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Private Club Radio Show
386: Building a Guinness World Record Ginger Bread House & Raising over 200k w/ Bill Horton
Imagine turning a whimsical idea from a casual lunch meeting into a record-breaking, impactful community project. Join us as we chat with Bill Horton, the mastermind behind the world's largest gingerbread house, who shares his incredible journey from conception to completion.
You'll hear firsthand how Bill and his team at Traditions Country Club back in 2013 in Bryan Texas, overcame logistical challenges and rallied an entire community to build a massive gingerbread house that not only broke records but also raised over $200,000 for a local trauma center back in 2013.
Discover the fascinating media frenzy that captured the world's attention with coverage from major outlets like CNN and Fox News, and learn about the ingenious solutions and partnerships that made this dream a reality. From repurposing materials with Habitat for Humanity to navigating unexpected challenges like a bee invasion, Bill's story is a testament to creativity, determination, and the remarkable power of community collaboration. This episode celebrates the joy and recognition received by everyone involved, including the special Guinness World Records certificates.
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Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show Podcast, the industry's choice for news trends, updates and conversations all in the world of private golf and country clubs. Whether you are brand new to the industry or a consummate professional, welcome, we are glad you are here. I'm your host, denny Corby Welcome. This is the show where we go over any and all topics related to private golf and country clubs. This is a good episode.
Speaker 1:This story I'm excited about. I am bringing on a club manager who holds the Guinness World Record for the largest gingerbread house. I'm chatting with Bill Horton, general manager of Ridgewood Country Club down in Waco, texas. But really this is about him, in a very short amount of time, taking a small idea and within a few months a very short amount of time, within three, four months, building, coming up with, generating the idea for creating the world's largest gingerbread house, while raising over $200,000 for local charity Unreal. So this is just a really great story, really fun episode, and I just love when people take risks, try fun things and this is that episode. So I'm excited. Private Club Radio listeners, let's welcome to the show. The man, the myth, the legend, bill Horton, you have the Guinness World Record for the largest gingerbread house. Yes, and you did this at a club, at a club, and you raised a ton of money like a ton of money, a lot of money, a lot of money and we did it outside, that's, in Texasas, so that that really made it difficult.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, so, first of all, well, I, I, I, I want you to share with the listeners, because I I've heard this a bit, but it wasn't even on like the radar. This was just like a fluke, random idea in in august of all time, right, like so. It wasn't even like. Like so, it wasn't even like you know, six months, it wasn't even like it was. You know, a, a, a year out with a plan. You really only had less than what, three months by the time, from like ID, yeah, it was, it was July.
Speaker 1:How does it even come about? How does it even come about?
Speaker 2:It's like July or August and I'm at this point I'm at Traditions Club in Bryan, texas, and great club and our membership director had an appointment with the executives of St Joseph Hospital there in Bryan College Station and he said hey, bill, would you like to have lunch with us? You know we're trying to get them to join the club as a group and so would you like to have lunch? I said sure, so I go out there and have lunch and really I just sit there. I just sit there like listening to the conversation and one thing their main topic was a trauma center that they wanted to build in Bryan College Station as part of St Joseph Hospital. And then they started talking about how they might get money and maybe we have a fundraiser.
Speaker 2:Really not even a whole lot about membership at all. And I just listen to say all all the while my head is like kind of, I'm just kind of thinking and wheels are turning and quite frankly I I knew I've always thought about the gingerbread thing. All right, because a former GM from from Club Corp, roger Pelcher we weren't good friends but I definitely knew of him. He was a stud GM and regional manager and all this and he was in Minnesota and I knew that he had the record or he had broken the record. I don't even remember when it was I guess it was the nineties and he built the world's largest gingerbread house in St Paul, minneapolis, in that big mall of the Americas, I think inside.
Speaker 1:So, uh and so you, you had a, you had a vengeance.
Speaker 2:No, nothing at all, I'm just like thinking something like that. And so I just like, when the food came and they had their mouths full and couldn't talk anymore, I just said, hey, you know what? I've always wanted to maybe try to build the world's largest gingerbread house. What if we were to try to do something like that? And you know it's around the holidays and all this and, and we and we invite people to come and we get a big message out, uh, about the hospital and the trauma center, and they're just kind of like well, what do you think? That's what I? How would you do in this way?
