Looks like Cuthbert Butchart was responsible for Hessian Hills, a 9 holer that sat where the current Hudson National resides. The following blurb is from the November 21, 1928 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
From research I've been doing the last few months, in connection with the still-born Hessian Hills, I can give you the following on Cuthbert Butchart from May 1926 to March 1930:
In the 2nd incarnation of a civil suit March of 1934, Butchart testified to the following:
He was a golf course architect operating in Westchester County, was employed in the profession for 36 years (1898), and had built courses in England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany as well as the United States.
Butchart testified that he worked at the Westchester-Biltmore for "three and half years," ending in the summer of 1923 when the club went into liquidation. He further testified that from that point in 1923 to when he met representatives of Hessian Hills in 1926, he was unaffiliated with any club (in a golf-professional capacity is the context, I do not know if he also meant he had not designed any courses in this period)
He was approached by Hessian Hills (a portion of whose early subscribers were members of the Westchester-Biltmore) representatives in May of 1926 and made first plans for the course within a month, from the last week of May to the third week of June 1926, delivering the plan on June 26 1926, a plan which he revised in November of 1926, with construction starting shortly thereafter.
From these events in 1926 until May 1928, Butchart says he visited the HH project once or twice a week, nearly every week.
From May 2, 1928 - March 30, 1930 he lived on the premises in the Manor House that was part of a 15 building campus of the previous property owner, most of which were intended to be converted to posh country club use. His exact fees, precise duties and titles are never fixed in the accounts I am reading, but they were omnibus...from course builder and designer to interior construction foreman. He had minute and specific knowledge of every aspect of the property; he revised plans on two or three other occasions and was in regular contact with the HH proprietors and the tradesmen working the course. If Hessian Hills had come to fruition, he was to be its professional and club-maker, roles he was seemingly preparing to assume.
But Hessian Hills never did get off the ground.
Though it was part of the foundation contentions of the civil suit at issue, the preponderance of all testimony seems to say that Hessian Hills only got 13 of its 18 planned holes into ANY kind of shape for play, and only 4 of those (those closest to the clubhouse/estate campus) "finished" in the way a club member plunking down $1000 in the late 1920s (or today) would expect. There were stumps and large rocks still in every "fairway", no water system ever implemented, dead-turfed, un-mowed greens and unfilled bunkers.
The clubhouse campus conversion was worse still...no running water, showers or toilets, all hallowed-out buildings with little or no electric, some with their timbers harvested for other construction on the site and a pervading manure-smell from the "basement" cow-barn that sat under the intended locker building, nearest the first tee. Butchart described it as such, that, "you almost couldn't see, no less breathe."
Though other testimony in the suit claimed there were a handful of caddies, and occasional play in 1928-1930, Butchart says he saw neither in the 22 months he lived there (almost the whole period when there even a crude partial course available). It seems at best, a few local members may have braved the conditions and played a few of the holes.
These conditions were in direct contradiction to the handsome prospectus, brochures and newspaper blurbs the HH proprietors engineered from 1927-1929, efforts which resulted in the end with 43 equity members who paid $1000 each to join, and 53 "regular members" who held no security and paid $300 for their privileges... there is as yet, no record whether annual dues were ever paid by anyone.
I am still researching the extent to which HH had difficulties in realizing the project as intended (the proprietors were seemingly quite solvent, though perhaps overextended in their individual real estate projects)... whether it was an actual drain of monies, or a failure to attract more than 97 members, or technical difficulties to establish the facility, but in any event...
On February 9, 1930 the proprietors of Hessian Hills instead
leased out the property to National Golf and Country Club Inc, which was the corporate persona of one J. Perry Stolz (nicknamed "the Commodore" owing to the middle name and some previous exploits at sea). Stolz was now the "tenant"manager of the facility; he moved into the Manor House in April of 1930 and was ostensibly to take over the supervisory/superintendent's role that Butchart was filling in this hazy, still-born period of club development.
This marked the end of Butchart's direct involvement with Hessian Hills, though he still consulted on a handful of occasions with the HH proprietors as late as November 1 1930 about how and what would be needed to turn this flagging project around; although other testimony in the suit says he had been of the growing opinion that the proprietors should dump it.
For those hoping to pick up his trail... he said he worked at the Sunset Hills Golf Club ("east of Ossining") for 17 months from summer of 1930 to the end of 1931. From 1931 he reported that he was unaffiliated with any club until the date of his testimony in March of 1934; at that point (and perhaps well longer) his address was
12 North Astor Street
Irvington-on-Hudson, NY
Hope that adds a little interest to your weekend activities
cheers
vk