Where Leading Is a Woman's Job

It's no secret that the club has had an image problem. Since Dabney Bell joined and became active, she has poured her energy into turning that around. "I think the membership's very grateful for that," she said.

The Old Dominion Boat Club was founded in 1880 as a rowing club for "Alexandrians of the highest order." Old photos show the two-story building surrounded by nothing but low-tide river muck. Over the years, it became a second home of sorts to many of the oldest white Alexandria families. Old-line names that grace street signs or local businesses such as Whitestone, Fannon, Burke, Herbert and Uhler also adorn photo displays, rowing plaques and trophies that line the wood-paneled walls.

Over the years, club members stopped rowing. Membership became more of a social thing, with galas, monthly dances, and Oktoberfest and Mardi Gras parties. The club began sponsoring high school rowing teams and local Little League and concentrated on charitable community work. Although the club's mission is to support water-related activities and more than 50 slips extend into the water in front of the club, only about one-third of all members own boats.

All was relatively quiet on the waterfront until the 1980s. First came the female protesters. Then came the unofficial boycott by city leaders such as Charles E. Beatley Jr., who was mayor at the time. African Americans, unhappy about the club's exclusive membership, joined the fray. (There are no African American members, although club officials say there is no policy barring them. "We don't have any black members, but there's nothing that says we couldn't," said club historian Ray Cobean, who serves on the membership committee.)

Next up was the battle over the club's waterfront spot, which continues to this day. Beatley wanted the club to take down a fence at the foot of King Street to allow the public access to the waterfront, which at the time was neglected and rotting. When the club refused and threatened to go to court, Beatley ordered city crews to cut the fence in the middle of the night.

A battle over a parking lot, which the club owns and the city has wanted for years, remains unresolved. As is the legal fight with the federal government, which in 1973 sued property owners along the Alexandria waterfront, claiming ownership of everything up to the high-water mark of 1791.

The government sought public access and easements. Most owners settled by agreeing to build setbacks or provide easements. Not the boat club. It remains one of the last holdouts in the case.

Thus was born the public perception that the boat club was full of recalcitrant snobs who wanted the waterfront all to themselves.

Enter Dabney Bell.

After she joined the club in 1999, she led the publicity committee and began to update its fusty image. She created brochures and a Web site that featured not only the club's colorful history, but also the work it does in the community.

Slowly, instead of just controversies over the club's prime piece of real estate, stories started emerging in local newspapers and TV broadcasts about its blood drives and fundraisers for the Alexandria Seaport Foundation, the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, and cancer and liver research. Dabney Bell promoted the fact that the club has for 40 years sponsored the Salvation Army's Christmas bell-ringers and that it pays for special-needs children to take a Potomac River cruise and come to the club for lunch every year. And members have always bought Christmas presents for Santa to distribute to needy children.

She sent out news releases and invited city leaders to club-sponsored events.

"We had never done anything like that before, show what a good neighbor we are," Dabney Bell said one recent day as she sat in the second-floor Tap Room, a brilliant winter sun sparkling on the Potomac just outside the enormous plate-glass windows. "Once people began to see all the positive contributions to the city that we make, that gave us a much more positive image."

Dabney Bell began rising in the ranks of club leadership. She was the first female vice president. She oversaw the updating of the lower level, which at one time had a dirt floor and was used to store canoes. It now has a full kitchen, bar, shower, members-only room, and party room that leads to a patio and tiki bar.

Along the way, the club became something more to Dabney Bell. She had been coming to the club since she was a teen and her uncle was a member. She always loved the place, she said. When she moved to the area after a career as an executive with U.S. Airways took her all over the country, she immediately put herself on the club's waiting list. (To join the club, one must be sponsored by two members in good standing, vetted by the membership committee and pay $1,000 to sign up and about $600 a month in dues. The wait is about six years.)

She met her husband at the club. Steve Bell, a general contractor, helps keep the place shipshape. They got married at the club in 2006. They spend their weekends there or on their 33-foot Carver Mariner, called the Dabney Belle. The club, she says, is like home, its members her family.

Sitting at the bar nearby, Robert Whitestone, 53, a member for 35 years whose father and grandfather were members, too, said it has taken a long time for the club's culture to change. But change it has. His view that the club finally has a female president?

"It's really not a big deal," he shrugged. "She's come up through the ranks. She's done her duty. She's deserving of the presidency. And she's gonna be a good one."