Amenities include a heated pool and spa, outdoor Skylark Bar with its lakeside patio, complimentary kayaks and paddleboards, and gourmet dining in the main clubhouse overlooking the North anchorage of Milwaukee Harbor.

Incidentally, the channel is the source of the lake water pumped into the Milwaukee River near North Avenue.

With only a partial sea wall north of the site and east from McKinley Beach, there was little protection for boats back then, and boaters had to be a hardy lot and more self-reliant than they are now.

Twenty years later, in 1916 the United States Coast Guard built a lifeboat station on the shoreline across the channel from the Yacht Club.

Later additions to the breakwater in the 1960s completed the protection for the club and the boat slips in Milwaukee County's McKinley Marina.

The old clubhouse now called the Boathouse, houses the office of the dockmaster, a classroom for the Junior Sailing School, event space, plus restrooms, showers and lockers.

The crane is used mainly now for launching and hauling members boats, stepping and removing masts, and race measurement.