Was C.B. Macdonald's routing of NGLA

[Bryan Izatt]

....................

_________________________________

Bryan,

Of course the restriction was to protect the developer.
 
I dont get your basis for presuming in an addtional 2.5 acre purchase which would have brought the total to 210 (not 207.5 as it says in the 1912 letter.)

.......................

I'll try to be clearer. 

In the Stillman letter from December 1906 CBM says he bought 200 acres.

The Walker Cup piece (and many other reports, including CBM) say CBM bought 205 acres. 

Why are they different?

Is one or the other in error or was there a change in the purchase between December and June?

The Walker Cup piece says CBM bought 2.5 acres at the western end immediately after the June 1907 closing.

Where was it and what was it for?

The club history draft says that CBM bought 2.464 acres for the clubhouse in 1910.

So, by then did they own 205 acres or 210 acres?

I take it that none of us know at this time, but it should be interesting to pursue.

[MCirba]

Patrick,

For years you've been maintaining that Macdonald and Whigham routed the golf course in their first day or two onsite.

Now you claim that they might not have even spotted the Alps hill during this first 2 or 3 trips on horseback CBM mentioned.

Which is it?

[Sven Nilsen]

Mike:

The better question is why did end up with a course that fits pretty tightly within the acreage that was purchased?

When you figure that out (or go back and reread the posts from last week that addressed this), you'll have the answer to your own question.

Sven

Sven,

Because he had 200 acres to work with and something changed between December 1906 and June 1907 that hasn't yet been identified on this thread is my opinion.

Perhaps the developer did put the kibosh on any building lots prior to closing sale with Macdonald in June 1907?

Perhaps CBM underestimated what he needed once he started identifying the holes to be selected and their yardages?

Perhaps CBM made a number of his holes quite wider than the 50 or less yards he originally thought was ideal?

Even with all of that over 20% of CBM's purchase wasn't used for golf and that number doesn't include large gaps between the holes such as between 5 and 14 that both Max Behr and Macdonald told us could be used for other purposes.

Least likely to me would be that either CBM suddenly thought he needed 200 acres for his golf course when a year prior he thought it required 120, and even more remote would be that Macdonald never planned to provide building lots in the first place and only did it as a ruse to attract investors.

Or perhaps in the Fall of 1906 when he figured out the general routing from the Shinnecock Inn, past the locations of the Cape, Eden, Alps, Redan, etc. all the way along the one mile plus of water frontage to Peconic Bay, he had a very good idea that the course was going to need approximately 200 acres to fit the various "template" holes he envisioned using and any additional original holes that fit on the land he had examined.

His 120 acre number was based on his thoughts prior to having determined his list of "template" holes, and prior to his trip overseas.  That is what changed.

Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

....................

_________________________________

Bryan,

Of course the restriction was to protect the developer.
 
I dont get your basis for presuming in an addtional 2.5 acre purchase which would have brought the total to 210 (not 207.5 as it says in the 1912 letter.)

.......................

I'll try to be clearer.  

In the Stillman letter from December 1906 CBM says he bought 200 acres.

The Walker Cup piece (and many other reports, including CBM) say CBM bought 205 acres.  

Why are they different?

Is one or the other in error or was there a change in the purchase between December and June?

The Walker Cup piece says CBM bought 2.5 acres at the western end immediately after the June 1907 closing.

Where was it and what was it for?

The club history draft says that CBM bought 2.464 acres for the clubhouse in 1910.

So, by then did they own 205 acres or 210 acres?

I take it that none of us know at this time, but it should be interesting to pursue.

Bryan:

CBM transferred 205 acres to NGLA in 1910.  The 2.5 acre purchase came after that date, not immediately after the land was first procured.



-Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Aug. 1910)

There is a difference between 200 and 205 because the exact boundaries had not yet been figured out in Dec. 1905, as they had not yet done the survey to subdivide out the land for the golf course from the 450 or so that was available to them, although they already had a very good idea where the golf course was going to be (good enough to know they needed around 200 acres).

Sven

[Sven Nilsen]

The June 1907 date for finalizing the purchase has been thrown around quite a bit in the last couple of pages.

