[JESII]

Tom,

I've yet to hear anyone explain why that Johnson Farm property, with only 120 of its acres viable for golf, and with Merion asking for 120 acres for their course, all as early as June 1910, would have arbitrarily and capriciously chopped off the 10.5 acre head of their offering, especially after promising everyone that all of their real estate property adjoining the golf course would have all of the houses facing it.

I started this thread this morning with that question, and I'm not surprised that it was avoided all day.  

Mikey...MIkey...are you there...does the Dallas Estate ring any bells?

[Mike Cirba]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzztttttttttttttttttttttttttt...wrong answer, Jim.  

We're talking June, 1910.   Even David told us that the only property they had to offer legally at that point was the Johnson Farm.   The Dallas Estate wouldn't be theirs for another five months.

At the time, they did have option on three other properties totaling over 150 acres that encircled the western and northern boundaries of the Johnson Farm, and which they hoped to develop real estate within, but the Dallas Estate was a distant dream, and certainly not something they could be negotiating with at that point as it wasn't even under option.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

BTW, it occurs to me that if the naturally occurring blue grasses were primarily on the other side of Ardmore, that this could have been a driving force in deciding to put golf over there, even WITHOUT A ROUTING PLAN in place.  Add it to the clubhouse and barn locations, and quarry from the golf side of the equation.

[TEPaul]

Mike and Jeff:

I'm not sure what you were referring to when you identified a few holes (fairways) that were not seeded. Wilson did mention that three fairways used existing pasture grass until 1915 when that grass became too weak but I don't think he ever identified which holes they were. At that point (1915) he said they sodded them. There was another point when he mentioned the grass on some "lower greens" failed (I think in 1914) and they took the turf off some of the old Haverford course greens (that course was closed by the club at the end of 1913) and sodded those lower greens with it. I think around the same time Merion actually trucked some of the old turf off one of the Haverford greens over to Pine Valley and put it on one of their greens that had failed (I sense it may've been the original 8th).

Jeff, it looks like Wilson identified what he called really good existing grass----eg apparently the grass that became know as "Merion Bluegrass" very early on and he said it was growing around a small house. I would assume that may've been one of the old structures on the Dallas Estate before they tore them down.

[TEPaul]

Guys:

I don't really remember this Francis idea being discussed in the past anywhere other than this website; nevertheless the only people I recall suggesting that northern block (10.5 acres) was decapitated are David Moriarty and Jim Sullivan. David Moriarty has contended that Francis suggested it was decapitated (before his fix idea) simply because he contends that HIS interpretation of what Francis meant to say with his 130 by 190 triangle descripion in his 1950 article could ONLY be interpreted to mean Francis said that created that whole triangle out of a pre-existing rectangle. David Moriarty may never admit it but HIS interpretation of what Francis meant to say by that description in his article is most certainly not the only plausible interpretation of what Francis meant by that description.

Consequently, here is another way (which I've mentioned a number of times before with mathematical calculations that apparently no one understood) of looking at the contemplated acreage for that course particularly in say July/August 1910 and before the 21 acre Dallas Estate really came into play and into realistic consideration.

You take the entire Johnson Farm (140 acres) and subtract that land north of Ardmore Ave out (21.1 acres according to Byan Izatt---and I scaled it and measured it off a few maps and came to about the same amount). That takes the Johnson Farm acreage to 119. Now suppose since HDC had already told MCC in June/July 1910 that they would front residential lots on the golf course that it was HDC that offered that curvilinear "approximate road" in June/July 1910 that eventually appeared on the Nov 1910 Land Plan.

If one scales and measures that curvilinear "appoximate road" one will find that the acreage to the left or west of that curvilnear "approximate road" and between the old Johnson Farm boundary all the way up the "L" from Ardmore to College Ave---eg contiguous to the old Taylor Farm, measures out to around 22-23 acres. So you subtract THAT from the 119 acres and you get around 96 acreas.

Then add in later the Dallas Estate (21 acres) and you get 117 acres. Add in the additional three acres they agreed to buy in the April 19, 1911 board meeting and you are at 120.1 acres that they did buy from Lloyd in July 1911. Add to that the P&W railroad 3 acres they leased until the 1970s and you get to the 123 acres they actually used for the course.

More than ever before I am beginning to appreciate Mike Cirba's suggestion that those curvilinear roads that were built by HDC all over their residential development to the west were HDC's idea. They are all the same thing as that "approximate road" defining the boundary of the green section of the course on the Nov 10, 1910 Land Plan. I think all those curvilinear roads were very likely HDC's idea.

All Francis' idea (and probably in March/April 1911) did was just change the dilineation of the "approximate road" that would become Golf House Road.

