The Singles Trade

On the dance floor couples are doing everything from the Lizard to the Jackdaw Strut in response to the band's high-decibel efforts. As respite to ears and feet, a mentalist is brought out. He memorizes and repeats backward a long list of items thrown at him by the spectators. The answers reflect the evening's mood: lips, left breast, vasectomy, sandbox, postnasal drip. A new arrival, watching from a wallflower's position, gets a friendly approach: "Hi, aren't you talking to anybody? I'm Lois. You shouldn't be shy around here."

First night out on a cruise ship? A campus mixer for freshmen? A new crowd gathering for a resort weekend? None of these. It is instead a get-acquainted scene at a new establishment called Chateau D'Vie, which bills itself as the "untraditional year-round country club for singles only."

Situated on a pleasant, 140-acre site in Spring Valley, a northwestern suburb of New York City, the club offers golf, tennis, indoor and outdoor swimming, dining, dancing and other diversions. It also has 60 bedrooms, all with twin beds. Since married people are barred from membership, couples obviously cannot register as Mr. and Mrs.; beyond that, the management takes a laissez-faire attitude.

Bunking on the premises is not really the prime attraction anyway. The entrepreneurs, who envision 3,000 members in Spring Valley--and eventually branches in other states--think that the lure is a civilized social life for the unmarried and unconnected. Providing services for singles is obviously a growth industry, as attested to by the proliferation of singles bars, singles apartment projects, singles nights at resorts and computerized dating firms. The high divorce rate, particularly among the middle class, brings many new customers to the field yearly.

Businessmen Harvey Klaris and Richard Kovner, both 33, say that their country club offers an alternative for people who want to mix without pressure to make an instant connection, as in a singles bar. But their approach seems to generate its own pressure. One staffer observes: "People come together like this because they're lonely. The singles business is a sad business."

Outgoing. To overcome that sadness, the management seems relentlessly determined to ensure that everyone is cheerfully with it. There is much jargon about the "dynamics of member interaction." What kind of interactors? "We want an outgoing, social person," says Membership Coordinator Robing Raderman. "Someone who will be an asset." Activities Director David Malachowski says: "We were going to require members to take at least one seminar [at $10 a session], but since our yoga and group-encounter classes are already oversubscribed, we have done away with compulsion." Malachowski plans to organize "a lot of outdoor sleeping activity--back to nature on the ground, you know."

Cory Elkins, the entertainment director, wants members to confect their own variety shows with the help of staffers. "I'm looking for house entertainment," he says. "Everyone--parking-lot attendants, life guards--should have some singing or acting ability. After all, there's more to life than just dating." But most who have come for a look around realize that meeting "someone" remains the point of it all. Joan Petti, a divorced mother of two, decided that she probably would not join. "A club with these ideas has potential," she says, "but it could also attract a lot of losers. People think that they're going to find the person of their dreams. There are going to be a lot of disappointments." Unless, of course, one has always dreamed of meeting a singing parking-lot attendant.

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