I don't think the date is determinate of anything relating to our conversation, other than that was the time when every thing was in place to make the transfer official.

Anyone who has bought a house knows these things don't happen overnight.  It is no surprise to me that it took 5 or 6 months to finalize the purchase of property that had not already been surveyed (for RE purposes), a parcel that was being carved out of an existing section of land, and that did not follow obvious plat lines.

Sven

[Patrick_Mucci]

Patrick,

For years you've been maintaining that Macdonald and Whigham routed the golf course in their first day or two onsite.

Correct

Now you claim that they might not have even spotted the Alps hill during this first 2 or 3 trips on horseback CBM mentioned.

That's NOT what I stated.
I NEVER stated that they might not have spotted the Alps hill during their visits.
What I stated was that the current Alps hill isn't the highest hill on the 450 acre property, which is what you stated.

If you're going to quote me, please quote me accurately, and not as you'd like .


Which is it?

See above

[Bryan Izatt]

Sven,

In your post to Mike, did you mean the fall of 1906, not 1907?

In the next post, are you saying that the Walker Cup piece is in error about the 2.5 acres immediately after the June 1907 closing?

To me the December to June was the 5 months where they were going to do the detail planning, plus whatever land procurement hoops they had to jump through.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike,

I think a mistake that you and others make is that you assume that the Shinnecock Inn was the primary influence for the routing and hole selection.   That the design of the holes and the routing were primarily a function of the location of the SI.

When you consider the holes CBM had "discovered, prior to staking out the land, the SI became a secondary convenience and nothing more.

Forgetting about the fire for a second.

What designer would design and route a course to a specific point when he had no outside access to that point ?

[Bryan Izatt]

A nice photo from the Walker Cup 1922.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Sven,

In your post to Mike, did you mean the fall of 1906, not 1907?

In the next post, are you saying that the Walker Cup piece is in error about the 2.5 acres immediately after the June 1907 closing?

To me the December to June was the 5 months where they were going to do the detail planning, plus whatever land procurement hoops they had to jump through.

Bryan,

Would this be a good time to  remind everyone about the design evolution of Merion and how the bunkers/features would be fine tuned over time, with the benefit of playing experience.

CBM like Donald Ross at PH#2, spent the balance of his active life fine tuning NGLA.

Why would it surprise you to know that CBM began fine tuning NGLA from the moment he acquired the property ?

[Sven Nilsen]

Sven,

In your post to Mike, did you mean the fall of 1906, not 1907?

In the next post, are you saying that the Walker Cup piece is in error about the 2.5 acres immediately after the June 1907 closing?

To me the December to June was the 5 months where they were going to do the detail planning, plus whatever land procurement hoops they had to jump through.

Bryan:

Definitely meant 1906.  Fixed, and thanks for pointing it out.

I do think the Walker Cup piece was in error, but I'll hold off on a definitive response until we see the actual records.  That 205 acre number in 1910 is a solid benchmark.

Sven

[MCirba]

Pat,

Are you saying that the starting and ending holes just happened to be located near the Shinnecock Inn due to pure coincidence or because that was the building CBM has to use for his clubhouse?

[MCirba]

Bryan,

Would this be a good time to  remind everyone about the design evolution of Merion and how the bunkers/features would be fine tuned over time, with the benefit of playing experience.

CBM like Donald Ross at PH#2, spent the balance of his active life fine tuning NGLA.

Why would it surprise you to know that CBM began fine tuning NGLA from the moment he acquired the property ? [/color]

Patrick,

Except that's not what happened during that time period in the first half of 1907.   Macdonald himself was quoted in December after signing the agreement to secure land that the next several months would be devoted to selecting the holes and determining the distances.

He wasn't bunkering the place and even when the routing was finally published in August of 1907 it was pointed out that the bunkering hadn't been done, except where necessary to reproduce a template hole.   Other articles later after the course opened in 1910 mentioned the fine tuning process and need to observe play to appropriately bunker the holes.

[MCirba]

Or perhaps in the Fall of 1906 when he figured out the general routing from the Shinnecock Inn, past the locations of the Cape, Eden, Alps, Redan, etc. all the way along the one mile plus of water frontage to Peconic Bay, he had a very good idea that the course was going to need approximately 200 acres to fit the various "template" holes he envisioned using and any additional original holes that fit on the land he had examined.

