RaNic Golf Club

RaNic Golf Club resolves one of this batch's most tangled identity questions. Discovery found two seemingly conflicting claims: that the Country Club of Ithaca was still independently operating, and that RaNic Golf Club was 'formerly known as' the Country Club of Ithaca. Cross-referencing local business press (the Ithaca Voice, ithaca.com, and the trade outlet Club + Resort Business) against directory listings resolves this cleanly: they are the same physical club at 189 Pleasant Grove Rd, Ithaca, founded in March 1900 by Ithaca businessmen and Cornell faculty. Local businessman and longtime member Sean Whittaker purchased the property in 2020/2021 and renamed it RaNic Golf Club, after his children Rachel and Nicholas -- the countryclubofithaca.com domain and several third-party directory listings that still surface under the old name are legacy branding for the same entity, not a second club.

Under Whittaker's ownership the club initially repositioned toward public accessibility -- opening the course and restaurant to public play while retaining an optional membership tier -- and in 2022 announced a real, publicly reported redevelopment plan for a small boutique hotel (24-32 rooms) and roughly 30 one- and two-story townhouses for sale on the property, seeking town/village zoning approval. This research found no source confirming that plan was ever built or that any townhouse was sold; the most recent sourcing found (2025-2026 directory and membership-page language) instead shows the club transitioning back toward a private, membership-only model, without further mention of the hotel/townhouse plan. Given the lack of confirmation the development was completed, this record qualifies RaNic on its current private-club membership barrier alone, not on the proposed-but-unconfirmed residential product -- consistent with how this platform has treated other announced-but-not-yet-built projects (e.g. New York's own Grossinger's redevelopment, deferred rather than qualified).