Kennebec Valley Health Club changes hands, to remain fitness center in Farmingdale

FARMINGDALE — When Sharon Roy resolved it was time to market her enterprise in Farmingdale, she had a person ask for for the broker: Never put up a “For Sale” sign.

“I just can not have that,” Roy explained a short while ago. “I can’t have my customers drive up each working day and see a indicator. It causes question in the community.”

For 45 many years, Roy has run the Kennebec Valley Overall health Club, to start with with her partner, Kim Brouillet, who died 18 years ago after staying diagnosed with most cancers, and now by herself.

Roy reported as she techniques her 65th birthday, she is ready to have somebody else just take over the business.

Julia Panepinto performs warm-up deadlifts in September 2020 at the Kennebec Valley Health Club in Farmingdale. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal file

Preserving that community was critically vital to Roy and Scott Coutts, who has acquired the organization. The deal shut Monday. Phrases of the sale have not been disclosed.

“He was frightened that someone would purchase (the house) and turn it into places of work and get rid of the local community link,” Roy mentioned.

For the generations of persons who have employed the KV Well being Club, as it is regarded, the facility has been a second house and the team an prolonged family members.

The relatives atmosphere was a magnet for Coutts, who owns and operates two community organizations with his partners: Coutts Brothers Inc. in Randolph, which does utility building and large-voltage line operate, and Quirion Building Inc. in Augusta, which does residential and professional earth get the job done, among other services.

Coutts’ link to the conditioning center dates back to his teenage many years, and he did his first bodybuilding display there.

“(They) were nice sufficient to give to give me a crucial when I could not make it on time,” Coutts said. “I was ready to work out on the off hours. It is a really good family ambiance. Excellent strength.”

Even though Coutts never imagined he would very own a fitness center, he claimed KV Wellness Club is an founded, household-oriented company, like Coutts Brothers and Quirion Development.

“I am not undertaking this for monetary get, and I know that heading into it,” he stated. “This is much more of an psychological determination on my portion because of to the community and getting that taken care of as a health and fitness center.”

The Kennebec Valley Health Club opened in 1977 at a compact rental area in Augusta. At that time, Roy was enrolled in nursing university and married to Brouillet.

Brouillet experienced acquired into the health and fitness center and told his wife he planned to purchase out the operator.

Even though he experienced acquired a degree in criminology, Brouillet was a natural athlete who had competed in shot put at the Junior Olympic Games, according to Roy. He parlayed that into building the overall health club.

The small business grew as the pair included a women’s program, hosted powerlifting competitions and built fascination in bodybuilding.

With each and every growth, they sought out other areas, and eventually finished up in Farmingdale. When they had been confronted with nevertheless yet another go, they determined to construct their very own room. They opened the existing facility at 11 KV Lane in 1992.

In 1998, Brouillet was diagnosed with melanoma, a style of pores and skin most cancers. At that place, Brouillet turned in excess of procedure of KV Overall health Club to Roy while he centered on his procedure. He died in 2004 at 52.

Getting more than the day-to-working day functioning of the exercise club gave Roy a more robust spine, she stated, but it also tested her, as did overhearing opinions from customers expressing doubts about her potential to keep on on her individual.

“The naysayers mentioned, ‘I give her six months,’” she stated. “I said: “Watch me, infant. I’ve been carrying out it.’”

But Roy was also jogging the chance of overdoing it by operating very long hrs and quite a few days at a stretch. That is when she hired Ron Gallagher to be supervisor.

Alongside the way, Roy has acquired certifications as a nourishment and wellness advisor. She is a personalized trainer, a senior physical fitness specialist and a golfing conditioning teacher.

Roy has also produced jogging teams and Silver Sneakers programs for more mature consumers, which have helped develop communities of pals. That thread of local community is also observed in the images she has pinned to her office environment doorway showing unique generations of region family members who have become purchasers.

“I live with no regrets,” Roy said. “I try out to seem at my selections and make the ideal determination based on what’s likely to be very best for me and the men and women close to me. I can not say I wish I would have performed anything at all distinctive, since it would not have gotten me to this position.”

“This place” involves becoming married to Colin Roy, a retired college athletic director who put in 26 many years at Corridor-Dale Center and Superior College in Farmingdale, whom she met in 2008.

Whilst Roy explained she plans to proceed as a coach at KV Well being Club, she also hopes to invest far more time playing golfing with her partner, and not acquiring up at 2:30 a.m. to open up the gym for the early risers.

Coutts said he has short- and very long-phrase ideas for the exercise club, which includes acquiring Gallagher stay on as manager. Coutts reported he is also searching to update some of the cardio equipment, and he ideas to speak with users about what they would like to see at the club.

“I want to get some new, young blood in there,” Coutts said, “and make the transition to get young users included, and some athletics groups in the region at the substantial college amount. It would be a travesty to not have the health and fitness center in the Gardiner-Farmingdale space.”

« Previous

Next »

Linked Tales