Fire Guts The Landing Clubhouse and ESSĒ Restaurant at Reynolds Lake Oconee in Georgia
A Saturday night fire on October 10 gutted The Landing clubhouse and its ESSĒ restaurant at Reynolds Lake Oconee in Greensboro, Georgia. No one was injured, and the cause remains under investigation.
A clubhouse fire on Saturday night, October 10, 2026, gutted The Landing clubhouse and its signature restaurant, ESSĒ, at Reynolds Lake Oconee in Greensboro, Georgia, a little more than an hour east of Atlanta. No one was injured.
Greene County Fire Rescue reached the scene in about five minutes and found the 20,000-square-foot building heavily involved, FOX 5 Atlanta reported. Crews fought the blaze with a deck gun and a 2.5-inch hose line while firefighters from more than a dozen agencies joined as high winds complicated the effort. They held the fire to the structure and worked hot spots through Sunday, while Oconee County Fire Rescue covered Station 12 and sent relief crews, according to Atlanta News First.
Reynolds staff cleared every patron and confirmed each room was empty before leaving, FOX 5 reported. Greene County Fire Rescue posted on Facebook, "We are incredibly grateful for the hard work, dedication, and teamwork demonstrated by every department and responder involved."
The cause remains unknown and under investigation. Atlanta television reporter Cody Alcorn said the building appears to be a total loss, according to Golfweek, and locals told him the fire may have started at an outdoor fireplace involving propane, which is unconfirmed. Officials have not established the full extent of the damage.
In March 2024, Reynolds announced that The Landing Clubhouse had reopened after a year-long renovation the club called a "total transformation." ESSĒ was reworked and enlarged into more open, connected rooms, centered on an octagonal bar under vaulted ceilings, a blown-glass sphere light fixture, a Blue Roma Quartzite bar top, and dark wood arches along the ceiling. A veranda, reached from the dining room or a new outdoor staircase, looked through woods and water toward The Landing golf course.
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The renovated building also held six guestrooms and a private entrance for Inn guests. DreamBuilt served as builder, and The Johnson Studio, which also designed The National Tavern and the Creek Club clubhouse renovation at Reynolds, led the interior design.
Pamela Shelley, a PGA professional at The Landing, wrote on Facebook, "This is a very sad day for our team that call Landing our home," Golfweek reported. Member Justin Cullifer told Atlanta News First, "Just the scale of it was hard to wrap our heads around." He described ESSĒ as the "it" place among The Landing's restaurants, upscale in feel, and recalled birthday lunches, company meetings, a luncheon the day after his wedding, and families with kids doing homework there. "It was such an investment for the neighborhood to make, and now it's gone," he said.
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Reynolds Lake Oconee spans 12,000 acres and holds seven courses, with an eighth, the members-only Fenmoor Golf Club, scheduled to open later this fall. As of Monday, Reynolds had not announced plans to rebuild the clubhouse or to offer temporary dining.
Other clubs have faced the same choice, including the Lochmoor Club in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, which has confirmed its intent to rebuild after its own recent fire, and Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, New Jersey, whose original clubhouse burned in 1909 before the club rebuilt with the Tudor clubhouse by architect Chester Hugh Kirk that still stands.
A clubhouse is where a golf community gathers off the course. This building's worth was never only in its quartzite bar or the dark wood arches added in 2024. It rested in the everyday life those rooms held, from birthday lunches and company meetings to children's homework, and that is what the community lost on Saturday night.
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