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess I call the guinness people, I guess I can call them and see, and, and then I, I just was, I mean, literally, I don't have a gift of BS, but I was certainly designated with it, I had it. So I just said I tell you what, what if we, what if I let me call Guinness? And they said would it be possible for you to put together? You think you could put something together by Friday? And this was like Tuesday or something, it was like three days later. Sure, we can do it, we already have. We set up a breakfast, you know, and so I call Guinness. I call Guinness and say, hey, I'm interested in this Guinness, and you literally can. You can just call them. They answered you tell them what record you're wanting to break, and they send me the criteria and they said there's all different ways you can do it. Now, if you just want to try to break the record I mean all the things you have to do, though you have to, uh, you know, get, get notarizations and get art architects, and then you'd have to film it and then you have to send it to them and there's all this red tape, or they have these tiers that you can pay, and I can't remember. But I know that bronze was 10,000. There's 15 and 25,000. I was like the 10 thing sounds good because it got the media. It gets you a live judicator with an accent that comes to your place and measures it and does all that and affirms that it's the world record. So I said OK, I think we can do the bronze, we can do the bronze.
Speaker 2:So then we start. We start my membership director and I and one of his Texas A&M students start going OK, this is all that. This is everything we need. One is Guinness needed a recipe. So I take a recipe, I'm sorry. So I take a recipe and then, you know, multiply it out by whatever the record. The current record at that time was 36,600,000 cubic feet. So I went, we had a member too that was an architect and I asked him. I said, look, I need you to design me a box that's over 36,600 and just design it.
Speaker 2:And then we had one of our kids that were in graphic design and stuff kind of put it and put candy and gingerbread all over it, and it had a spinning wheel. You know, I mean as far as like a kind of like a cartoon that we could put on Sorry, hopefully that does it that we could display and that I could show to this little board that they were going to have. And, oh, sorry, I got kind of sidetracked with the phone ringing. No, you're good, yeah, so we got them to come and do that in. In the meantime we've also put together the, the recipe that I, that I could have available, we, we start the process and we kind of go ahead and start sending that to guinness, but it was also part of what I would have for my presentation, uh, friday morning. So we walk in. We show them all that. We also put together like what the event was going to be.
Speaker 2:We thought our goal would be to break the record on November 30th, which was the Friday after Thanksgiving. So we thought that'd be great, try to do it the Friday after Thanksgiving. And then we had to put together like you know what, what we thought? We knew. We knew we needed $10,000. So we put together these sponsorship levels like a gold or silver, a main, a main sponsor, that sort of thing, and so we put that together and the main sponsor was $10,000. So we kind of we go, we start doing the presentation. They liked everything.
Speaker 2:They brought somebody from St Joseph Hospital which was their public relations person. Her name was Sean Pulliam and she was just like a gift to have her as part of it. And anyway, we just I just did that. I just showed the little video and said this is what we can do. We think we can reach out and maybe just do a nominal type fee where we have the community come in. And I think for sure there'll be some local media on it if we can break the record. And the thing is is with this Guinness adjudicator, they're the ones that then promote it for you Once we broke that record. Once you break that record, they push a button and it gets announced to the world.
Speaker 2:I didn't really know that, I didn't really get all that, but that was part of my pitch to them. Well, while we're in there, they had also brought a couple of big donors with them in there that were with like a hospice care. They owned a bunch of hospice care places in town, in the state and as we're going in I'm saying the different levels, they said, well, we're in for the major sponsor, we'll do it. And I look at the membership director and I go we are building a gingerbread house. I knew it. We had 10,000. We're in. So we got that right off the bat and we just started flying.
Speaker 2:And then with this, sean Pulliam, who she was a big fundraiser for St Joseph at the time. Her husband is a big fundraiser guy for Texas A&M. He played college basketball for A&M. She played college softball, has like all kinds of records herself. She's unbelievable. At the time her name, her playing name, was Sean Adalia, but anyway she went into gear where we had accounts at Walmart.
Speaker 2:We went to a home builder that was there in Bryan College Station. That was also a member of the club and he was also building houses out in tradition. We told him what we were trying to do. He was on board, he built the house. We got lumber companies to bring in the lumber and part of the deal is you have part of the record is it has to be built like a house, it has to be framed. We had plans, we, we had plans, we had electricity it. We had to have a city building permit to come out and, especially since we were planning on having people come through, so it had to pass a building inspection. And then we just I got on the horn and called candy companies in Pennsylvania and, as I just started telling them the story, they're like oh, we can do that, and a lot of them, well, a couple of them. We got Halloween candy. They said after Halloween we'll just ship it to you, anything we have left.
