We spent a couple hours on the phone last month with Jim Tousignant, the founder and CEO of Ultimate Resort, and over the next few weeks we will continue to write about his club , as well as provide a more complete club profile in the Decision Guide. Jim has identified what he thinks is the ‘sweet spot’ in the market – providing $2 million value homes, but at lower member deposit levels, and in doing so, he hopes to establish Ultimate as one of the ‘best values’ in the industry. Having opened the club to new members in March ‘05, they added 55 members in the first year, and now have 7 homes. A good start, no doubt in part due the passion that he exudes for the business.

His club is following what is emerging as a fairly typical model for a non-equity membership club: 80% of the deposit is refundable (and this improves over time, so that you can get 100% back after 7 years), the 20% that is not, is used for club operations and marketing, and the homes are being purchased with 50% equity and 50% debt.

Jim has been successful in the financial services/internet sector (founder and CEO of a public company called Multex), and has now built a seasoned team around him at Ultimate – and he will need this talent and experience, as they have their work cut out for them, like many of the other clubs that are in this same stage of development.

Back to those iPods: Jim intends to build technology into all of his homes, from iPod hook-ups to a dedicated high-end PC in each home. He also intends to provide members with a ‘smart card’ that will allow members to walk in to a home and have it customise to their profile – including displaying their photos on the flat screen TV’s. Clearly it’s not easy for clubs to make sure all the technology works consistently in these homes (spa heaters, game consoles, cappucino machines, stereo systems etc), but we do think that members will expect more, not less, technology. If clubs are selling the concept of “your home away from home”, then at least one high-end PC on a wireless network should become standard. Ultimate seems to be ahead of the game on this one.