What was Seth Raynor's first solo design?

[TEPaul]

Mike Sweeney:

I think your Post #22 is a very good one and shows a real level-headedness in analysis and an unwillingness to unecessarily speculate. Tom MacWood's response is very typical of his inclination to speculate while calling for supportable evidence from others. For many years it's been explained to him that with many of these old clubs various specifics were just not recorded but with MacWood that fact seems to go in one ear and right out the other as he continues to speculate with perhaps an ongoing attempt to make his speculations look like facts, or to constantly crow that someone is being swept under the bus and not being given his due.

Actually, before the ML restoration took place I went down there to stay with the Green Chairman at the time and go over the plan as well as a good amount of the material at the club (which the Green Chairman had with him) from the beginnings of the Ruth/Raynor/Olmsted project from 1915 on. I recall a good deal of correspondence from the Olmsted Co. I do not recall a single mention of Macdonald's involvement in any of it.

But my advice would be if someone has some burning interest in all the details that they begin by contacting the Mountain Lake Club and asking them if they could establish a working research/analysis relationship with them.

[Bill_McBride]

Mike
Raynor and Olmsted collaborated in the design of the golf course?

Raynor send down models of greens from Southampton so obviously Olmstead had to make decision in the field. Olmstead obviously had to decide where golf vs houses and infrastructure could go. Mountain Lake was one of the first (if not the first) housing course of its kind so it would seem that the Land Planner and Golf Course Architect had to collaborate on everything. There is a real integration of community and course at Mountain Lake. Obviously it was successful for the team as they moved onto Fishers Island and eventually Banks replaced Raynor at Whippoorwill.

What I am asking you is how YOU define "design of the golf course"? Where does it stop? How different is a collaboration with a Land Planner versus a greenskeeper? Is getting a few ideas from another architect the same? If White collaborated with Raynor at North Shore, how is that different that Olmstead and Raynor collaborating at Mountain Lake?

While I don't discount the importance of the Olmsteds in developments like Mountain Lake, Pasatiempo, Pinehurst, Fishers Island, Yeamans Hall, Druid Hills, Gibson Island and Augusta National you are the first I know who has suggested they deserve co-design credit for any golf course. Do you know if they even played the game?

How did Pasatiempo get into this conversation?  What did Raynor and Olmstead have to do with Pasa?   

This time you've gone too far, Mr. MacWood!

[Tom MacWood]

Bill
The Olmsteds had nothing to do with the design of the golf course at Pasatiempo, they planned the housing development. I gave that example, and the others, to show how rediculous an idea it is that Olmsted should be given co-design credit. Trying to compare Olmted to Robert White is like comparing apples and oranges.

[Tom MacWood]

Mike Sweeney:

I think your Post #22 is a very good one and shows a real level-headedness in analysis and an unwillingness to unecessarily speculate. Tom MacWood's response is very typical of his inclination to speculate while calling for supportable evidence from others. For many years it's been explained to him that with many of these old clubs various specifics were just not recorded but with MacWood that fact seems to go in one ear and right out the other as he continues to speculate with perhaps an ongoing attempt to make his speculations look like facts, or to constantly crow that someone is being swept under the bus and not being given his due.

Actually, before the ML restoration took place I went down there to stay with the Green Chairman at the time and go over the plan as well as a good amount of the material at the club (which the Green Chairman had with him) from the beginnings of the Ruth/Raynor/Olmsted project from 1915 on. I recall a good deal of correspondence from the Olmsted Co. I do not recall a single mention of Macdonald's involvement in any of it.

But my advice would be if someone has some burning interest in all the details that they begin by contacting the Mountain Lake Club and asking them if they could establish a working research/analysis relationship with them.

Can you give us any specifics or this your usual unsupported bluster?

[Tom MacWood]

Did Raynor create models for any of this other designs?

[TEPaul]

"Can you give us any specifics or this your usual unsupported bluster?"


I suggest you first contact the club and speak to them about their own historical architectural material and the discussion of it on here. Then we can potentially all decide on the specifics and what is unsupported bluster and what isn't.  

It is so interesting to me how incapable you seem to be of either doing this or even understanding the reason for it. And you actually try to promote yourself as some kind of expert researcher?

Amazing.  If that really is the way you look at yourself you sure do try to constantly get everyone else to do the work for you including your constant stream of irrelevent questions and irrelevent logic.

[TEPaul]

"How did Pasatiempo get into this conversation?  What did Raynor and Olmstead have to do with Pasa?"



Bill:

Good question. The answer is Raynor did not have to do with Pasa because he died before it began. But for some background info it certainly was not beyond simple logic that had Raynor lived he may've become involved in Pasa with Olmsted and Marion Hollins. The reason is goes back to New York and Long Island and the fact that her father, Harry Hollins, was one of the founders of NGLA, belonged to Piping Rock and other of Macdonald/Raynor courses and clubs and she had about eight gazillion friends in those kinds of powerful places from which those kinds of memberships emanated.

But Raynor had nothing to do with Pasa because he was dead at that point.   

