The Sporting Club

"My clients' most valuable asset is their time, not necessarily their money," explains Darien resident Steve Schram. Schram is Chairman of Dolan, Pollak & Schram Development Company, LLC, which develops luxury resort communities or "sporting clubs" in beautiful places, some on historically significant properties, around the globe. They include the Greenbrier Sporting Club in West Virginia, the Snake River Sporting Club in Wyoming, The Ford Plantation in Georgia, Deep Water Cay in Grand Bahamas and the Turks & Caicos Sporting Club at Ambergris Cay in the British West Indies.
These resort communities (most with home sites as well as completed houses) provide second, even third homes for families who want to spend their time together. "Among them are many very successful young grandparents who want to be with their families as they grow. They want to be able to have fun together, even do the little things like washing dishes with one another. The build dorms so their grandchildren can play together and laugh themselves to sleep," he says.
Schram believes that in order for families to really enjoy themselves, everyone has to be able to do what they want to do on vacation. "If the wife's not happy, the husband's not happy. If the kids are not happy, the parents are not happy." With this in mind, his sporting clubs offer a smorgasbord of activities including fishing, horseback riding, spa services and naturalist programs.
For each of their destinations, Schram and his partner, Peter Pollak, feel less is more. "People don't want to be on top of one another," he explains. Indeed, for his company, it's not how many houses you can fit into the landscape, it's more about creating beautiful homes that fit into the scenery. It's also about being surrounded by an environment where the possibilities for adventure are endless.
Perhaps most important, however, is DPS's understanding that not everybody wants the same thing. "At the Greenbrier, some people want to be near the hotel, some want to be on the golf course, on the stream, or on the mountain." He adds, "with communications today, you don't have to live and work in one place. You can live in two or three places that are very different from one another."
If you love the great outdoors, you could have a home at the Snake River Sporting Club, which is located in the Snake River Canyon just south of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Here home sites range from half an acre to 3.5 acres, offering unparalleled backcountry access. You could divide your time between fly-fishing, white-water rafting, rock climbing, hiking, horseback riding, and playing golf, tennis or squash in warm weather months, and heliskiing, snowboarding and snowshoeing in winter. If you prefer the basking beauty of a sun drenched locale, you could have a home on a private 1,100-acre island in the Turks and Caicos. When completed, this stunning club will be self-contained and have its own airstrip and marina. There will be an equestrian center, more than ten miles of hiking and biking trails (over cliffs and along the beach), world-class sportfishing and deep-sea diving as well as programs for sea kayaking, kite boarding, sailing, windsurfing, whale and dolphin watching. On many levels, Schram considers himself his own best client. "If it doesn't get past me it won't work," he says. That has to do with all of the development details as well as the recreational pursuits. Schram is an avid skier, golfer, fisherman and sailor. Like some of his clients, he is able to mix work with pleasure. A typical business-as-usual week for him includes a couple of days in his New York City office and two or three days jetting between the islands, the Tetons and the mountains of West Virginia in order to visit sites and meet with various managers and operations people. "If there's a good snowfall while I'm in Jackson, I can take a few runs before I get started," he says. Schram prides himself on surrounding himself with professionals who love doing what they do. "People are motivated and want to do what they're good at." This applies to everyone he works with. He's also very conscious of what real costs can be. "It's also important to be extremely conservative with costs and have contingency plans."
Having an exciting professional perch is not something new for Schram. Before becoming chairman of Dolan, Pollak & Schram in 1998, he was President of the Boston Celtics Limited Partnership, Vice-Chairman of the basketball team and President of the Celtics Communications Company. Prior to that, he spent seven years as Vice President of Fixed Income for Morgan Stanley. Schram graduated from the University of Wyoming and earned and MBA/MAPP from Duke University. And recently, he has had the great honor of being appointed by President Bush to the Board of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
As busy as he may be at DPS, Schram also keeps busy on the home front with his wife Patti and two daughters (ages 11 and 13). He's always coaching one of his children's teams, whether it's soccer or lacrosse. And on most Saturdays, between mid-June and Labor Day, you can find him sailing on Hogzilla, his beloved Etchell, which he named after a barbecue team he was on as a young man in Memphis. Perhaps it was that barbecue team, by the way, that planted the seeds of good fun and team spirit that have made him the success he is today.


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