The Acadian Club

At a recent estate sale, I came across a couple of membership directories from the Acadian Club, a country club for teenagers that flourished in Baton Rouge from the late 1950s through 1980. 

It got me thinking about my own brief sojourn there, which was limited to a few Saturday-night dances and a class in—of all things—synchronized swimming. 

On Facebook’s Baton Rouge Historical Group and Old Images of Baton Rouge, I discovered that many natives still share fond memories of the place. Then, a Google search turned up a 1964 LSU dissertation on recreational clubs in the city that included a section on the Acadian Club.

Modeled after the Valencia Club in New Orleans, the Acadian Club was opened in 1956 by a group of like-minded parents led by Mrs. Homer Tanner, whose teenage daughter had “made demands” for better social and recreational opportunities. 

The first group of five hundred members was drawn from ninth-to-twelfth-grade students at Baton Rouge, University, and Catholic high schools, St. Joseph’s Academy, and Westdale, Baton Rouge, and Glasgow junior high schools. Later, students from Lee Junior and Senior High, St. Joseph’s Parochial School, and Woodlawn students were added. The membership fee was $135.

That year, the club purchased the Jefferson Country Club property on Jefferson Highway, which encompassed a two-story clubhouse, a swimming pool, and eight acres of land. 

The main hall of the clubhouse, with its 2,500 square feet and a hardwood floor, was a brick addition to the property’s original wood frame house. It expanded the home’s living room and incorporated the original staircase to the second floor. Purchase price was $65,000. 

“That’s where I learned social skills, how to dance the Twist, and slow dancing. We’d practice cutting in, tapping some guy on the shoulder.”

Dr. Francis Drury, a professor of Physical Education at LSU, was engaged to direct the club along with Sally and Melvin Meyers, a young couple with a baby daughter, to work as live-in managers. The family lived on the second floor of the main building. By the time they left six years later, they had four children living in the apartment.

Built in the 1920s by the McInnis family on land that once made up Inniswold Plantation, the white frame two-story house “had fabulous bones,” recalls Nancy Jo Poirrier, who with her husband Hickey worked at the club in the 1960s. “The main room had a curved staircase. At the landing you faced a mirror that was twenty feet tall, a gigantic mirror that went up to the second floor. It was just gorgeous.”

“It looked like a southern mansion,” remembers Sally Meyers. “A beautiful old house with wooden floors that were polished until they sparkled. When you walked in the first thing you saw was the dance floor, which had columns up to the ceiling.”

Baton Rouge teenagers used the space for Saturday dances from 8 until midnight. Adults manned a table at the door, collected the fifty-cent cover charge, and stamped the hands of the boys and girls, who often came in groups rather than on dates.

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They danced to such R&B stars as Slim Harpo, Irma Thomas, James “Sugar Boy” Crawford, Dave Bartholomew, Bobby Loveless, Jimmy Clanton, John Fred and the Playboys, and Johnny Ramistella (Johnny Rivers).

“The dances were great,” says Wade Adams, a member in the 1960s. “That’s where I learned social skills, how to dance the Twist, and slow dancing. We’d practice cutting in, tapping some guy on the shoulder.”

On one memorable occasion around 1963, the club brought Ray Charles to the bandstand. “I remember when his bus arrived,” recalls Milou Rubenstein Barry. “Everybody was standing there cheering for him. It was a big deal.”

When the band took a break, Barry slid onto the piano bench next to the musician. “I actually sat and played boogie-woogie with him,” she marvels. “I had no idea how famous he was and would be. I’m sorry we didn’t have cell-phone cameras then!”

Another Saturday-night draw was chaperoned trips to LSU football games. “We had seats in the end zone,” says Sally Meyers.

“We had five city buses loaded to the gills, with kids hanging out the windows,” says Hickey Poirrier. “After the game, we went back to the club for a dance.”

Poirrier was pool manager in the 1960s and coached the baseball team. “We’d practice, then jump in the pool and swim, then go back and practice some more.” 

“We learned how to walk, how to turn around and come back, how get into a car—butt first, keep your legs together and swing them in."

Daytime events included swimming and diving (the club boasted both a swimming and a diving pool), miniature golf, tennis, volleyball, gymnastics, skeet shooting, archery, and working out in the weight room. Some members recall horse shows on the grounds.

Indoor activities included pool, ping-pong, chess, checkers, and card games like Hearts and Bourré. Marti Hall Bell was on the teen board of directors in the sixties. “I got them to allow the girls time in the pool room,” she remembers. “Before that it was boys only.”

Members could also choose among classes in bridge, sewing, typing, shorthand, speed-reading, art, and “charm.”

“The charm classes taught modeling,” recalls Linda Lynch. “We learned how to walk, how to turn around and come back, how get into a car—butt first, keep your legs together and swing them in. When we completed the class, we put on a fashion show, walking up and down the staircase in clothes provided by local stores. We changed in the large girls’ restroom upstairs. I was a model in the 1970s and I used the skills I learned at the Acadian Club.” 

Lynch also starred in the club’s production of  Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. “We had huge attendance,” she said. “I still have my Best Actress award.” 

“The plays were quite successful, with both boys and girls trying out,” says director Nancy Jo Poirrier. “Eventually, Dr. Drury built a theater that seated a hundred people. It had a stage, curtains, lighting. We started doing three-act plays and even musicals.”

Jim Kemp, a member in the 1970s, says the theater had a movie screen. “I helped put reels on the projector.” 

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Another 1970s member, Connie McLeod, took driving lessons at the club at fifteen. “The teacher Al Tremont said me and my best friend were his worst students,” she says. “He also taught us to do flips on the trampoline.”

Although most remember halcyon days and magical times, it wasn’t all roses. Some members felt left out or snubbed, and the odor of White Privilege was unmistakable. And then there were outright tragedies.

In October 1965, Woodlawn student Skip Varnado was at the Saturday-night dance with his friend and fellow musician Tim Rockett. Tim got a call that his brother Mike had been in a car wreck on Jefferson Highway, not far from the club. 

“Half the people at the dance went down there but the police wouldn’t let anyone get too close.” recalls Varnado. “It was terrible.”

The driver, Ronnie Malone, had crashed the Rockett brothers’ Corvair into a utility pole at high speed, and was killed on impact. Mike Rockett was critically injured, but he and the three other passengers survived. “It was a sad time for Woodlawn,” says Varnado.

Two years later, in September 1967, manager Roland Chimento and his wife were asleep in the upstairs apartment when their dog Queenie’s frantic barking woke them. They stumbled out of bed to find that the building was on fire. Grabbing Queenie, they climbed through a window onto the roof of the back porch and leapt to safety. 

Three fire trucks raced to the scene, but the club was outside city limits and there were no hydrants. Firefighters drained their pump trucks then siphoned water from the swimming pool. The main building was a total loss.

The club hired architect Roy Haase to build a one-story, air-conditioned brick replacement clubhouse that opened in July 1968 with a Saturday night dance featuring local band Isoceles Popsicle.

Around 1980, the club was disbanded and the property sold to the First Baptist Church, which used it as a recreation center. The church later sold the property to Woman’s Hospital, which demolished the building and in 2003 replaced it with the Woman’s Center for Wellness. 

Today Connie McLeod works at Woman’s as a graphics designer. “The Acadian Club was slightly past its glory days when I was a member, but it was still fabulous,” she says. “It was this great safe haven.”

Ruth Laney can be reached at ruthlaney@cox.net.