[Gib_Papazian]

I wonder . . . . could the Raynor version of Shinnecock plausibly be put into the mix? I don't have all the research at my fingertips at this moment, but I recall that C.B. was essentially persona non grata on the other side of the fence after giving the club president five knuckles on the kisser. There is no doubt that Raynor redesigned the golf course - though only 6(?) of the holes survived after the road went in.

How much help did Raynor get from C.B.? Was Macdonald lurking in the bushes whispering directives to Raynor during construction? It has been a while since we wrote that chapter and I do not have a copy of The Evangelist on my desk at work. It would seem that you could make the argument that this version of Shinnecock might be one of Raynor's first solos.

Am I having brain flatulence here?

[George_Bahto]

Gib - the Macdonald Raynor redesign of Shinny was before Charlie got into trouble at the club

you are now going to get TEP's friend very upset   

[TEPaul]

" - the Macdonald Raynor redesign of Shinny was before Charlie got into trouble at the club"


Georgie:


Well that would certainly make sense! I don't see the president getting punched in the chops by Macdonald and THEN asking Charlie to redo the golf course.

After they bounced C.B. out of the club for punching that guy out, didn't he steal their flag or something? It sounds like that had a whale of a time out there back in the day.

Have you any idea who that president was? If it was Lucien Tyng that might explain why he hired Flynn to clean up the mess Charlie and Seth made at Shinnecock and create a world-class golf course there after sending Billie F to The Creek to fix the catastrophe Seth and C.B. created there on those lower holes.   

[Tom MacWood]

While I don't discount the importance of the Olmsteds in developments like Mountain Lake, Pasatiempo, Pinehurst, Fishers Island, Yeamans Hall, Druid Hills, Gibson Island and Augusta National you are the first I know who has suggested they deserve co-design credit for any golf course. Do you know if they even played the game?

Bill/TEP
I'm sorry for the confusion. I listed several of the Olmsteds better known development projects, but those were not all projects with courses designed by Raynor. Mackenzie designed Pasatiempo and Augusta National, Ross designed Pinehurst, and Barker designed Druid Hills.

[Tom MacWood]

"Can you give us any specifics or this your usual unsupported bluster?"

I suggest you first contact the club and speak to them about their own historical architectural material and the discussion of it on here. Then we can potentially all decide on the specifics and what is unsupported bluster and what isn't.  

It is so interesting to me how incapable you seem to be of either doing this or even understanding the reason for it. And you actually try to promote yourself as some kind of expert researcher?

Amazing.  If that really is the way you look at yourself you sure do try to constantly get everyone else to do the work for you including your constant stream of irrelevent questions and irrelevent logic.

TEP
I take it (as usual) you have nothing to support your previous comments. I think one of these days you are going to surprise all of us and actually bring some documentation to the table.

[George_Bahto]

Tom - good story there - unfortunately - actually, fortunatly - I'm going west for the rest of the week

more about this (need a thread, i think)

[Tom MacWood]

David Goddard has the date of CBM and Raynor's involvement at Shinnecock as 1916-17. Ron Whitten and Daniel Wexler have CBM/Raynor at SH those years as well.

[TEPaul]

Tom MacWood:


Regarding your Post #36 what is it specifically you consider to be documentation that I should bring to what you call 'the table?'

Are you speaking of historical material I've carefully analyzed in person or have in my possession or are you only speaking about me actually posting copies of it on this website?

A careful and considered answer to that question by you would be most appreciated by me and I have no doubt much appreciated by most participants and viewers of this website. (If you avoid a decent careful and considered answer to that question as you always have in the past, I guarantee you I will just keep asking it of you on this website).

I have a very strong suspicion that what you consider to be "the table" and what I consider to be "the table" very well may not be the very same "TABLE."  

[Tom MacWood]

TEP
I'm talking about posting documents, articles, reports, etc. (like most of do), and if that is not possible at least direct quotes. You have a tendencey of making broad statements about material you claim to have seen, and when asked about specifics you often get very defensive.

[TEPaul]

"TEP
I'm talking about posting documents, articles, reports, etc. (like most of do), and if that is not possible at least direct quotes. You have a tendencey of making broad statements about material you claim to have seen, and when asked about specifics you often get very defensive."




Tom MacWood:

Thank you; I consider that to be a very direct and specific answer to my question to you today, and I see no reason henceforth to ask it again. Your answer is clear and specific, and if need be in the future I will know where to find it and quote it.

There is a good reason I don't post documents, articles, reports, etc. (like most do) on this website-----eg I don't know how to do it!

I've got close to 40,000 posts on this website going all the way back to 1999 and not a single one of them has ever had an actual copy of anything posted on it.

There is no particular reason I can think of why I've never known how to include copies of material in my posts on this website; it's just the way some people are I guess----sometimes it seems to have something to do with people who are older and didn't come up in the computer age. But even though you may not realize it or appreciate it well enough, there were numerous really impressive historical researcher/analysts before the age of computers!  

But I can cut and paste relevent material on here and when that is sometimes not possible for various reasons I just have to go through the laborious process of typing the whole thing out myself on a WORD processer and then cutting and pasting it on here. Obviously I can't do that with any non-text material such as photos, drawings etc.

