Every so often, an employee at the luxurious gated community would get the call.
A shipment of rare alcohol was waiting to be picked up from an outpost near the Utah border, in Evanston, Wyoming. Thousand-dollar bottles of coveted Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. Wines from across the globe. A dispatched worker would drive 59 miles north and bring the booze back to Utah’s most exclusive golf club.
Aiming to build a “world-class” wine collection, Glenwild Golf Club & Spa bought so much wine so fast that it ran out of room to store it, a new lawsuit alleges, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in bottles later, the club had to cache excess wine off site as board members described their supply as the envy of the state.
But multimillionaire club member Barry Baker contends in the lawsuit that the collection was built up and sold to members illegally, through bootlegging from Wyoming that circumvented Utah alcohol laws. What became known as “Winegate” among members is one of several allegations of mismanagement he makes against the private community in Summit County. He’s asking a 3rd District judge to dissolve the nonprofit corporation running it and appoint a receiver to oversee Glenwild’s operations.
A former president of USA Interactive, Baker has sued the club and nine board members alleging that Glenwild — proud owner of a famed golf course designed by legendary golf architect Tom Fazio, and once home to sports icon Michael Jordan — hemorrhaged millions of dollars through costly pursuits and has been run with “Soviet-style justice” by its board.
Baker has been suspended from the club, the lawsuit said, for allegedly “threatening” the staff. He denies those claims and has filed a separate defamation lawsuit against three club employees who described his alleged misconduct. He believes he should be paid more than $1 million for the harm to his reputation.
In a response filed this week, Glenwild’s lawyers argued Baker’s lawsuit should be dismissed, citing club bylaws that require mediation for disputes before involving the courts. The club claims Baker refused to accept a date for a club hearing regarding his suspension, and instead made “arbitrary and petulant threats and demands” before filing his lawsuits.
Through its attorney, the club declined to comment beyond the filing.
The infighting has stirred the normally placid community, according to four Glenwild members. The Salt Lake Tribune agreed not to name them because they fear being dragged into the litigation. Three of them said they had seen a list of about 60 members waiting to leave the club because of the dysfunction.
“It will always be a fabulous golf course. But you don’t join a club to be stressed when you go there,” one member said. “Or to worry that what you might say to another member will get you disciplined or sued.”
Dwindling reserves
The problems began, Baker’s lawsuit alleges, in 2018. Glenwild had just transitioned to a nonprofit and turned its ownership over to its 300 members. The club elected a board of trustees — all members — who would handle the big-picture decisions.
At the time, the club had $12 million in reserves, the lawsuit states. Interest in the golf community was growing; Glenwild offered an exclusive experience with a steep asking price.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Glenwild Lifestyle Center at the Glenwild Golf Club in Park City on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025.
Its 18 holes were designed by Fazio, an architect who built masterpieces at Pinehurst and reconstructed Quail Hollow. Its clubhouse was a sprawling 37,000 square feet. The initiation fee alone was $200,000, with $18,000 due annually.
The club was comprised of powerful CEOs and multimillionaire philanthropists, who flew in from around the country to play in the serene landscape and dine at exclusive social gatherings at night.
Baker and his late wife Amy were founding members of Glenwild. Baker was the former head of USA Interactive, overseeing Ticketmaster, Hotels.com and the USA Network. He had served on dozens of public and private boards and funded cancer research labs and initiatives at UCLA, Harvard and Vanderbilt. Baker has also been a donor to The Tribune.
In 2022, the board began to ask for more money to fund operations, Baker said in his lawsuit. Even with its membership growing, bringing in “at least $7 million” more in revenue, its $12 million in reserves had dwindled to $5 million, the lawsuit alleged.
Baker began looking into the club’s finances, the suit said, and he now claims the wine operation and several expensive renovations drained its coffers.
Late in 2021, the board had decided to build a “world-class wine cellar” that would store bottles from all over the globe, the lawsuit said. Glenwild hired Marco Stevanoni, the owner of Salt Lake City’s Veneto restaurant, to be its “wine director,” the suit said, adding that one board member said he would help the club “shoot for the moon” in building its cellar.
Instead of a salary, Baker’s lawsuit said, the board gave Stevanoni a club membership worth well over $200,000.
‘We have destroyed the alcohol’
Stevanoni owned an alcohol shipping company called Darkstar Imports out of New York. Through Darkstar, he bought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rare wine for Glenwild — but the means weren’t always legal, the lawsuit alleges. Under Utah law, only the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Service (DABS) can import wine, liquor or beer that is above 5% alcohol by volume for resale.