To me this notion that anyone would've squared off that 10.5 acres at the top of the "L," or would've wanted to just doesn't make much sense. I think the only reason that came up is the likes of Moriarty and Sully are just trying to get Francis out there some months before he was because they think it fits with the way he described the dimensions of that triangle in his 1950s article!  

[Mike Cirba]

Tom,

As regards which fairways were not seeded because the existing pasture grasses were deemed good enough as is, (Wilson refers in one of his letters to "25 acres" that won't be harrowed and planted), the following 1916 article points out they were the 10th, 11th, and 12th fairways.  

Incidentally, I don't think this is the same thing as his finding of Kentucky Bluegrass elsewhere on the property that he sent to P&O for identification.   I would agree based on Wilson's description of the location that it was likely over on the Dallas Estate where he found that variety occurring.

Jeff,

In another letter he says about half the course is pasture grasses, and half had corn planted on it.   I would think that suitability for golf and clubhouse location had a lot to do with the land they selected, as you mentioned.

by the way...I wonder if all of the changes done by Wilson outlined here, as well as the subsequent re-routing he did in 1924 are some of where David is seeing "Macdonald's fingerprints all over the course"?  

[Mike Cirba]

Here's another very good article from the same timeframe that refers to the planting of those fairways...

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

Thanks for the refresher on that article.  Two things caught my eye, one related to the "Tollhurst account."

That is, in the second pic, third column, halfway down, Joe Bunker states that "before anything was done to the course originally, Wilson visited every course of note in the GBI and other parts of America".  Other than the word "originally" in an article about then current changes, that sentence would read as though Wilson went abroad for the subsequent changes and NOT the original design.  Is this where the faulty Tollhurst legend originated?  One odd choice of words by Joe Bunker?

Secondly, for those of you thinking that back to front sloping greens are a new fangled requirement, please find they were found wanting even in the early 1900's.  At least two are mentioned to have been recontoured in this article to eliminate reverse slope greens.

[JESII]

Guys,

Is it fair to say that when something is actually purchased there is a desire to purchase it first?

Is it your honest opinion that the fact that the Dallas Estate was purchased out of probate in October 1910 somehow eliminates it from consideration prior to that date?

In all your real estate experience Tom, would you say the average time to settlement is from a first visit by an eventual buyer? Let's say you are motivated to buy a home...how quick would it reasonably be done? 3 months? 4 months?

Seriously...this line of assumptive logic is pretty weak.

[Mike Cirba]

Jim,

If we assume that both the rectangle is beheaded, and the Dallas Estate was in the mix, then the numbers don't add up no matter how you work them.

That would leave 108.5 acres of Johnson Land, 21 acres of Dallas Estate for 129.5 acres, before adding 4.8 for the triangle.  

That takes you to roughly 134.4, which means you need to somehow excise 14.3 acres to get down to the 120.1 acres they purchased.   Beyond that, there is not a single internal document or land transaction that talks about them acquiring nearly 130 acres at any point.   Don't forget that the net outcome of the  Francis deal had the ADDING three acres (from 117 secured to 120 purchased) they didn't originally anticipate, not shedding a whole bunch of land back to HDC they had already acquired previously.

Once Lloyd bought the whole shebang in December 1910 it was a bit of a different game, but David's premise of 120 acres is starting back in July 1910 when the only thing HDC owned was the Johnson Farm, with three other properties (but not Dallas) under option.   Even if we assume (and I don't actually) that the Dallas Estate was part of the 120 acres of land Merion said they thought they needed in July 1910, a beheaded Johnson + a new Dallas still equals 129.5 acres....the numbers don't lie.


p.s.   In answering your question last night about the map/blueprint sent by Wilson to P&O, I'm not ruling out that it may have included one of the early routings.   It may well have.

I just don't think it HAD to, per your question, and Wilson's use of alpha coding for the land sections certainly didn't offer evidence that there was.

[Jeff_Brauer]

TePaul,

Interesting about the "lower greens" failing in 1914.  If I recall correctly, there were some really big floods in the east in either 1913 or 1914.  If I am correct, I wonder if greens like 12 and 11 went under water, and then struggled?

[Mike Cirba]

Jim,

Can you think of any reason in the world that they would behead the Johnson prior to offering it to Merion?   

Seriously.

[TEPaul]

Jeff:

That's a terrific pick up on your part about what Joe Bunker said  in 1915 about Wilson going abroad, and how he may've used even a single word ("originally') to lead future researchers/analysts and history writers to an historically inaccurate assumption and conclusion.

Add to that the remarks about this from Wilson's brother in 1926 that were apparently also misinterpreted and misunderstood by later researchers/analysts and history writers to mean a 1910 trip abroad (in his 1926 report to Philler Alan Wilson did not actually say Hugh Wilson went abroad in 1910!!----but apparently someone at some point assumed and concluded that was what he meant!! ).  