His 120 acre number was based on his thoughts prior to having determined his list of "template" holes, and prior to his trip overseas.  That is what changed.

Sven

Sven,

Perhaps but why didn't he tell us, or better yet, why didn't he tell the Founders that his thinking and thus their agreement had changed?

Why wouldn't he have added an addendum or revision to his original Founders Agreement mentioning his sudden change of heart?   Instead, he sent the Original Agreement to them again in Dec 1906 saying the original plan would be executed?   Worse yet, he seems to have sent it to the Press, who faithfully reported on it in various NYC newspapers.   Why wouldn't he have corrected them?

As far as his trip overseas, I'm not sure what he would have seen that he hadn't seen prior that would lead him to increase the size of his Ideal golf course by 70%.   Could you elaborate on that statement?   Thanks!

[DMoriarty]

Mike,  

You've gone off on so in so many different directions this morning, that I won't even bother to address most of it except to say that I disagree.  

I will address few points, though.

1.  You asked for the date of Redfield's statement. In Colonizing Southampton, Goddard recounted that Redfield gloated about the sale in his "first report to the stockholders at the end of 1906."   This cuts directly against your wishful thinking about how the condition must have arisen at some point later date.

2.  Your claim that the Dec. 1906 Stillman letter "simply mirrored" the 1904 Agreement is mistaken. For one reason, the Stillman letter made no mention of any sort of housing scheme whatsoever!  For another, the Stillman letter clarified that any misperceptions created by the original agreement by stating that any sort of investment scheme (outside of getting a good price for the land) was outside the spirit of the original agreement.  For another the Stillman letter suggests that this point needed more emphasis than was placed in the original agreement.

3.  Your take away from the Walker Cup program is so skewed and misleading that it is not worth addressing.

But all of this is beside the point!  According to Redfield there was NO REAL ESTATE COMPONENT!  So why are you still doing this?

[Sven Nilsen]

Mike:

You don't know that CBM sent the agreement to the press.  You've constantly speculated that he used the press for publicity.  You and I disagree on this point, for a number of reasons.  Foremost, I don't think he gave a crap what the general public thought.  His concerns were with the folks he saw face to face, the founders, the guys he wanted to sign up for his endeavor.  The press was more interested in him than he was in them.

You are neglecting to take into account what we know about the man.  He didn't work in half measures, he didn't sweat the BS.  He was building the first "ideal" course in the U.S., and if you wanted to get a ticket on his train then pony up the $1000.

As for finalizing his thoughts on the ideal, perhaps it wasn't what he saw, it was the act of putting it down on paper, of mapping out his final set of templates, that led him closer to the 200 acre number.  Perhaps it was actually seeing the land that he would end up buying.  Perhaps it was a combination of the two, seeing how the holes he wanted to build would work on that land, what areas were usable for those purposes, and what areas weren't.

When you buy 200+ acres, and the golf course you build on those 200+ acres fits within the customized boundaries of that area with only a modicum of extra land (much of it in the interior of the course), you're not thinking about extra land for 1.5 acre plots of land for a bunch of millionaires whose only unbuffered property lines are on the Upper East Side.

Sven

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat,

Are you saying that the starting and ending holes just happened to be located near the Shinnecock Inn due to pure coincidence

Absolutely.

Why would you have a starting and finishing point to a location that no one could access ?
Please answer that specific question.

 or because that was the building CBM has to use for his clubhouse?

The SI served as a temporary clubhouse out of pure coincidence and convenience.

[MCirba]

Mike,  

You've gone off on so in so many different directions this morning, that I won't even bother to address most of it except to say that I disagree.  

I will address few points, though.

1.  You asked for the date of Redfield's statement. In Colonizing Southampton, Goddard recounted that Redfield gloated about the sale in his "first report to the stockholders at the end of 1906."   This cuts directly against your wishful thinking about how the condition must have arisen at some point later date.