But if you, for some odd reason, think that understanding how to post actual copies of historical architectural material on this website is what is required of a really good architectural researcher/analyst or is in some way a prerequisite for being a really good architectural researcher/analyst, I would have to strenuously disagree with you. And I should add that it has certainly occured to me, and for years, that you actually may think that or want others on here to think that.

Prehaps one of the finest golf architectural researcher/analyst/historians I have ever known is a much older man who does not even have a computer or know how to use one. As he always has, he uses a 1947 Underwood typewriter to type his products and he does his research the old fashioned way----actually physically going to the subject clubs and courses and anywhere else he needs to go for source material.

There is more to talk about regarding posting SOME material on this website and I'll get into that a bit later on another post.

As to your second sentence in your last post I'll get into that later too.

Again, thanks for your direct and clear answer to my question to you this morning. I feel your answer alone brings up a number of extremely important and even fundamental issues on this website which I believe need to be discussed by all of us and in detail.

[Tom MacWood]

Did Raynor create models for any of this other designs?

[TEPaul]

"You have a tendencey of making broad statements about material you claim to have seen,....."



I do? What broad statements would that be? If I have a tendency to make broad statements I must have picked up that habit from some of the expert researchers/writers on here such as the one who claimed C.B. Macdonald routed and designed Merion East or was the driving force behind it, or the other one who claimed HH Barker designed Merion East in December 1912 during a train trip from New York to Georgia.





"......and when asked about specifics you often get very defensive."



I don't recall getting very defensive about anything on here with the possible exception of the time those two expert researchers/writers referred to above accused me of altering original Merion documents. 

[Mike Cirba]

Tom Paul,

Your inaccuracies persist.

H.H Barker designed Merion on a train ride to Atlanta in December 1910, not December 1912.

Watch your step, mister.

[TEPaul]

Sorry. There I go altering original documents again----in this case original train schedules between New York and Georgia.

[Joe Bausch]

Grantland Rice wrote a wee bit about Mountain Lake in the Evening Ledger on two different occasions.  The earliest being in November 1916:





Then again in February 1920.

[Mike Cirba]

Joe,

Awesome articles.

The first, from November 1916, says the course is almost ready and makes clear that the architectural work was done by Raynor, not Macdonald.

That would almost certainly put the planning of the course by Raynor back to 1915.

I guess he really was out doing his own designs pretty early on as has been commonly believed.   Still, I think some good questions were asked in this and related threads, and it's nice to know we can now close the book on both North Shore and Mountain Lake and put them firmly in the Seth Raynor camp.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

I'm not prepared to accept your contention that Barker designed Westhampton as it generally exists today, especially since the lone account appears to be a rather vague reference.

What's the date of that article and in what publication did it appear.

It would seem logical that Raynor designed Westhampton.

He was a local professional/businessman, a nearby, established engineer/surveyor and he was CBM's associate at NGLA, a world class and famous golf course only short distance east of Westhampton.

Given the choice of CBM/SR or Barker it's hard to imagine Westhampton rejecting Raynor, unless it was a money issue.
Since the article you posted indicates that Raynor built the course, it again would be extremely hard to believe that many of the holes were Barker's concept and not CBM/SR's concept

I'm going to opt for Westhampton for the reasons I stated above.

[Patrick_Mucci]

"Next came the St. Louis CC, then the White Sulphur Springs layout, and then finally came the colossal task of the Lido at Long Beach. By this time Raynor had become a post graduate in golfing architecture, and since 1917 built or reconstructed some 100 to 150 courses, which I have never seen. The Mid-Ocean Club, the Yale GC, the Links Golf Course, the Gibson Island Golf Course, the Deedale, and the Creek Club were the only ones I gave and personal attention to after 1917."

This is from Scotland's Gift-Golf, and it makes me wonder if we are looking too early for Raynor's first solo effort. CBM seems to be indicating 1917 was the year Raynor went out on his own. IMO this quote may bring new light to the information presented on the Mountain Lake project. According to MS Raynor made models in NY, sent them down to Florida, and the course was built based upon these models. We know making models was part of CBM's modus operandi, at least it was at the NGLA and Lido.

Tom MacWood,

I don't believe that CBM's comment automatically excludes Raynor from having done solo designs prior to 1917.

I view the quote as one signaling Raynor's business independence commencing in 1917 rather than 1917 being design independence, his first solo effort.

With Westhampton just down the road, I can't imagine CBM not visiting the site.
But just because he visited the site and possibly offered his opinions doesn't preclude the design of Westhampton from being solely by Raynor's hand.

Westhampton absolutely reeks of CBM/SR, so I can't imagine Barker replicating CBM/SR's design principles.

Why would they hire Barker to produce a CBM/SR template product ?  It doesn't make sense.

If they wanted to produce a CBM/SR template product, which is what Westhampton is, they would have hired CBM/SR.

I reject Westhampton's attribution to Barker.

Could you provide the date and publication that your article appeared in.

Thanks