Speaker 1:Mommy, why is there candy corn on the house?
Speaker 2:There was a lot of generic type candy cane that we could use, and then the gingerbread itself. Well, again, this is like. I go to the chef and I had to convince him a lot because it was, you know, you're doing the holidays and I'm asking you to do this, and I'm sure for this you can't just buy certain products.
Speaker 1:I'm sure, in order to get the record you have to probably make certain things and, like you, had to have recipes.
Speaker 2:We had a recipe, we did learn from doing the recipe, though we had to lower the amount of butter, because I think I told you, when we were practicing on bricks and we did a couple of the bricks, we did 7,011 by 17 bricks A sheet pan is twice that and we cut them in half OK, a sheet pan is twice that and we cut them in half and and we glued them up or nailed them up to the wall of this house on one evening, and when we came back the next day, they just melted off, and so we experimented. We realized we have too much butter, and so we took the butter out. We added some tartar kind of harden it up. I called Guinness and said we're making an adjustment. They're like OK, as long as you're not changing ingredients, we're good. So, uh, yeah, there were things, there were lots of things like that that uh helped, but then we, we broke the record and we did raise $208,800.
Speaker 2:During that time, we also gave, uh, uh. We did one day where we dedicated it to Special Olympics, where we talked to St Joseph, because we had one of the A&M. The A&M women's basketball coach, gary Blair, won a national championship in 2011. He's tied in pretty tight with Special Olympics, and so we thought let's give one day to Special Olympics, and so all the proceeds from that day went to Special Olympics and then when it proceeds from that day went to Special Olympics. And then when it was torn down, we called Habitat for Humanity, we took all the candy and everything off, and then Habitat for Humanity came out and disassembled the whole house and it was the equivalent of about a 3,900 square foot house. But they took all the wood and everything and from what I understand they were able to build like three homes out of that. So it was kind of a gift that that kept getting a bit that's amazing.
Speaker 1:That's amazing media raising all that.
Speaker 2:The media. I mean the media was just. I like I said I was hoping for local. I was, I was hoping, like the sports guy was going to call me in you know slow day. We had, I mean, cnn, fox News. Fox News was out there for a full day during the holidays, guy with a red sweater, all day and I'd go out there on the top of every hour and we'd talk for a second out there on the top of every hour and we talked for a second uh, but yeah, the uh, some daily planet did the story when the bees came, because we had like over a million bees come.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so talk about that, talk about unexpected things and animals and insects.
Speaker 2:You had bees take over well every day and we didn't know, I mean, we'd go from freezing rain and where we would go out and tarp the whole thing and and then we'd have humid days. You know, in Texas and I mean the membership director, jimmy Walsworth, he, he came in one day. He's like Bill, we got over, we got a million bees on that house right now. We didn't open it till the evening and so during the day we would basically use it to kind of repair and maintenance and add little candies and stuff that people might have pulled off, because over this two-week period of time we had over 25,000 people come. So we had given out little cartoons of gingerbread houses to all the schools in Bryan College Station area and if they brought those in they got free admittance. And if not, and we were hanging those in, they got free admittance. And if not, and we were hanging those up inside with santa claus was in there, and then if, uh, and then, if not, adults, and everything was three dollars.
Speaker 2:We were selling t-shirts, world's largest gingerbread house, guinness record. We were selling coffee cups, hot chocolate, we were selling all that too, uh, but then, I'm sorry, I jumped. I jumped over that when we were talking about the bees. So I was like, hey, you know, I'm a membership director and we nicknamed him Broadway because he was a lot like I'm going to get that. He was always predicting how many memberships he was going to have and very boldly and quite frankly he usually hit his mark once he made it out there. But I'm like, is this Broadway talking, or is this Jimmy? That that you've, that we've got a million bumblebees or bees out there, not bumblebee bees. And so, uh, sure enough, I go out there and it is looks like a million bees, it was just covered, it is covered.
