14 minute read
Seeing MAC Through New Eyes
Recently joined members capture club’s infinite possibilities
There’s never enough time for all that MAC has to offer. That seems to be a through line for new members, and probably many who’ve been part of the club for decades. When more than 20,000 people make up a community, attempting to find any constants related to their diverse experiences might seem like folly, but similarities suggest themselves, nonetheless.
First of all, MAC’s community isn’t the only one in its members’ lives. The club’s ability to meet, and often exceed, the needs of those who’ve learned to define the term “community” in so many different ways is a testament to its near-universal appeal. For example, Les Vuylsteke joined the club in retirement after working in university systems most of his life, when his search for a new place to serve both his social and athletic needs led him to the perfect deployment of his hard-earned savings.
Arturus Espaillat grew up the Dominican Republic, spending his free time in a private club where kids could play by the pool while parents socialized. His wife, Ashlee, on the other hand, sees comparisons with her time swimming competitively in high school.
As a longtime former lobbyist and current director of children’s cancer charity UKANDU, Jason Hickox has been a part of both the competitive world of Washington, D.C. politics and the nurturing environs of the nonprofit sector. Yet he continues to find new and life-affirming connections in a club brimming over with individuals who never stop seizing the day.
What one place could possibly resonate with all of these disparate journeys? Every member knows the answer, but it’s still worth looking at the value of membership through the eyes of the recently initiated. Even the seasoned might be surprised at what they find.
Home Away from Home
Les Vuylsteke might not be able to see like he used to, but it doesn’t always take 20/20 vision to recognize a good investment. Diagnosed with Fuchs Dystrophy a number of years ago, Vuylsteke is now legally blind, which isn’t the same as being totally blind, he points out.
A former university librarian, the 73-yearold says he regularly consumed a book or more daily for more than 40 years. His diminishing eyesight has slowed that pace, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. His doctor has taught him a variety of coping mechanisms that make reading possible, and Vuylsteke still manages to enjoy one of his primary passions, learning about the world.
After retiring 15 years ago, he moved from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Portland in search of new life experiences, from joining St. Mary’s Cathedral, to volunteering with Central City
Concern, or researching local history — including MAC’s — at the library. At that time, joining this club meant being proposed by a member and entering into a lottery, which didn’t immediately make sense to him. After attending a number of club functions as a guest over the years, and a fateful meeting with his lawyer, Vuylsteke reconsidered the proposition.
“When I was making up my will, he said, ‘When are you going to start spending your money? You’re giving all this money away when you die, but why don’t you spend some in your lifetime?’ [I decided that] yeah, I think it’ll be worth the money,” Vuylsteke said. “And who knows? I have a friend who’s 101, and that’s 28 years from now for me. So, I may get my money’s worth even yet!
The point is, I’ve already, in these few months that I’ve been a member, gotten more benefit than if I had not been a member. It’s added a new dimension to my life.
That dimension has both physical and social aspects, the combination of which was a key factor for Vuylsteke in choosing a second home. “I was used to swimming and working out when I was younger at the university facilities, and I found out that there was nothing else quite like that here in Portland. You can join a health club, but it’s not going to be a social center. It’s not going to have a slew of activities for all ages, all different backgrounds.”
Living just a few blocks away from MAC in Goose Hollow, Vuylsteke regularly comes to the club in the afternoon to swim, play cards with friends, or just grab a bite to eat at the Sports Pub. Having recently attended his first Easter Brunch as a member, he’s already looking forward to hosting loved ones for Thanksgiving in November. “I’ve only been a member since March, and so I’m still concentrating on what I do know. I definitely will be using MAC for entertaining my friends at mealtimes, and it’s nice to know the club has other dining areas that I’ve never used.”
Despite spending decades in education, Vuylsteke compares himself to college freshman exploring a new campus for the first time. Wayfinding is still a challenge, but meeting new people and finding a sense of serenity in the middle of the city are not.
“I don’t have very high goals. It’s not like I’m going to become a handball player or anything like that,” says Vuylsteke, who’s working with his doctor on a gradual, phased approach to working out at the club. “Let’s just say that the club has everything and more than I need at this stage of my life.”