Also notice that Richard Francis seems to be the one who added the information in 1950 for researchers/analysts and history writers that Wilson returned with surveys and sketches from abroad.

It looks like at some point perhaps within the next 35 years after Francis' article that the idea Wilson spent seven months abroad and in 1910 got interpreted somehow.

And then we get to 2009 when David Moriarty proved via a ship manifest that Wilson in fact traveled abroad in the spring of 1912 and returned in early May 1912, thereby scotching that old 1910 trip abroad story. I potentially bracketed that trip by producing the last date (March 1, 1912) of a letter Wilson wrote from Philadelphia, thereby scotching the seven months abroad story (which may've been initially verbally recounted as something like "several" and misiinterpreted into "seven."  ).

So the truth is he went abroad for no more than two months in the spring of 1912.

And then there is that mention in an article perhaps in late 1912 or early 1913 by Alex Findlay in which it seems Wilson essentially told Findlay he had never been abroad before or at least not to study golf architecture.

And then in 2009 we have this essay "The Missing Faces of Merion" that assumes and concludes that, SINCE the 1910 and seven months abroad trip in preparation for designing and creating the course is not true, THEREFORE it can be concluded that Wilson and his committee could not have routed and designed Merion East because they were too inexperience and therefore actually incapable of routing and designing Merion East before building it (Moriarty's over-arching "Novice" premise ), and that they had therefore only been the constructors of the course to someone else's routing and design----eg CBM and/or HH Barker!!  

The above, Jeffrey, is a chronicle of the history and evolution of interweaving rumors that eventually combined over time to produce some very historically inaccurate stories about the true architectural history of the course and who the architects actually were.

Thankfully the Merion historians and some others here have gone back to MCC's archives and found the administrative records from 1910 and 1911 and on that prove to a large extent what really happened back in 1911 with the routing and design and then the construction of the golf course and who largely was responsible for it all.

But as we can see from these on-going and long running Merion threads, old intertwining rumors, not based in fact, are very hard to break!  

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jim,

Besides the math of the Dallas Estate, there is the "problem" of potentially not knowing whether or not the property would be successfully purchased, no?  I am sure they knew the value of the Dallas Estate from the day CBM set foot on property (and Barker) because in general, they would want to control as much as they could for their plans, if it could be had for the right price.

While you are correct that perhaps some additional preliminary planning might have been done before the purchase, it didn't need to be necessarily so.  We know that side of Ardmore is 4 holes wide, and I have always suspected that Barkers plan showed that the length of the parcel was simply too short to fit in the required number of holes.

But, that is just an educated guess.

[JESII]

Thanks Mike,

First - the total acreage on the table...considering the eventual purchase of the Dallas Estate on 11/2/1910, I need agreement that it was being very strongly considered some period of time prior to that. It's a reasonable request...will you and Tom agree that HDC began pursuing the Dallas Estate sometime well in advance of the November 2 purchase date?


Jeff,

It was in probate so there was a highly motivated seller.

Jim,

Can you think of any reason in the world that they would behead the Johnson prior to offering it to Merion?   

Seriously.

Yes, I can.

[TEPaul]

Jim:

Given all the facts and details we know now, in my opinion, the developing scenario through 1910 I explained in Post #879 seems the most likely so far.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jim,

In reality, perhaps both the market and the seller were cold.....sorry, couldn't resist!

In my own family, I have seen estate parcels not be in any rush to be sold as the survivors over value it and want every last penny rather than a quick sale.  Plus, they would know that this area was being snapped up by recent land sales, even if HDC and PandA Land company had kept their identity secret.  HDC did use an intermediary to keep their participation a secret, no?  The ruse about a new house being built?  They might have stayed away from the property to mask their interest until it was bought.

So, it could have happened a lot of ways.  Speculating that it had to be a quick sale doesn't mean its fact that anyone would base a whole historic hypothesis on without other kinds of evidence.

[JESII]

Jim:

Given all the facts and details we know now, in my opinion, the developing scenario through 1910 I explained in Post #879 seems the most likely so far.

Tom,

Simply regarding property transfers...would you agree that for the Dallas Estate to change hands, out of probate, the negotiations and verbal agreements must have begun well in advance of the date on the deed? Isn't three to six months a pretty acceptable time frame for those sort of deals?

[JESII]

I guess if we can't even agree that they intended to buy it before they actually bought it...actual progress will be a real challenge...

[DMoriarty]

Tom,

Simply regarding property transfers...would you agree that for the Dallas Estate to change hands, out of probate, the negotiations and verbal agreements must have begun well in advance of the date on the deed? Isn't three to six months a pretty acceptable time frame for those sort of deals?