Speaker 2:So we start making phone calls and we get a beekeeper out in Navasota to come up and it kind of became that became a story for the evening. And he literally went and at the time that whole the cocoon, all the bees, had left the house and had just had organized under a for sale sign on a piece of land about 100 yards away, and so he went over there in his bee suit and just in 30 seconds tweaked the queen, got her in and they just swarmed into this box. It was really super cool. So the Daily Planet took and did kind of a science side deal. We were on Kelly and Michael. Whatever that morning show was, good Morning America named it one of the top five must-see places to come to for the holidays and I'm like oh my God.
Speaker 2:I mean there were places in like Norway. And then there's this gingerbread house and I'm sure some people may have been sorely disappointed. It was a box with candy, but anyway it got. I did one interview at 4 am with an Australian newspaper but it was from what I understand, it went out in 21 different languages and 30 different countries. And I mean we're I mean Pakistan, india, china.
Speaker 1:I mean, did you say like, like a Japanese, a crew from Japan came over just to, just to record about it?
Speaker 2:We kind of played with them all that. They they were like loving it. They wanted to meet the chef and and, uh, they were. They were hilarious, uh, like a team of four or five that came over and hung out with us. But it was a lot, a lot, a lot of hard work and we had, you know, I may have told you, but there, for a few years I'd get a call. You know several times people, you know several times people have said, hey, would you, would you help us? We want to break the world record.
Speaker 2:And there was some place I don't remember what, I think it was like North Carolina or some one of the Carolinas, and they never, we never, taught numbers. But they were willing to pay me to come and and help them break the record, to come and and help them break the record. And I was just like I can't do that. I mean you don't have any idea how much blood, sweat and tears our team did and I would be like the dirtiest guy ever to like, I'm kind of, I'm kind of, take this on the road and break that record. I mean they still. I mean I know now I've been away from traditions for six or seven years, but I'll I'll hear uh, for five years, but I'll hear that you will never believe this bill.
Speaker 2:Somebody called wanting to know if the gingerbread house was still up and that happened. You know a lot so it's still getting and I haven't googled it lately. But I know it's still getting and I haven't Googled it lately, but I know I know for the longest time I could Google Bill Horton gingerbread and it'd be 18 pages pop up on Google of all the different stories and things. So it was a neat. It was a neat, neat deal.
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Speaker 1:If you're looking for a way for your club to help attract the right members, stand out from the crowds and you don't want to advertise, but you want more exposure in the marketplace, then you need to check out Golf Life Navigators. They are the only resource that helps golfers discover experience and ultimately secure their ideal club membership and golf community home. They're experts at connecting your club with people who will truly appreciate what you have to offer. It's like eHarmony meets Zillow for golfers. If you're interested in learning more, head on over to golflifenavigatorscom. I mean, how do you keep the team morale up for that? Like that's got to be difficult, you know, like, because not only is it in a stressful time of year, just with events and club stuff in general, how do you? You know, because I'm sure you had to have extra staff, extra people. I'm sure there was volunteers, like there must've been people galore. Like, how do you manage all that? We?
Speaker 2:had over 200 volunteers, for sure, and then our staff, but we had, we had volunteers from St Joseph's hospital. We had our member volunteers when we were actually cooking the bricks. We pretty soon realized we ain't going to be able to do all these bricks. We just were not going to. So we reached out to St Joseph's. They have a big kitchen. They started cooking the bricks A&M Athletic, their big kitchen for athletics and everything. They started cooking bricks. There was another, just a chef in town that they had a baker. They started cooking bricks and we would just, we would just go and pick them up. You know. So the things like that that we, we just, you know, we didn't know, and I'm just, and I remember telling the chef, cause he was getting frustrated with me one time- and.
Speaker 2:I'm like what dude? You know what this, this is. This is for you. You think I'm going to be able to use this in my future, but you're going to be the chef that built the world's largest gingerbread house and he's like, oh, okay, okay, maybe that's, but uh, but I remember he and I were up when we you know, you have to do, it has to be I, I mean the directions and everything are the criteria. You have to have icing, you know you have to be. All that was turned into. So I'm all along, I'm going.
Speaker 2:People would ask me how are you going to do the icing? I'm like we'll just pipe it on, we're just going to fill up bags and pipe it. So that day came and it's the chef and I up on this roof and we're piping. And we're just piping. And it is one of the guys, one of the big sponsors was a roofing company that I'm so mad I can't think of their name either Schulte Roofing, that's it. And so they go. One of them walks up on the deal and he goes on the roof and he's like Bill, you know how long you've been doing this? Yeah, like two hours. And we, like I've got a row and mike, the chef, has a row and he's like you might be finished next week if y'all keep going.