Activities for All Ages
Even when members don’t have time to use all of MAC’s amenities themselves, it can be reassuring to know they exist. Ashlee Espaillat first explored the club in detail during a scavenger hunt organized by the Membership department, and she still hasn’t been able to get back to everything she discovered that day.
That’s partially because Ashlee and her husband Arturus own their own business, Atlas Pathfinder, LLC, which assists with the transport of wind turbines. According to Arturus, he barely has time for a nap, let alone playing the squash or tennis he dreams of someday tackling.
While their initial inspiration for joining MAC was the enhancement of business connections — at the time, Ashlee was a partner at Dunn Carney LLP and Arturus had left Vestas-American Wind Technology Inc. to start Atlas Pathfinder — the couple has come to realize that their daughter, Amaia, is the main beneficiary of their membership.
The idea of our daughter having something like MAC for her to grow up in, it’s the best thing that I think we could give her,” Arturus says. “It’s a fantastic way of keeping her engaged because she’s a very energetic person. If she’s not actively doing something, she’s going to just get bored and ...
“Tear the house down,” Ashlee finishes his sentence. Both laugh.
A similarly energetic child, Arturus had what he refers to as “the MAC of the DR” to teach him to swim, play tennis and soccer, and just generally stay out of trouble while growing up. “It was everything, and it was a big part of my life,” he explains. “We were part of teams that would play against other centers like that or other schools, and it’s one of the most vivid memories I have. So, when we got the opportunity of coming to MAC, it wasn’t so much for me [as for her].”
Based on the “societies” of Northern Spain — Arturus’ family fled the country after nationalist dictator Francisco Franco came to power — the Spanish Center (Centro Español), as it was known by all the exiles who founded it, was a home away from home for their families. He and his brother would walk the few short blocks to recreate while adults enjoyed libations, cigars, cards, and dominoes in a nearby clubhouse.
“MAC is all that for us. It’s just a place for Amaia to build relationships and skills. She’s already swimming. I mean, she’s climbing rock walls — a 5-year-old!”
The daughter of a blue-collar home builder, Ashlee grew up in the mountains outside of Yosemite National Park in California before moving down to San Diego. While she was never part of any private club, her experience swimming competitively through high school helped her learn teamwork while enhancing her drive to excel, and she ended up studying at UCLA and eventually, law at UC Hastings.
Bringing this mix of perspectives to their MAC membership, both say they’ve been pleasantly surprised at the way the club has defied expectations.
“I was always under the illusion that MAC was this preppy place where only very rich people with the best gear would go, and that I was going to feel out of place there because I don’t dress like that. I was very wrong,” Arturus says. “It has a very human spirit. You have people from all sides, so you can see it from all perspectives, and they are just trying to go there and have a good experience.”
“All the people that we’ve met, especially through our daughter’s classes, haven’t been people that I would consider elitist or anything like that,” Ashlee continues the thread. “They’re very open and warm, and in our similar situation as parents of young children.”
Both say that employees are always friendly, and club leadership does a good job communicating policy decisions and soliciting feedback from the membership. While they’ve felt the pinch of trying to get Amaia into every class she wants to take during busy registration periods, they’ve been able to keep her occupied enough to occasionally enjoy MAC themselves.
“We had one of our only date nights since COVID at the club attending the Winestock event,” Ashlee reports. “We attended the holiday party [with Amaia] and saw the lighting of the tree, and made gingerbread houses, too.”
The Espaillats bring friends to the club for dinner and cocktails, attend the occasional Timbers game, and Ashlee uses Amaia’s back-to-back swim lessons as an opportunity to grab a quick workout, even if it’s just walking the indoor track and watching fellow members play pickleball on the courts below. They also see the potential in the future to explore more sports as their entrepreneurial workloads ebb and flow.
“It’s just like, ‘What do you want to do?’ The number of sports and social activities MAC offers, I’ve never seen something like that. You even have batting cages!” Arturus exclaims.
