I probably shouldn't try to do this with a tired brain on a Friday afternoon and I'll probably only be able to do the shorthand version of things so please be merciful.
Ok...stream of consciousness time.
I really don't believe that CBM cared about providing a housing component for his members to the Ideal Course plan and I really don't believe the members cared all that much about it but I think he included it in his plans and they accepted it for two reasons;
1) Sweetening the deal of offering something financially tangible as CBM stated
2) The reality of the logistics of building a course/club several hours away from NYC and further for the rest of his National membership and needing to provide somewhere for them to stay, and do the necessities of life while visiting the club
I also think Macdonald believed he could build a course on about 110 acres. He said so, and I examined his writings about ideal holes and if anything, he was stubborn about the advent of the Haskell Ball, arguing that some holes had in fact been improved by the new, hotter ball. His basic standard was still to create a course in the 6000-6200 yard range as ideal, and railed against the trend towards making courses too long.
Certainly he knew he could get his golf course on much less than 200 acres and in fact, did, using only about 160-165 acres, measured generously with some spacious gaps between holes. Indeed, in my earlier example I mentioned he could have have parallel 50 yard wide fairways separated by another 50 yards with 30 yards on the sides of each of them and still had an acre (70 yards) available running the length of 2 miles. He had TONS of room. 200 acres on a treeless site is massive.
I think when CBM made his first offer on 120 acres near the Canal he knew of the Developer's plans for housing in the area so only bid on what he thought he needed for the 110 acres for the golf course and 10 acres for the clubhouse and parking. It's exactly what he wrote he needed for those items in the 1904 Agreement, in fact.
The idea that it was a different site so he'd need only 120 acres there and 200 acres or 67% more for the golf course on Sebonac Neck doesn't hold water for me, especially when one looks at a topographical map of the areas in question. In fact, Jeff Brauer weighed in that the second site looked even more favorable for golf in terms of landforms.
But when December 1906 came along, CBM secured 200 acres as per his original 1904 agreement that included Founders lots. Here's why I think he did it.
1) That's what he originally agreed to with the Founders
2) He was hedging his bets that he probably needed to provide some additional lodging options beyond the 30 rooms being built in the Shinnecock Inn that were to house members of Shinnecock, motorists, and National members.
3) He knew he needed to start and end his golf course near the Shinnecock Inn and he'd be an idiot not to want to get to Peconic Bay two miles away, and Macdonald was not an idiot.
4) The two major features CBM identified during his horse rides, the Alps Hill and the site for the Eden green were not conducive to his out and back routing, Measured on a slight diagnonal, it is over 700 yards from the middle of the Alps Green to the middle of the Eden green, which is a big reason that the routing of NGLA looks a bit like a snake that has swallowed a baby pig. CBM would have known this and it was certainly a problem to be solved in terms of overall land usage. Max Behr told us that Macdonald bought enough land to embrace all of the natural features he had found and these two were the furthest apart.
5) Behr also told us that in laying out the course
"...no concession was made to economy in the use of land. Even so, a considerable part of the 205 acres is not touched by the course and is available for other purposes."Whether CBM was restricted in terms of land usage for housing by the Development company is something to consider. However, I think it's likely that something smaller like quarter acre or half acre lots for bungalows would not have been seen as direct competition by the Developer and likely something Macdonald and the club could have done if they wanted. Indeed, one of the Founders thought they were going to build bungalows after the Shinnecock Inn burned down as seen in Bryan's article yesterday.
The following article from the April 13, 1908 Brooklyn Daily Eagle describes a couple of related items. First, there was consideration that the Inn may be rebuilt, only this time presumably larger because the Inn was planned before it was known Macdonald was going to locate his course there, which is news to me. It would also explain why Macdonald decided to locate his first and 18th holes there originally. I think Macdonald probably saw the Inn as temporarily solving his lodging problem but hedged his bets upwards in terms of total acreage as I mentioned above.
So I think that the whole question of what to do with excess land, how to handle lodging needs, etc., were still on the table as of this date, and as seen in the article from July 1908 that Bryan shared yesterday.
But I also think we sometimes miss the human factor here. After many years of dreaming and planning Macdonald was now given free rein on 200 acres of land!! Can you imagine the exuberance he felt? I'm sure he pushed the limits in every way, in terms of hole options, land forms, and routing considerations so that he'd maximize the golf course in any way possible.
I'm thinking he figured he'd figure out the housing/lodging issue later and in the end, probably figured if the results were as good as he believed, he'd rather ask for forgiveness than permission.
Frankly, I don't think the issue of what to do with excess land, or how much excess land existed ever was determined. As discussed in the 1912 Letter to Founders, I think they all just agreed to table it and other options became available over time in terms of the transportation and lodging challenges and the whole issue just got tabled indefinitely..
Have a great weekend, and have mercy.