I honestly don't know the answer but when i see a list such as Wayne Morrison has compiled of W Flynn projects I would assume he did....but many did not do nearly that much work......I just don't see where there was ever a market large enough to support these guys as a lifetime career.....and if I recall a few were TFB's anyway.

Mike,
I meant to say the field was so small that they had to be doing something else besides golf architecture or either they had family money....

Flynn did not come from money, his father was a day laborer, but apparently he married into an old Boston family.  He made a decent living at golf architecture, enough to keep on two regular construction crews.  He made considerably more money in investments (friends like Rockefeller, Geist, Lasker and others didn't hurt) and so was not harmed much by the Depression.  

Flynn owned a golf course, was a part owner of the Eagles and owned 2 car dealerships, one of which floundered because of a poor manager.

Mike, I've heard Ran mention the fact m any were amateur, only in the sense that they did not recieve payment.

 But I can't help but think, some here would argue, in more ways.

Thinking of Neville at Pebble, I'm not sure how long the course was maintained as designed. Clearly from the pictures that hang outsie the Tap Room, the course is remarkably different today.

Mike and Tony, the two of you are incorrect in your perceptions of the financial status of Tilly during the last few years of his life and at the time of his death.

Mike, you wrote, "Does the fact that Tilly and Mozart were broke when they died make their creations any more or less valuable?"

Tony, you wrote, "From what I know of Mozart, and what I've read on here about Tillie, it was more a case of neither observing Mr Macawber's dictum.  Had either of them had a more controlled lifestyle and invested when times were good, then by the standards of their day they recieved adequate funds to live very well indeed."

Though not wealthy, Tilly was by no means broke nor destitute. While it is true that he lost his Harrington Park home to pay back taxes owed in 1936, this was not as a result of his lacking funds or not having paid. He was caught in the middle of a situation where the person who held his mortgage was supposed to be paying the taxes out of the funds he was given and HE failed to do so, theerby causing the tax sale.

If it hadn't occurred while Tilly was traveling for the PGA he would have been able to prevent it. Still, he was able to return in time to stop the auction and so retain almost all of the home's furnishings including a large number of extremely valuable antiques. I have personally seen some of these and many are worth at or near 6 figures and more today.

He offered many of these for sale in California at the antiques store that he opened three years later. If one is broke, how can you afford to transport a household full of furnishings clear across the country, especially when a moving company is paid to do this.

In addition to this, Tilly had given his wife a number of very valuable pieces of jewelry that they never sold or got rid of. If he was broke at this time, these would have surely been sold. Again, many are still in the family possession and are quite lovely as I have seen these as well.

Finally, Tilly had several other sources of income. He was working for the Pacific Coast Golfer magazine and what almost everyone is unaware of is that his father's company, the Tillinghast Rubber Goods Company, was still in business and would not be closed till some five years after his death. Though small, this too supplied him with a bit of income.

In addition, he also rid himself of some golf-related items such as his personal library that he sold to a gentleman from Virginia in whose family it still resides.

No, Tilly was not broke when he died and he was not rich either.

Yes, he misspent and wasted funds throughout his life, but nowhere near the amounts that most people think he did. This is a story, similar to some of the ones about his drinking, that have simply grown in the telling.

Just thought I'd clear that up. THere is a wonderful biography of Tillinghast now available in which one can find all of these facts and more!  

Mike and Tony, the two of you are incorrect in your perceptions of the financial status of Tilly during the last few years of his life and at the time of his death.

Mike, you wrote, "Does the fact that Tilly and Mozart were broke when they died make their creations any more or less valuable?"

Tony, you wrote, "From what I know of Mozart, and what I've read on here about Tillie, it was more a case of neither observing Mr Macawber's dictum.  Had either of them had a more controlled lifestyle and invested when times were good, then by the standards of their day they recieved adequate funds to live very well indeed."

Though not wealthy, Tilly was by no means broke nor destitute. While it is true that he lost his Harrington Park home to pay back taxes owed in 1936, this was not as a result of his lacking funds or not having paid. He was caught in the middle of a situation where the person who held his mortgage was supposed to be paying the taxes out of the funds he was given and HE failed to do so, theerby causing the tax sale.

If it hadn't occurred while Tilly was traveling for the PGA he would have been able to prevent it. Still, he was able to return in time to stop the auction and so retain almost all of the home's furnishings including a large number of extremely valuable antiques. I have personally seen some of these and many are worth at or near 6 figures and more today.

He offered many of these for sale in California at the antiques store that he opened three years later. If one is broke, how can you afford to transport a household full of furnishings clear across the country, especially when a moving company is paid to do this.

In addition to this, Tilly had given his wife a number of very valuable pieces of jewelry that they never sold or got rid of. If he was broke at this time, these would have surely been sold. Again, many are still in the family possession and are quite lovely as I have seen these as well.

