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WOODSTOCK ATHLETIC CLUB
Eleven acres in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Racket sports, hoops, the pond, and a social calendar worth keeping.
A private athletic and social club of considerable reputation and very little exclusivity. Eleven acres of rackets, hoops, the pond, and a social calendar kept by the Club Secretary with great seriousness.
FOUNDED IN JEST · PLAYED IN EARNEST
THE FIELDHOUSE
THE FIELDHOUSE
Recently completed at enormous effort by the membership, the Fieldhouse offers a regulation-adjacent half court, a game room of some distinction, a soccer wall, and a clubhouse bar where the game is always on and the lemonade is never complimentary.
Court & kick wall
Court & kick wall
Half-court basketball, pickleball and badminton lines, and a folding soccer goal.
Game room
Game room
Ping pong, air hockey and the honor boards. Gloating is permitted for one full day after a victory.
The clubhouse bar
The clubhouse bar
Catering and bartending by our esteemed partners at Schooner or Later. Members' tabs are settled annually, or never.
RACKETS
Courts & the WAC OFF
HOOPS
Half court, indoors
THE POND
Fishing, paddling, swimming, the the WAC Reggata
SOCIAL
Luaus, invitationals, fire pit
A PROUD HISTORY
A brief and largely accurate history
A brief and largely accurate history
A BRIEF AND LARGELY ACCURATE HISTORY
Every great club begins with a shortage. Ours was a shortage of places to go.
In the spring of 2020, the future founders of the Club found themselves confined to quarters with two small children and a basement. Rather than despair, they did what any reasonable family would do: they opened a restaurant. Schooner or Later served its first menu to a dining room of four, two of whom required booster seats. Reservations were strongly encouraged and entirely unnecessary. The menu has changed every season since, and the kitchen has never officially closed.
Meanwhile, out in Woodstock, a steel fieldhouse was rising among the black walnuts. It was raised by a man who looked at an empty lawn beside a pond and saw a place where people would gather. He got the walls up and the roof on, and left the rest to the next generation, which is the traditional way to build anything worth having.
For a time the building stood as half a promise: a shell, a slab, and a great deal of storage. The next generation inherited the keys, a considerable stack of paperwork, and a growing suspicion that the barn was meant for more than the lawn mower.
So the work began. Lights went up. Lines went down on the floor. A bar was built, and a bathroom appeared where none had been, to universal acclaim. Schooner or Later agreed to provision the venture, tabs to be settled annually, or never. And in 2025 the Woodstock Athletic Club was formally established at its first sanctioned event, the WAC OFF, a charity racket tournament played under the banner of Mainsail Renewables. Sportsmanship was expected. Trash talk was regulated. A champion was recorded in chalk.
Since then the Club has acquired a court, a kick wall, a game room, a kayak of undefeated reputation, and a Board of Governors that meets whenever the snacks run out. The pond has hosted a regatta. The porch has hosted a luau in January. Plans for the Links are underway, pending the cooperation of the walnuts.
The Club remains small and strictly by invitation, and invitations are given out freely. There are no dues. Members are asked only to show up, to stand still for the group photograph, and to honor the principle that came with the building itself: a place is only finished when people fill it.
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