I think a combination of two things happened. First, I think more of the acreage was swampy and unusable than perhaps CBM realized.
Where is this unusable swampland, and how did it act as a detriment to the course CBM envisioned? By your own choice of quotes it sounds as if CBM had "drained and filled" and used the swampland for the golf course, thus increasing the usable acreage, not decreasing it. And a number holes incorporate the swampland into the golf holes, so again no loss of usable land. So how did his use of the swampland make housing impossible?
Also, I think that the plan to create alternative routes for the weaker player on every hole meant that the course became effectively much wider than originally estimated.
CBM's ideas on providing alternate routes of play predate the purchase, and many of his ideal holes necessarily incorporate alternate routes, so it is a little hard to accept that he hadn't considered this.
Are you really suggesting after going over this land, that CBM, HJW, Travis, and others had no idea how wide these holes were to be, or where they sat with relation to each other, or that alternate routes created wider holes? It makes no sense.
Also what of the holes he had already identified? The Alps Hole and the Cape hole (and the others along Bullshead Bay) are at two ends of the width spectrum, with the Redan basically in between. Do you think he was going to make narrow these holes down and run housing up the middle of the property? It doesn't fit.
As far as where it was to be located the December 16th 1906 Brooklyn Daily Eagle article stated;
"While the matter is not settled it is likely that the bordering land not required for the links will be set apart in individual parcels for the founders who may eventually build summer cottages thereon." I think that was the plan at that point.
First, the Eagle article contains no new information on this issue. It just paraphrases the same information as the two from the day before. And you've acknowledged that this information was left over from the 1904 Agreement.
Second, given what CBM had already said about the course it is impossible for CBM to have had room for housing on the "bordering land." Draw it out yourself.
Yes, that exact language was certainly from the 1904 Agreement with the Founders but why again was it showing up in late 1906 if something had already markedly changed from that original Agreement? Especially in the press as each and every New York paper printed some version of the plan.
I already explained why. It is because the information in all the papers comes (directly or indirectly) from the Notice of Payment Due and 1904 Subscription Agreement sent to the prospective members by CBM.
You mention other sources of information and it is true there are other source s including extensive quotes by CBM and HJW. Notably, none of the stuff from Dec. 1906 (as opposed copied from the 1904 agreement) mentions housing available on site for the members. In fact it makes clear that NGLA wasn't going to get into that business.
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Lastly Mike, I know in the past you like to draw these things out, so I encourage you to draw this one out.
- Draw a box around the area already described (Cape, Alps, Redan, Eden) and a line along 1/4 mile of Peconic Bay and Bullshead Bay all the way to the Eden Green, then up to and around the 9th green and 10th tee.
-That gives you the border on one side, and land you definitely have to include.
- Now adjust your western border on the parts remaining to try and figure out how a 110 acre course can fit, leaving enough width for an out and back routing.
It can't be done.
Here is a simple online planimeter: http://acme.com/planimeter/