Of course the negotiations and verbal agreements for the  Dallas Estate started months before the final agreement.  In fact it was TEPaul who told us that the Dallas Estate was already in play in going way back to June or July.   So this new business about how the Dallas Estate was some sort of a November or October surprise is just another entirely bogus red herring. 

Earlier you wrote:

David,

You said above that that you wanted to stick with what the record supports...well the fact that Wilson was named Chairman of the committee in January (with no prior experience) is enough support for me that he was involved in their plans prior to that date...but we don't have hard, real evidence of that.

Do you have hard, real evidence that any of the guys you mentioned were out there between July 1, 1910 and January 1911?

I think you paint yourself into a corner by including others, but excluding Wilson under identical circumstances.

If you have any evidence which even suggests that Wilson was out there and what he was doing out there earlier, then I'd be glad to put him out there.  It really makes little difference to me at this point.   But as it is, I see indisputable evidence that Lloyd and Griscom had played a role prior to November 1910, and very good evidence suggesting that Francis was out there as well.   

I just cannot pretend that Wilson was out there without evidence indicating he was.  His circumstance is not identical.  We don't have any evidence he was out there doing anything.   And we have his first person account describing his involvement and it seems to begin in 1911 (he briefly summarizes what had happened before with no details at all.)   

But give me facts connecting him and I'd be find with him being out there.

[JESII]

David,

What do you have that proves Lloyd was out there on the property in 1910, after the July 1 meetings and letters?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Jim,

I don't think that is what anyone is disagreeing about.  We agree it didn't happen overnight.  I for one am just not sure that it means that there were test routings done to see how the property might be used for golf or housing until it was actually purchased.  It is not universal that extensive studies are done on "clean" property, especially back in those days.  

These days, there is more environmental due diligence, etc. but I believe it was more straightforward back then.  It may also have been more formal, too, with it not being common to access property with or without permission to assess it.  I am speculating about that as much as you are, but still, the disagreement here is whether or not a routing was prepared that showed how to use the Dallas property, right?

Or is it part of the math excersise as to how and exactly what 117 acres HDC offered MCC ?  I thought those numbers didn't appear to add up.  Nor do I think its particularly relevant.  Again, doesn't the Nov 15, 1910 map show what HDC had finally agreed to offer Merion?  I agree there were negotiations before hand, and what other considerations there may have been would be interesting to know, but what we do know is what was offered, accepted, deeded, and then subject to a revised deed in 1911, no?

David,

Good morning and forgive my density, but quickly, what evidence is there that Francis was out there?  Thanks.

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
Simply regarding property transfers...would you agree that for the Dallas Estate to change hands, out of probate, the negotiations and verbal agreements must have begun well in advance of the date on the deed? Isn't three to six months a pretty acceptable time frame for those sort of deals?"


Jim:

One thing I know from some years in real estate with farms and some big land transactions is one can never generalize about some standard MO with any of them. They all have their own unique progressions and details for sure.

When you ask if negotiations and verbal agreements were likely to have gone on for three to six months on the Dallas Estate previous to Freeman buying the place (for a published reason that was not HDC) and flipping it to HDC within the week, I think not if you mean negotiations between HDC and the Dallas Estate for three to six months previous. If that were the case then why do you suppose Freeman was used as a "strawman" buyer? 

I think the thing you need to concentrate on more is that the curvilinear "approximate road" may've been the idea of HDC and not MCC and that idea may've developed earlier than most think in HDC's residential real estate planning and effectively taken about 22-23 acres out of the planning for MCC between the old Johnson boundary and that curvilinear road. If that was true then the Dallas Estate coming in to the equation later in 1910 would've brought the expected agreement with MCC up to 117 acres.

With that curvilinear "approximate road" on that Nov. 1910 land plan (that HDC apparently had Pugh and Hubbard do for them) and this whole triangle thing, I think all of us have had our eyes on the wrong ball all along. We've all been fixated with MCC coming up with that idea at some point in time but I think it was HDC who came up with it.

Do you think the MCC guys told the HDC residential lot developers to plan on putting in curvilinear roads in their residential development too?   

[JESII]

Jeff,

I think we're on the same page regarding what should be discussed...not the math experiment Tom is working on...

Yes, I think focussing on the land acquisitions that resulted in that November 1910 Map is my intention and my goal is to show that it's most likely that the map was drawn by HDC with full consent on its content from MCC...in other words, HDC made the presentation formal, but MCC knew exactly what they were getting and what they could do with it at that point...November 1910.

[JESII]

Tom,

Let's talk about Freeman's Auction House.

What is typical in auctioning off land with regards to allowing access to the property?

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