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Shotguns and Champagne Flutes: A Weekend at The Preserve Sporting Club
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By Eric Barton | Aug. 13, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
The first time I hit a clay pigeon, it shattered mid-air like an exclamation point.
That moment came after more than a few whiffs, each one politely explained away by our guide, a former Green Beret with the calm confidence of someone who’s defused actual bombs. We were standing in an open-air wooden hut, one of about a dozen built into the slope of a hill at The Preserve Sporting Club in Richmond, Rhode Island. Each station had a different angle—overhead, side sweep, straight on. The idea is that no two shots are the same. And for a beginner, no two misses are either.
My wife stood behind me, watching with the same expression she reserves for when one of her students explains why a paper is late—curiosity mixed with low expectations. When it was her turn, the first clay sailed up and outward, shattering only when it struck the ground. She blinked. “Huh,” she said, stepping back. “Where’d I go wrong?”
But our guide, patient and wise, showed us both how to hold steady, how to track the clay, how to breathe before the pull. He spoke like a meditation coach, albeit with three shotguns at his side. “The key,” he told us, “is to wait for the right moment—not rush, not chase. Breathe. In and out. Just be still, then act.”
And that’s kind of the point of The Preserve: It’s a place designed to slow you down. Which is ironic, because everything here is also ridiculously upgraded, luxurious, and fueled by excess. It’s a luxury resort with guns. And yet, somehow, it’s also where we found two nights of peace.
Our doodle makes himself comfortable
A Townhouse Among Titans
The young man checking us in looked up from his desk with a grin. “This place is 3 percent of Rhode Island,” he said, and I honestly don’t know if he was joking.
You could believe it, though, zipping across the 3,500-acre property in a golf cart, which is how we began our tour. First came the mansions—big enough to house a congress of falcons—then a hill dotted with tiny homes that looked like storybook cottages for rich minimalists. Then came the sprawling lodge, with a cigar lounge, private dining rooms, and a gear shop that feels like a Cabella’s, if Cabella’s sold Louis Vuitton and had a $10 million fine gun room guarded like a bank vault.
We rode past all the possible activities my wife and I could tackle during our trip: zipline, rock climbing, hiking trails, fishing ponds, off-road adventures in Bentleys, and an equestrian center. Riding through the course, I wished I’d booked a round of golf, watching as the par-three holes cut through the forest, the fairways largely fields of wild grass, making for a challenging course that they recommend buying an extra box of balls before tackling.
Eventually, I was dropped at our two-story townhouse. Think Ralph Lauren catalog brought to life: leather, dark wood, soft throws, a gas fireplace, a bathtub with jets and a shower that rained from above. It’s a place you could absolutely fake your way through writing a great American novel in or just absolutely do nothing on a rainy weekend and be happy about it.
Lobster roll at The Café
We headed into Westerly that night for dinner at The Café. It’s the kind of restaurant that makes you grateful for being so close to the coast. The oysters came topped with a granita that somehow tasted like ocean and lime at the same time. The lobster roll was classic—hot, buttery, and piled onto a bun that soaked up everything. But the meatloaf surprised me: smoked and dense, like someone had taken Sunday supper and run it through a Michelin test kitchen.
Shotguns and Champagne
Day two began with pickleball, just the two of us under a punishing sun. Two pickleball courts sit between the tennis courts and the pool. We volleyed like amateurs trying to go pro. Nobody else was around—smart people, probably—but we needed to earn our next meal.
After cooling off in the shade, we took a golf cart to the shooting grounds. By the end, I was hitting nearly every shot, a testament to our guide more than my aim. My wife wasn’t as convinced that this could rival pickleball for our new summer sport. “This is definitely more your thing,” she said.
The wife takes aim
TIL: Bentleys come with cup-holder-friendly flutes
Later that afternoon, one of the resort’s Bentley Bentaygas pulled up outside our townhouse. We climbed into the back seat, where chilled champagne flutes sat tucked in a center console more luxurious than the kitchen in our first apartment. We poured just a splash, because drinking in a Bentley feels like a thing that should be done respectfully, and the car glided off toward the coast.
Dinner was at the Coast Guard House in Narragansett, perched over a rocky shoreline with views of the Atlantic in full, dramatic sweep. We ordered seafood pasta with lobster and shrimp, thick with cream and herbs, and watched the sun blur into a hazy sky. The Bentley waited quietly somewhere nearby like a loyal valet.
The Preserve’s Hobbit Houses
Into the Hill
By the next morning, the pasta guilt had crept in, so we found ourselves back on the pickleball courts. This time, we pushed harder—made ourselves scramble and sweat, trying to play like we hadn’t eaten a cream-soaked shellfish symphony the night before. Eventually, we earned a break. And that break was lunch in a Hobbit house.
The Preserve’s Hobbit Houses are built into the hillside—actual stone-and-wood structures with circular doors and dining rooms like something from a forgotten fairytale. Ours had a tree growing through the middle of the table, branches decked with flowers and candles. It was ridiculously charming, undoubtedly the site of engagements and anniversaries.
“The key is to wait for the right moment—not rush, not chase. Breathe. In and out. Just be still, then act.”
The meal was a feast of family style dishes served in smoking-hot Dutch ovens: short ribs so tender they surrendered on contact, honey-glazed salmon that shimmered like it knew it was the star, mashed potatoes made for passing around a table. It felt communal, even though it was just the two of us, like we were part of a tradition we’d only just learned about.
Later, walking back through the woods, we didn’t talk much. We didn’t have to. That same calm from the shooting range had returned—steady, focused, present.
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