One of Ashlee and Amaia’s traditions when Arturus travels is stopping by the Sports Pub after swim lessons for dinner. The younger Espaillat almost never fails to order the chicken and vegetable soup, but her mom hasn’t yet settled on a go-to, inadvertently summing up the exciting thing about membership. “I’m trying different things. I haven’t found my favorite dish yet, but I look forward to continuing to explore the menu.”
Life is for the Living
Jason Hickox likes to joke that his current position as Executive Director of UKANDU in Portland is a form of penance for his previous career as a lobbyist, but his relationship with the nonprofit serving kids with cancer predates his graduation from high school, let alone even his earliest jobs. He started volunteering there at age 17.
“I was an otherwise punk kid getting ready for my senior year. I had a good family and was probably going to be a decent individual, but that experience changed me and became the through line for my life,” Hickox explains. For the week of camp, his volunteer role was to watch over a group of 8-year-olds. On the last day of camp, while waiting for his mom to pick him up, he struck up a conversation with a 17-year-old camp attendee.
“She told me that she was going into her senior year, but simultaneously she was going to be a sophomore in college. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool,’ and wasn’t really tracking. She said that she wanted to be the first person in her family to graduate college, and that was impressive enough that she was thinking about such things at that age.
“As the conversation wore on, I recognized that she knew she wasn’t going to make it because she was dying. That was my wakeup call about life, and after that, every year I came home from college or work, I went back to volunteer again.”
Hickox says that, particularly when he was in a place like D.C., whenever he would hear people lament about their lives or the state of the world, he always had the benefit of that perspective. He knew there were a couple of hundred families in Oregon, and so many more across the country, who would trade their problems for whatever was being complained about.
“These 8-year-olds who are facing their own mortality? They’re the best livers of life,” Hickox opines. “Bud Lewis was like that, too. Carpe diem. Suck the marrow out.” If this seems like an abrupt change of conversational direction, it actually isn’t. Hickox has been trying to define the commonality between the best and most inspiring members of MAC, and his recollections of children racing against time remind him of the gusto with which one of the club’s most well-known members approached his final years, and perhaps most of his life.
As a Lincoln High School grad, Hickox has known MAC forever, and when he returned to Portland to join UKANDU, he knew he’d find a sense of community at the club. His workouts have changed since those early days playing soccer and outdoor volleyball, and MAC’s premium fitness facilities were appealing in the variety they offered.
Hickox met Lewis through fellow member Darren Vick and was honored to be invited to a lunch with the legend and five or six of his friends at MAC. “He took a liking to me, and we spent some time together,” Hickox recalls. “I would be careful to compare myself to Bud or say that we had a ton of similarities, but we’re both social. He was an older gentleman who loved life. I’ve been surrounded by kids facing their own mortality since I was 17. I think we appreciated each other’s love of life and were able to connect on that level.”
Lewis liked to talk about receiving the energy of his fellow members through osmosis, explains Hickox, before adding that he was always trying to soak up whatever it was in Lewis that made him live life with such gusto past the age of 100.
“Bud was all-welcoming, inviting, and engaging. I would like the definition of a MAC member to look as much like him as it could.” While Lewis was never involved with club politics, "Hickox has made it his business to get involved with the club committee system, adding another layer to his new-member experience of hitting the Fitness Room, sometimes eating up to three meals a day at the club, and perpetually searching out quiet nooks in which to conduct business. As part of the Membership Committee, he’s committed to keeping the spirit as inclusive and energizing as possible."
“I have a tinkerer’s mind, and I like learning about the inner workings of this place. I didn’t join the club just to work out or drink. If I’m going to call myself a member, I want to be involved,” he says. “Most members might not understand the time and commitment that staff and other volunteer members put into helping the club run so well, and it’s given me a newfound appreciation for what our trustees do. I used to say to my family and friends here in Portland, when I was in D.C., that everybody’s entitled to an opinion, but your opinion matters more if you’re participating in the system.
“What I would say to a new member is, take advantage of the free training session we get. Take a tour or two with staff or a member that you know, perhaps your proposer. Engage in the community around you because it’s really the only way to build on what exists. Adding your influence to that community is a real opportunity.” WM
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