New Owners Plan To Shape Up Local Fitness Center

By Kaaren Valenta

The sign in the lobby of The Gym at Newtown, “It’s Time to Shape Up and Get Fit,” could refer as much to the plans of the new owners as it does to the aspirations of the club members.

LuAnn and Chuck Maute, new owners of the fitness club at 23 Commerce Road, have plans to significantly improve the facility, which formerly was called Newtown Health & Fitness. The Mautes, who live in Newtown, purchased the facility for $1.7 million in October from former owner George Arfaras.

What they plan to do has been the focus of much speculation by the club members.

“There have been so many rumors –– it’s just crazy,” Ms Maute said. “People said they heard we are tearing out the racquetball courts and putting in a swimming pool. That’s a nice idea but it’s not in the plans.”

What is in the plans is a renovation of much of the facility: painting, new carpets, new saunas, showers, and locker rooms. And that is just the beginning.

“We have a lot of work to do but the people here are so supportive,” Ms Maute said. “We have the same staff including Dorrie Carolan, who has been the manager for eight years. She is still here and doesn’t have any plans to go. That is one of the reasons we bought [the facility].

“MaryAnn Fisher is the aerobic director, Lynda Healey is desk supervisor, and the rest of the staff –– about 30 –– are so friendly and supportive. Most of the staff is from town, which is nice because their kids go to school together.”

It was the community atmosphere in Newtown that enticed the couple into buying a house here when a job transfer brought the family from New Jersey to Connecticut in March 2002.

“Newtown is a nice town with good schools and the same kind of community atmosphere that we were used to,” said Chuck Maute, who works for a reinsurance company in Stamford.

The couple met while LuAnn was the youth minister for St Catherine’s Church in Mountain Lakes, N.J., arranging retreats for high school students, and Chuck was a volunteer who ran a retreat program. “We met at church and he asked me to marry him,” LuAnn said.

When the couple moved to Newtown with their sons, Scott, 12, and Tyler, 10, LuAnn Maute took a job with the fitness center. A former high school and junior high English teacher, she had developed an interest in fitness while attending Montclair State College (now University) in New Jersey.

“I liked the way working out in a gym made me feel,” she said. “I think it is a great way to help people feel better and look better.”

After graduating in 1988, she got a teaching position. She also coached field hockey, track, and softball, worked evenings, weekends, and summers as a personal trainer, became certified as a nutritionist, and became a martial arts teacher.

“I still train and teach Isshinryu karate, which is Okinawan, not Korean,” she said. “I go back to New Jersey two Saturdays each month to do it.”

When she took a job at Newtown Health & Fitness, she felt right at home.

“It is a very friendly, very family-oriented place,” she said. “I told my husband, ‘too bad this gym isn’t for sale.’ Two months later it was. Then I said ‘too bad it’s not five years from now,’ but Chuck said let’s give it a try. We talked it over with our boys and they were very fired up about it, otherwise we would not have gone ahead.”

The financial situation was investigated and business plan mapped out by Chuck Maute, who graduated from Johns Hopkins and has a master’s degree in business administration from Fordham University.

“He put together the buying plan, I did the operational-fitness,” LuAnn Maute said. “Dorrie complemented that mix. She knows this clientele and what they want.”

Even before they signed the final papers, the couple was making plans to improve the facility. They will be painting the main floor in earth tones to get rid of the stark white walls, and installing new carpeting, LuAnn said. “It should look homey, not like a hospital,” she explained.

On the advice of their architect, Bob Mitchell from the Mitchell Group in Newtown, they decided to rip out the men’s and women’s showers, saunas, and locker rooms at the same time and renovate them.

Then they will put a new floor in the aerobics room on the lower level and also install an eat-in juice bar that offers healthy foods.

On the main floor, where the expanded juice bar will be located, are the lobby, four racquetball courts, a full-size basketball/volleyball gymnasium, a separate bike room for body cycling classes, and a cardio room. The lower level includes the aerobics room, a nursery, and a karate school. Upstairs is weight training with resistance machines and free weights, and a flexibility area.

One thing LuAnn Maute says she will never do is install television sets on the machines like some clubs have done.

“That’s not how you build a community,” she said. “Some people don’t feel good about themselves so it is important to have a welcoming sense of community. Everyone who leaves here should have a life improvement of some sort, physical or mental. It shouldn’t be a chore to go to a gym.”

For more information about The Gym at Newtown, call 426-8591.