Wielding A Club

 

If Victor Barouh likes you, he will invite you to La Casa De Ensuenos Golf Club. And if you like Barouh, you will be there. Go at least 10 times in a season, and you are an honorary member of the Bronx-born Barouh's private, 14-acre Connecticut weekend get-away-from-the-city retreat. It is not exactly a Rockresort, but it is turned out in first-class style and, for New Yorkers, it will do nicely.

Anyway, Barouh, 57, doesn't tolerate putting on airs, which is how it all began. About 20 years ago, relates Barouh, founder and chief executive officer of Brooklyn-based Barouh-Eaton Allen Corp. (see "One Man's Family," page 151), he joined a country club. "People there were more interested in impressing you with how much money they had, how important they were, or what they could sell you," he says. Barouh realized this wasn't the life of leisure for him.

Instead, he bought some wooded acreage with a small lake and a dilapidated house and, over 17 years, designed and built his own club, dubbed La Casa De Ensuenos -- House of Dreams. ("I always dreamed of having it," he explains, "so what else would I call it?") La Casa boasts a pool, lake fishing, tennis courts, three golf greens playable from 18 tees, plenty of beds, and a freezer full of home-cooked meals for last-minute arrivals or overflow crowds.

There is not a nickel of company money in the place, Barouh insists, and it is not kept on the books. Which means the Internal Revenue Service has nothing to say about who is invited, or whether they talk business or play Ping-Pong. It is a place Barouh built to enjoy, and to enjoy his friends enjoying. On average, 10 or 12 of them, but frequently more, arrive on a given weekend between April and the end of November. He and his wife, who operates her own Manhattan office-supply business, drive up every Friday.

There, Barouh stands ready to be host, not to business big shots, but to many of his own employees. "They know they can call and ask if they can come up, and I'll say 'Of course.' Sometimes I'll take a look and see who hasn't come recently. I'll phone 'em and say, 'Why do I hafta keep calling you?"