Speaker 2:And he said I've got an idea, I'm okay, he goes. I wonder if I could call, uh, this buddy of mine who is a painter and he's got one of those big machines. You know when the old days when you would shoot your ceiling with that speckled what would they call that? The popcorn feelings. Yeah, he's got one of those. I'll call him up and see if he might be able to help us out. So he calls him. I'm sitting right there on the roof and he's calling this guy and he's like hey, I don't know if you've heard about this gingerbread house. We're all in here, we're trying to raise money. It's for charity. Do you think you could shoot some icing through that popcorn thing? And so, uh, he goes. Well, how thick is the icing? I don't know. He said well, I'll tell you what. Here's a test. You guys put your hand in that and if you can pull up your hand and it drips off, then I can get it, I can shoot it through. So the guy from Shilta yells down to the guy that's on the pump down there with the icing and sure enough, so we can do it.
Speaker 2:They came out. They were out there in an hour hour and a half and we are just spraying this icing Diabetes everywhere, and it was just, it was the coolest effect because it made it look like snow, so it was even better. Uh, and then we did, you know, we took our bunker sand and did all the front lawn like that was bunker sand and like snow, uh, like white bunker sand, and then we had trains going through the and all this are people that are are their time, you know. And it was again. I think it was at the time of the year. It was something that was, you know, for kids in this trauma center and it was going to be the. I forgot how they rate them, but it was going to be the only like top rated. You know, in the past if you were in a certain area of central Texas, you'd have to fly to Houston or Dallas or whatever. So this put Bryan College Station on the map. It's like being centrally located with a I don't know level five trauma center or whatever. I don't know if that's right, but a very high-quality trauma center. So anyway, it was good. We have our name on a little plaque there at the hospital and we have our name in the book.
Speaker 2:Everybody that worked you talked about. You know we did a big function for everybody that worked at the end and that's where we showed, I think, the video that I sent you. And we got everybody a World Guinness. They all have a World Guinness record. That's so cool that they got to take home. So, anyway, guinness, they all have a World Guinness record. That's so cool they got to take home.
Speaker 1:Anyway, that is so cool and the world's a better place because of you.
Speaker 2:Well yeah.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 2:It was very cool and that is something, though, we started with, I guess, the vision that we're going to build the world's largest gingerbread house, right, but our mission and this is true, I mean our mission was always like to raise as much money as we can.
Speaker 2:That's something that clubs, a lot of clubs, struggle with. Like within the community of that's just a place where all the rich old guys go and hang out. They don't do nothing for us, you know, and they snub their nose when they drop by the pearly gates outside and all that stuff. So I've always liked, you know, being able to do something and show the club and as as something productive for the community that does get involved and and and literally we had, we've, we had CEOs of hospitals, you know, roland oh, and bankers and lawyers and all that that were, you know, really having really having fun with it. I mean, it's kind of like being kids when you're getting to stick candy up on a house with, with, you know, icing and all that. Santa Claus is there every night saying so I do think it was. I do think it was a great thing for for the city.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you and you and you just brought it back. I was just going to say that the community support and what you did for the community getting people together, getting them active, utilizing just getting the community going and putting the club in center light of that I mean invaluable, invaluable.
Speaker 2:And I think it's the main reason why Johnny Manziel won the Heisman that year.
Speaker 1:You know what. I didn't want to say it, but I'm happy that you did.
Speaker 2:It did kick off and then man, an unbelievable football season, and now they've got this unbelievable stadium. And it all started off with a gingerbread recipe stadium.
Speaker 1:And it all started off with the gingerbread recipe. Well, because they were like hey, if they can build that gingerbread stadium, why can't? We build our own killer stadium, right?
Speaker 2:so yeah, that's you know, what is funny is like they open, when they open that stadium, they did, uh, they set a record for like decibels, you know, like in that, because they had 107,000 people in there and they had everybody else at one time. So they did pull Guinness in.
Speaker 1:Taking a page right out of your book again. Well, sir, I want to thank you so much for coming on and sharing that really fun story. Thank you, Hope you all enjoyed that episode. I know I did. If you're enjoying the content, like share, subscribe. That's this episode. Until next time, catch on the flippity flip.
