Our Story
Situated on Lake Sinclair and only minutes from downtown Milledgeville, Georgia, Milledgeville Country Club was established in 1957 and has played an integral role in the local community for over 50 years.
In the Fall of 2016, Ted and Joni Smith purchased the struggling Club. They purchased the Club they had enjoyed so much over the years as an investment in their hometown, the Milledgeville-Baldwin County community.
As the Smith’s investment grew, they realized that rebranding the Club was going to be critical. One of their first decisions was to rename the facility The Club at Lake Sinclair. As the plans developed, it became clear that a unique strategy was also going to be necessary to allow the food and beverage experience to be on par with the renovated Club and Golf Course. To that end, a plan was conceived to partner with successful local restaurateur Mr. Jason Medders, the Owner of Aubri Lane’s.
After nearly 10 years of success in his Downtown location, Jason was convinced that the synergy between the newly renovated Club at Lake Sinclair and Aubri Lane’s at The Club created the perfect partnership. Aubri Lane’s closed the doors on their Downtown location on Thursday, January 25, 2018 and opened Aubri Lane’s at the Club the following day on Friday, January 26, 2018.
Our Owners
Ted and Joni Smith have been partners in business and in life for 40 years. Joni is the CEO of The Club at Lake Sinclair. Ted, the son of one of the state’s leading geologists, leveraged his own extensive background in engineering and surveying to form Arcilla Mining and Land Company in 1992. More than two decades later, Arcilla Mining and Land Company and its subsidiary companies is a family-run business that employs 320 people with operations in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida and Arkansas. Built upon his late father’s dedication to geology, Ted and Joni’s business acumen has been passed along to the next generation. After requiring their three sons to complete college, each son joined the family business. Eldest son Kevin manages the service and maintenance side of Arcilla, middle son Ashley oversees the acquisition and development of mineral holdings, and a third son, Garrett, heads up the Civil Division and mining quality control.