2.  Your claim that the Dec. 1906 Stillman letter "simply mirrored" the 1904 Agreement is mistaken. For one reason, the Stillman letter made no mention of any sort of housing scheme whatsoever!  For another, the Stillman letter clarified that any misperceptions created by the original agreement by stating that any sort of investment scheme (outside of getting a good price for the land) was outside the spirit of the original agreement.  For another the Stillman letter suggests that this point needed more emphasis than was placed in the original agreement.

But all of this is beside the point!  According to Redfield there was NO REAL ESTATE COMPONENT!  So why are you still doing this?

David,

Then why include the Original Agreement in his letter to Founders in Dec 1906 if it was already null and void, trumped by the Real Estate Developer's dictate as to how the land they purchased could be used?   There would be no reason to mention it again in the Stillman Letter as the Original Agreement spelling it out was already attached!

Redfield certainly seems to have dictated how the specific land for a clubhouse could be utilized, but I don't see any mention of Real Estate Component that Macdonald proposed in what was quoted, do you?   You can speculate that this implied how the remainder of the property could be utilized, but that's not what's quoted, is it?   Without further details on that agreement we don't know for sure.

Thanks for pointing out the Redfield 1906 mention from Goddard's book.   I agree that is likely the source of the quotes in the Walker Cup article.

Let me ask you this, though.

According to your calculations Macdonald utilized 162 acres for his golf course, which includes the sometimes sizable gaps between ingoing and outcoming holes such as exists between 5 and 14.   Let's say that number was 150, or somewhat less.

Is it your belief that even if CBM had a spare 50 or more acres available not used for the golf course that he'd lock himself into an agreement with a Real Estate Developer where the developer had final say in how Macdonald could use any additional property not used for golf, now and forever-more?

[JESII]

Missing a couple days makes it tough to find a place to elbow in...and there really are several different disagreements going on at the same time...it's pretty incredible. Fortunately though, they have all stayed on this thread as opposed to each argument having its own...

David - Your quote of the developer via Millard:

"'If the property fails to be used as a golf course within the next fifty years, it shall revert to us upon payment of the purchase price with interest. If they build later a clubhouse to not cost less than $20,000, this is to be excerpted from the reversion together with 5 acres around it.'"

This doesn't at all say CBM cannot give 90 acres in 1.5 acre lots to his Founding members if there is a golf course there. I'm not even sure how you can read it to say that. That conversation has been couched in terms like "large housing component" and "cottage versus cabin" when neither were ever put on the table by CBM.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bryan,

Would this be a good time to  remind everyone about the design evolution of Merion and how the bunkers/features would be fine tuned over time, with the benefit of playing experience.

CBM like Donald Ross at PH#2, spent the balance of his active life fine tuning NGLA.

Why would it surprise you to know that CBM began fine tuning NGLA from the moment he acquired the property ? [/color]

Patrick,

Except that's not what happened during that time period in the first half of 1907.   Macdonald himself was quoted in December after signing the agreement to secure land that the next several months would be devoted to selecting the holes and determining the distances.
"Distances", Mike, "distances"

CBM clearly stated that he located the holes he wanted, staked the property accordingly and subsequently, bought what he staked.

Reread Chapter X, he's pretty clear on the sequence of events.

I know that you can't admit or adhere to that sequence because of what it does to your Merion defense, but, CBM was crystal clear on the process, he studied the land in earnest, located the holes, staked the property,  and bought the property.

He didn't buy a slice of land randomly with the hope of being able to site his templates, he had done that work prior to staking the land.

He wasn't bunkering the place and even when the routing was finally published in August of 1907 it was pointed out that the bunkering hadn't been done, except where necessary to reproduce a template hole.   Other articles later after the course opened in 1910 mentioned the fine tuning process and need to observe play to appropriately bunker the holes.

Mike, they were playing the course in 1909.

And, CBM stated that they built the classic holes right at the get go.  The Eden, Cape, Alps, Sahara, Redan, Road hole and others, like the Short, Leven, Bottle.

How do you think he planned to get from the Redan green to the Short tee ?
The "hog back" was one of his templates.

[DMoriarty]

I'll try to be clearer. 

In the Stillman letter from December 1906 CBM says he bought 200 acres.