Finally, Tilly had several other sources of income. He was working for the Pacific Coast Golfer magazine and what almost everyone is unaware of is that his father's company, the Tillinghast Rubber Goods Company, was still in business and would not be closed till some five years after his death. Though small, this too supplied him with a bit of income.

In addition, he also rid himself of some golf-related items such as his personal library that he sold to a gentleman from Virginia in whose family it still resides.

No, Tilly was not broke when he died and he was not rich either.

Yes, he misspent and wasted funds throughout his life, but nowhere near the amounts that most people think he did. This is a story, similar to some of the ones about his drinking, that have simply grown in the telling.

Just thought I'd clear that up. THere is a wonderful biography of Tillinghast now available in which one can find all of these facts and more!  

Phillip,
I find all of the above interesting.....but again it says to me that "architecture did not support these guys".....I can't make the numbers work by estimating their fee times the courses theu designed over a certain time frame.....I figured there were other income streams somewhere....
Mike

Mike,

My point with the info about Tilly's finances actually does show that he made a very good living out of being an architect.

Back in the mid-1920s, his proposal for the contract for 5 Farms stated, "My minimum fee for eighteen holes is Three thousand dollars. I see nothing to warrant any addition to this and consequently I will agree to make detailed plans for thirty-six holes… acting in a general advisory capacity until both courses are ready for play, visiting the grounds from time to time as may be necessary to produce courses which will be satisfactory to you and myself, for six thousand dollars and expenses incidental to travel and lodging…"

$3,000 for the course design PLUS expenses was a great deal of money in 1926 (date of opening). That year also saw his work completed at Bridgton-Highlands CC (9 holes), Davis Island GC (9 holes), Erie GC, Forest Hill FC, Golden Valley CC, Rochester G&CC, Rockaway HC(among others). In addition to these original designs were a number of other courses where he was doing renovations & additions.

Just the raw numbers for this year suggest he made in excess of $25,000 direct income for himself and this doesn't include money from other areas such as his golf writing. There were a number of years in the twenties where he made even more.

That he lost money backing Broadway shows, bad business investments and some high spending is true, but he also invested some of his money in fine antiques and collectibles that he would then go on to sell from his first antiques store in New Jersey during this same time.

I have found newspaper articles highlighting some of these sales. For example, on one occasion he sold a set of autographs, autographed letters and rare documents that he had collected over time for more than $60,000. These included a number of items including the last pardon the President ever signed.

Yes, he made significant revenues from this non-golf related area, but only because his golf course design income allowed him to purchase these in the first place.

 

Ok, so we have mentioned about three guys that may have made a living at it.  
Let's say that the average fee for a course, I SAID AVERAGE, during that time was $1000.....and say 200 courses were built in a year....$200,000..doesn't work....

Now let's say that today there will be 150 courses open next year and the average fee is $250,000.   It doesn't work......even today....

Jeff, you asked two questions. "Did Tillie have any staff or an office to pay for?" and "Kind of odd by todays standards that he had an arrangement for someone else to pay taxes on the Harrington Park home, though.  Was he a renter, buyer, or lease to purchase kind of guy?"

As far as staff, he minimal or none most of the years he worked. The real exception to this was when he put his son-in-law, Harold Worden, to work as his field super & construction engineer in late 1928. He would stay with him for almost four years.

He did most of his drawings and kept a home office in Harrington Park after he moved there in 1927. It appears that his offices in Philadelphia & New York were small and used primarily as mailing addresses.

As far as whether he "Was he a renter, buyer, or lease to purchase kind of guy?" He was a renter. We don't know where he lived after he married in the early 1890's in Philadelphia. He may have owned the home he lived in in that area up until he moved in early 1920 to Menlo Park where he rented a house. This was nearby his friend Thomas Edison who he met when he did the Essex County CC where Edison was a non-golf playing member.

He moved into his house in Harrington Park in 1927, renting it until his landlord needed to sell it and bought it from him in 1930. His former landlord became his mortgage holder and so now Tilly built a second house on the property in which he settled the Wordens. They would move to Toledo sometime in early 1934 and he would move in with them after his heart attack several years later, and that was where he died.

It was his former landlord who messed up and cost them the house that they dearly loved more than any other place they had lived. This was also Tilly's fault as it appears he trusted the person completely and naively never demanded an accounting. This goes back to his very poor business skills.

Mike, all I meant with all of this personal Tilly info is that your original question asked about the dead guys ability to make a living from designing golf courses. I can't say about anyone other than Tilly and I know that he did and did quite well, though nowhere near the "millions" made and spent that some have very mistakenly written in the past.

MacKenzie apparently did very well during most of his life, but he died penniless during the Depression, writing very plaintive letters to Clifford Roberts in a vain attempt to collect his fee for designing Augusta National.  Very sad.