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Always Bringing People Together

Today, in 2024, pickleball is the world’s fastest-growing sport. You cannot go by a park, tennis court, gym, or nearly any flat surface without seeing a waist-high net and paddles.

In the mid-70’s, racquetball was similarly ubiquitous. Courts were a bit more difficult to create, so space to play was in high demand. To meet it, five local businessmen decided they would build courts on South River Road. So, in December of 1977, the first Courthouse was opened.

And it was just that, a “House of Courts.” The rectangular building had ten racquetball courts and a small front lobby. By the end of its first year in business, it had around 700 total members.

From the beginning, the heart of Courthouse has been building caring communities around movement. A single Club built around racquetball now contains countless communities built around basketball, swimming, cycling, strength training, coffee, dance, Pilates, martial arts, longevity, yoga, endurance, pickleball, squash, nutrition, and much much more.

Guy playing racquetball

Building A Bigger Community

In 1977, Salem had a population of 68,296. Keizer was unincorporated. Today, Salem and Keizer have a combined population of over 219,000 people. As our community has grown, so has our business. Today, Courthouse has five full-service Clubs in all areas of Salem and Keizer.

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What began as ten racquetball courts dramatically expanded. We added pools, hot tubs, saunas, steam rooms, and locker rooms. Spaces were built for weight rooms and cardio equipment.

Soon, as we better understood the value of guided exercise, we built spaces almost completely devoted to building meaningful communities around fitness. Today, we have over 1.4 million square feet used for group fitness. This includes strength training, cardio, cycling, yoga, recovery, and even dance.

As we have remodeled and expanded our spaces, we have done so to make it a healthy, adventurous lifestyle simple and fun.

Fitness is Better Together

We have believed for a long time that people find lasting success much more effectively with others. It is possible to exercise effectively alone, but it is a rare phenomenon.

Since the early 80’s, Courthouse has put on group fitness classes of some kind. Early on, classes were called aerobics. In 2005, we solidified our commitment to group fitness through a lasting partnership with Mossa.

Mossa designs the majority of our group fitness class formats, including some of our most popular classes, like Power, R30, and Active.

Today, Courthouse Club Fitness has the most expansive group fitness class schedule of any health club in the Pacific Northwest.
In a typical month, Courthouse will host 920 unique group fitness class sessions in our five Clubs with an attendance of nearly 18,500!

More recently, we began adapting our group-first philosophy to personal Training at Courthouse. We created Spartan Training in 2010 and added Squad (which we now call Performance) in 2014. Today, the overwhelming majority of Training takes place in small, supportive groups.

Why do this? Because even with the undivided attention of one Trainer, members miss out on the incredible value a community brings to their experience.

Instead of a dedicated sales team, Courthouse employs Coaches whose job is to guide and connect with new members. Coaches encourage members to participate in some sort of guided fitness experience and do whatever they can to help members find success and build a new lifestyle.

Always Locally Owned

The five original owners of Courthouse Club Fitness all lived, worked, built business, and raised families locally.

As the group of owners aged, they began selling their shares to the owners who remained. In 2007, the last owners sold the business to John and Laurie Miller, who remain owners to this day.

John Miller began his career with Courthouse Club Fitness in 1980, selling memberships. As the business grew, he continued to step into new positions, eventually becoming President.

Since its first day in business, Courthouse has been privately owned by local members of the Salem/Keizer community.
In 2027, Courthouse will celebrate 50 years of serving its tens of thousands of members and guests in the Salem and Keizer area.

As we look to the future, we are excited to continue to make fitness simple and fun.
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