Baker’s lawsuit describes Stevanoni having the club’s wine shipped to Evanston, Wyoming, and said the club eventually had to arrange for more wine storage space off the property. One board member, the lawsuit said, used some of the wine at his daughter’s wedding; some members, it alleged, ordered rare wines through Stevanoni and picked them up at the club.
In an interview with The Tribune, Stevanoni used the word “questionable” to describe how he acquired the wine but said he was directed to do it. When he was originally hired, Stevanoni said, he laid out a five- to 10-year plan to build the wine collection and believed he would have a $100,000 wine budget each year.
But he said he was told by a club employee, “Well, your five- and 10-year plan is not going to work, because we need it now.”
Stevanoni said he did not think DABS would allow hundreds of thousands of dollars to flow through Glenwild in just a year. He said he explained state alcohol restrictions to the club employee, suggesting the Evanston pickups may not be legal, and said that “needing it now will require that the club will have to do things that maybe are questionable.” The employee gave him a credit card and asked him to proceed with buying wine with it, he said.
Baker’s lawsuit alleges Stevanoni was reporting directly to the board, not a club employee, and said an employee had raised concerns about the wine acquisitions before ultimately quitting. Baker pushed the board to self-report any alcohol violations to the state in 2022, the lawsuit said. The board then conducted a narrow internal investigation, the suit said, and Stevanoni was fired in October 2022.
Glenwild’s club president hesitated to report to DABS because he didn’t want to lose the club’s liquor license, the lawsuit said. He told Baker that if Baker kept pressing him to report, he’d put up a sign in the clubhouse with Baker’s face that read, “Because of this a------ the club can’t serve liquor,” the lawsuit alleges.
Glenwild eventually reported to the state in December 2022, DABS spokesperson Michelle Schmitt confirmed. There is no limit to how much alcohol a licensed club can import for resale purposes, she said, but it must be arranged through the state to be legal.
“All alcohol that is sold in the state of Utah has to come through the state,” Schmitt said. “... All alcohol comes through DABS and is distributed from there.”
But the state did not take action against Glenwild’s license, Schmitt said. “They said, ‘Hey, we found out this was happening in our establishment. It is not happening anymore and we have destroyed the alcohol,’” she said.
In his lawsuit, Baker objects that Stevanoni allegedly was “never asked to pay the damages of the bootlegging scheme” and that no board members were reprimanded.
Stevanoni told The Tribune “it felt absolutely unfair when I was called out on doing things” after, he said, the employee had given him the credit card and asked him to make the wine purchases. “You did not listen to my advice on a five- and a 10-year plan. ... So excuse me, I have done 100% everything for you, for the club, in pure integrity,” he said.
Booting Baker
Baker was suspended by the board in January 2023 for telling other members about the bootlegged wine, according to the lawsuit. He was eventually reinstated without a hearing, the suit said.
The board also sent an email to its members saying that “socializing dissatisfaction amongst the membership instead of going through the proper channels is not only unproductive, it is highly inappropriate.”
The email, which was obtained by The Tribune, said a Glenwild membership was a “privilege, extended by invitation to select ladies and gentlemen who share their love of golf, camaraderie, enjoyment of the outdoors, fine dining, and excellence of service. It is an oasis for our members in a world that is increasingly divisive and chaotic.”
But recently, it said, a certain member’s conduct was “boorish and even intimidating.” The email was signed by the club president.
After Baker was reinstated, Glenwild’s board voted to move forward on other projects, completing clubhouse renovations that cost between $3 million and $4 million, multiple members said. A renovated driving range — outfitted with heated hitting bays — came with a $3.5 million price tag, members said.
The club then began looking at a potential golf course redesign in 2024. Baker, along with some other members, thought Fazio should have been employed to do any redesign of his own course, according to the lawsuit. But the board falsely told its members that Fazio had retired, it alleged.
Instead, the club signed a contract with the firm GGA Partners to assist with the redesign, according to the suit, and did not conduct a national, competitive search that could have brought down the cost. A club officer’s wife was a director at GGA Partners, the suit said.
When one club member invited Fazio out to the course to discuss the potential for a redesign, the member was suspended, the lawsuit alleges.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Buildings near the Glenwild Golf Club in Park City on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025.
In late 2024, Baker was suspended from the club again, for a year. The club’s reasoning was Baker had “hit into” the group in front of him during a round of golf and had “played the course the morning of the club championship without authorization,” according to the lawsuit. The club also alleged that Baker “was intimidating, abusing and threatening” to the staff, according to his own lawsuit.
Baker denies those claims in his filing, saying he had a good relationship with staff members. Offering proof, the suit recounts that he invited “the entire golf staff and their guests” to a Luke Combs concert in June at Rice-Eccles Stadium, providing them with front-stage tickets, a private suite and a fully stocked bar.
