Bill Geiger of then-Geiger, McElveen and Kennedy, an architectural and engineering firm, club founders said.

Brazell, a bank executive, chaired the initial organizational meeting, which included a former governor, the African-American president of the S.C. Bar, a black federal judge and two prominent professional women.

"What we were trying to do was call in the pulse of the community and say, 'Folks, are we ready for this kind of club?' We're in new territory," Brazell recalled.

Their plan to avoid clashes with business and country clubs that restricted memberships took on public urgency a few months later.

A series of events exploded the city's well-crafted veneer to promote itself and attract corporate investment. A black IBM executive, the Jewish commanding general at Fort Jackson and a high-profile African-American athlete were denied memberships in business and country clubs.

Tom McLean, then-editor of The State and the afternoon newspaper, The Columbia Record, was at the meeting of Capital City founders.

"We all believed in the inherent rights of any private club to define its purpose and be selective," McLean said. "What the founders set out to overcome was arbitrary, categorical exclusion based on race, religion or gender."

The early years were not smooth. The public relations of the endeavor were a delicate balance of pushing mores without painting the city as intolerant.

Some business leaders did not support Capital City, said Brazell, whose member number is 2, behind the now-deceased Geiger's No. 1.

The founders determined they would need about $2 million and at least 800 members to have a viable club.

Brazell said organizers took out 10 $100,000 loans from the city's major banks as part of an effort to build membership support at financial institutions. An additional $500,000 in personal loans equipped the club.

Geiger, who was building the tower at Gervais and Assembly streets that would house the club, insisted on its consuming the entire top floor, Brazell said.

That was a deal-breaker to the company hired to conduct a market analysis and run the club. The company, the predecessor to the one that owns Capital City now, said Columbia could not support such a large facility, Brazell said.

"We did the thing on our own and operated it for 10 years as a nonprofit," he said. "It was not printing money, but it was going along just fine."

Columbia attorney I.S. Leevy Johnson, the first black president of the S.C. Bar, was one of the club's founders.

To Johnson, Capital City symbolizes a societal goal that has been met. "It has exceeded what it set out to accomplish."

Reach LeBlanc at (803) 771-8664.

AP-NY-08-12-08 2214EDT

This story was originally published August 13, 2008 at 12:25 AM with the headline "Columbia club open to all celebrates 20th anniversary."