The Walker Cup piece (and many other reports, including CBM) say CBM bought 205 acres.

Why are they different?

Is one or the other in error or was there a change in the purchase between December and June?

I don't know for sure, but the reason might be suggested by the blueprint.  The lines on the blueprint along SHGC and the Western border (in other words, the lines excluding the water frontages) are not quite identical to the lines on the parcel map. The difference between the two seems to be about five acres.  So perhaps the draftsman of the blueprint didn't get the original dimensions quite correct, or perhaps CBM and HJW had the line slightly altered when they figured out that the alps and Sahara didn't quite fit as they thought the holes would fit.

Another possibility is that they were working with the same lines on all but the borders bound by water, but that the developer or the final survey was slightly more aggressive in what constituted land and what constituted sea.

The Walker Cup piece says CBM bought 2.5 acres at the western end immediately after the June 1907 closing.

Where was it and what was it for?

It was the land described by CBM in the 1912 letter.  The Walker Cup article quotes Macdonald as saying that they purchased the land "to protect ourselves."  The quote comes from the description in the 1912 letter.  

The club history draft says that CBM bought 2.464 acres for the clubhouse in 1910.

Perhaps the author didn't mean "immediately" the way you are reading it.

So, by then did they own 205 acres or 210 acres?

According to CBM, by then they owned 207.5 Acres.  The original 205, plus the 2.5 as described in the 1912 letter.

[Sven Nilsen]

Mike -

Go back and reread the Dec. 16, 1906 Brooklyn Daily Eagle article (which sites the earlier Nov. 1 article).  Note the last paragraph.

They were already talking about a clubhouse that could host players for the weekend, and where they could take their meals.  

If this was supposed to be a cottage community course, why would they be talking about the need for a clubhouse suitable for hosting the members during their visits?

Sven

[MCirba]

Mike:

You don't know that CBM sent the agreement to the press.  You've constantly speculated that he used the press for publicity.  You and I disagree on this point, for a number of reasons.  Foremost, I don't think he gave a crap what the general public thought.  His concerns were with the folks he saw face to face, the founders, the guys he wanted to sign up for his endeavor.  The press was more interested in him than he was in them.

When you buy 200+ acres, and the golf course you build on those 200+ acres fits within the customized boundaries of that area with only a modicum of extra land (much of it in the interior of the course), you're not thinking about extra land for 1.5 acre plots of land for a bunch of millionaires whose only unbuffered property lines are on the Upper East Side.

Sven

Sven,

My belief that he sent that to the press, or more likely, also held a press conference at Garden City that evening to announce the news is also based on my understanding of the man and his very large ego.  

Moreover, it's based on the fact that on that very weekend three major NYC newspapers all reported virtually the same thing quoting from the original agreement, contents from the Stillman letter, and quoting Macdonald directly.   Please don't ask me to post them all again.    

As far as the golf course fitting the 200 acres, estimates I saw here that included all the land between the holes (which is sometimes considerable) had it at 165 and 162 acres, respectively.  

[JESII]

David,

In addition (and drawing you back several days, I know), CBM draws a clear distinction between Founders and his Board of Directors, with the Board running the club, not the Founders. That said, he mentions the Founders meeting which sounds more like an annual shareholder meeting as opposed to a more regular executive level, or Board of Directors, meeting.

I would agree that the BoD would be comprised of Founders, likely exclusively. The $1,000 subscription was an individual agreement to join a club and changes to that agreement would likely be handled at the individual level by majority or super majority vote.

[MCirba]

Mike -

Go back and reread the Dec. 16, 1906 Brooklyn Daily Eagle article (which sites the earlier Nov. 1 article).  Note the last paragraph.

They were already talking about a clubhouse that could host players for the weekend, and where they could take their meals.  

If this was supposed to be a cottage community course, why would they be talking about the need for a clubhouse suitable for hosting the members during their visits?

Sven

Sven,

I don't know what one has to do with the other, honestly.   That same article tells us it's "likely" that land bordering the golf course would be sub-divided for future use by the Founders to build summer cottages thereon.  

In the meantime, the Shinnecock Inn provided nice lodging and food for visitors.