By LEONARD GRAY

RESERVE – For more than 40 years, the Community Club of the Godchaux Sugar Refinery was at the heart of Reserve’s social life.

On Wednesday, with no buyers in sight, the Port of South Louisiana granted a contract to demolish the 80-year-old clubhouse, locally known as the “Pink House” for its distinctive color.

Boss Hoss Demolition was awarded the contract for $35,735.

The Reserve Community Club, to give it its proper name, was first organized on Oct. 29, 1920 for the benefit of Godchaux Sugar employees, and included such features as a public library, recreational games and an indoor swimming pool.

A dance pavilion stood on the north side, tennis courts were nearby and a baseball park stood between the clubhouse and River Road.

And more was to come. The Feb. 5, 1921 issue of L’Observateur noted: “The newest addition to the attractions offered citizens of this parish by the new Reserve Community Club is a motion picture show.

Performances being held on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and evenings. This feature already bids fair to surpass in popularity all of the Club’s many other forms of diversion.”

The club officers included a president and a club steward, who oversaw day-to-day operations of the facility, which attracted people well into the 1950s. The movie theater changed from silent films to sound movies and added air conditioning in 1929 for the theater and dance pavilion. That made it the first public building between New Orleans and Baton Rouge to have air conditioning.

However, the days of such employee benefits faded with the years. The Godchaux-Henderson Sugar Refinery shut its doors forever in 1985, and the Port of South Louisiana acquired the defunct sugar refinery soon afterward. Since then, most of the old refinery buildings have been razed.

Now, with most of the refinery buildings gone, the port plans to locate a laydown yard for cargo at the clubhouse site, according to assistant port director Henry Sullivan. Five years ago, some of the port’s offices were even located in the clubhouse, but soon abandoned once more.

Sullivan regrets the notion of tearing down the clubhouse, as his own father, Henry Sr., worked there for 30 years. In fact, most Reserve families have fond memories of the building, scene of many a Christmas party and the dances and movies.

A fountain was installed in front of the clubhouse, dedicated to the memory of Edward Godchaux, on Feb. 27, 1931.

The indoor pool was covered over in 1936. The dance pavilion was demolished in 1958. The fountain was removed to the Leon Godchaux Junior High that same year.

And, where once port employees claimed to have heard ghostly footsteps and where children gleefully enjoyed the movies, the library and the swimming pool, will be a slab of concrete bearing cargo.