For Jason and Cindy Lueking, owning the Smokey Row Family Swim Club for the last 17 years has been a family affair, as their children took lessons, competed and worked at the pool in the summers.
Now, with their youngest daughter attending and swimming at the University of Notre Dame, they are looking to sell the club at 4255 E. 136th St. to new owners.
“It’s been great to meet a lot of different folks over the years, but it’s time to move on, as our kids have gotten older and we’ve gotten older as well,” said Jason Lueking, who is looking forward to having more freedom to travel during the summer.
The Luekings bought the club in 2005 along with Cindy’s uncle, Mike Troy, a two-time Olympic champion and world-record holder. Troy, who died at age 78 in 2019, split time between Indiana and Arizona, where he operated a swim school. He brought expertise to the operation that the Lueking’s didn’t initially have. Cindy’s brothers are also co-owners, but the Luekings primarily manage the facility because they lived nearby in the Cool Creek North neighborhood.
As owners and operators, the Luekings said they enjoyed building relationships with many of their neighbors each summer. They saw couples who would eventually marry meet at the pool, and many swimmers and divers went on to success in college and beyond, including Steele Johnson, who earned a silver medal in synchronized diving at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“(Johnson would) impress the crowd with the dives he could do at our pool,” Jason Lueking said.
Cindy said watching the club’s swim team, which initially could “barely get a win,” progress to become invitational champions several years in a row is among her favorite memories.
“It was a really fun four years, because you got to watch the kids grow,” she said. “We were the worst in the league, and then we got some kids that moved (the team) into one of the better ones in the league.”
The Luekings said they have spoken to several possible purchasers of the facility, which they would like to see remain as a neighborhood pool. They are hoping the new owners will expand pickleball and tennis offerings at the club.
Learn more about the pool at SmokeyRowPool.com.
