Was C.B. Macdonald's routing of NGLA

[Sven Nilsen]

Next one shows the only two areas of any significance that aren't used for golfing. The area near the 9th green was going to be the site of the bath and locker house, and possible the site of a future clubhouse.  It measures 14 acres.  The low lying area next to the 17th measures about 18 acres.  

Looks pretty snug to me.

[Sven Nilsen]

That same article tells us it's "likely" that land bordering the golf course would be sub-divided for future use by the Founders to build summer cottages thereon.  

A 1904 concept, not a late 1906 thought.

Its a basic question, if that was still the plan, where were the additional 90 acres to make it happen?

Sven

[DMoriarty]

David - Your quote of the developer via Millard:

"'If the property fails to be used as a golf course within the next fifty years, it shall revert to us upon payment of the purchase price with interest. If they build later a clubhouse to not cost less than $20,000, this is to be excerpted from the reversion together with 5 acres around it.'"

This doesn't at all say CBM cannot give 90 acres in 1.5 acre lots to his Founding members if there is a golf course there. I'm not even sure how you can read it to say that. That conversation has been couched in terms like "large housing component" and "cottage versus cabin" when neither were ever put on the table by CBM.

According to Redfield, property could only be used for a golf course. If you really believe that giving away 90 acres of building lots for housing is consistent with this use, then I am at a loss as to what to tell you. 

[MCirba]

Next one shows the only two areas of any significance that aren't used for golfing. The area near the 9th green was going to be the site of the bath and locker house, and possible the site of a future clubhouse.  It measures 14 acres.  The low lying area next to the 17th measures about 18 acres.  

Looks pretty snug to me.

32 available acres in two plots (and moreover another 10 acres scattered about) of land un-used for golf (not even considering the considerable acreage between the holes in stretches) looks pretty snug?  

This considering that Macdonald thought he could build an entire course on 120 acres a few months prior and in fact, DID build entire courses on only 120 (i.e. Lido) in the future?   That's over 25% of the land of a golf course that he left unused at NGLA!

Can I buy some real estate from you, Sven?  

[Sven Nilsen]

Yes, Mike, it looks pretty snug.

As for selling RE, I've got a parcel I'm willing to unload, but the neighbors might get a bit pissed if you build it out all the way to the property lines.

Sven

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike,

With the SI catering to the summertime vacationing crowd, how many members and guests of NGLA do you think the SI could accommodate overnight, in addition to the vacationing hotel guests ?

[MCirba]

Sven,

Touche'!  

[DMoriarty]

David,

Then why include the Original Agreement in his letter to Founders in Dec 1906 if it was already null and void, trumped by the Real Estate Developer's dictate as to how the land they purchased could be used?   There would be no reason to mention it again in the Stillman Letter as the Original Agreement spelling it out was already attached!

As I have told you over and over, it was included because it was the Agreement upon which he was collecting the $1000.  Also, other than the hypotheticals about possible money making schemes, it set out the original idea.  It was not null and void.  As I have been telling you for years, the part upon which you rely was never binding in the first place, as is evidence by the attempted canal purchase!

Redfield certainly seems to have dictated how the specific land for a clubhouse could be utilized, but I don't see any mention of Real Estate Component that Macdonald proposed in what was quoted, do you?   You can speculate that this implied how the remainder of the property could be utilized, but that's not what's quoted, is it?   Without further details on that agreement we don't know for sure.

Mike, he is talking about the ENTIRE PARCEL.   The language about the clubhouse just meant that if they built an expensive clubhouse, they got to keep it, even they couldn't maintain a golf course on the rest.

According to your calculations Macdonald utilized 162 acres for his golf course, which includes the sometimes sizable gaps between ingoing and outcoming holes such as exists between 5 and 14.   Let's say that number was 150, or somewhat less.

This is idiotic!  There is NO WAY that CBM was going to allow houses to be built between his golf holes.  This sort of nonsense is the reason no one should take your analysis seriously.  

Is it your belief that even if CBM had a spare 50 or more acres available not used for the golf course that he'd lock himself into an agreement with a Real Estate Developer where the developer had final say in how Macdonald could use any additional property not used for golf, now and forever-more?

MacDonald wanted to build his ideal golf course.   He didn't give a shit about real estate.  He knew when he made the deal that there would be no room for real estate, because for months he had been carefully going over the contours in order to place his holes.

[MCirba]

Mike,

With the SI catering to the summertime vacationing crowd, how many members and guests of NGLA do you think the SI could accommodate overnight, in addition to the vacationing hotel guests ?

Patrick,

I agree.   Thirty rooms certainly doesn't seem like much considering that there were 60 Founding Members.  

Who gets first dibs?   Top bunks??    

[Sven Nilsen]

This considering that Macdonald thought he could build an entire course on 120 acres a few months prior...

Remind me again when the offer was made on the 120 acre parcel?  Before or after his 1906 trip overseas?  By your words, you're suggesting it was in the early Fall of 1906.

Sven

[JESII]

According to Redfield, property could only be used for a golf course. If you really believe that giving away 90 acres of building lots for housing is consistent with this use, then I am at a loss as to what to tell you. 

Where does he say this? Is it somewhere other than the sentence you posted? Is there more to that passage? Why wouldn't the extra 40 acres have been reverted?

[MCirba]

David,

Obviously, we're not going to agree on this point and it seems others have disagreements with both of our respective interpretations, as well.  I can sense you're getting annoyed and I'd like to keep this discussion collegial.

Let's agree to table this one until we get any additional information, such as metes and bounds or better yet, a copy of the Original and Subsequent Sales Agreement between CBM and Redfield's group.   I would think they would be definitive.

Personally, I'm not all that excited with what the metes and bounds would show.   We know that they contained the results of months of planning and design and surveying effort but I guess they might shed some light on Patrick's original contention about clubhouse location.  

The agreement(s) however, I think would be most informative and if it turns out I'm wrong about the real estate component being dropped prior to December 1906 that's ok, too.   I would just like to see some real evidence to indicate that.

Thanks.

***Added*** If you'd like to continue related discussion in response to Jim Sullivan's questions I won't interject.

[Sven Nilsen]

David:

More importantly, the Founders didn't give a $hit about the RE component.  

It was a throwaway clause.  Basically, he was saying if there is extra land its up to you what we do with it.  In 1911/12, the Founders had no interest in using whatever little extra land there was for cabins, cottages, or anything else.

Sven

[MCirba]

Remind me again when the offer was made on the 120 acre parcel?  Before or after his 1906 trip overseas?  By your words, you're suggesting it was in the early Fall of 1906.

Sven

Sven,

According to the "Walker Cup" article, Macdonald made the offer "four weeks" after the Realty company purchased the land.

I'm not sure what to think about that and I guess I'd ask the source of that information if I knew the author.

For one thing, it seems odd for CBM to make an offer that quickly,  and prior to going abroad to study golf holes over the next several months and collect his related information...especially when you consider the painstaking, detailed methodologies CBM employed at every step.   Did that provide him with enough time to study the land and contours such that he'd know he could fit his golf course into the 120 acres?   Did he do trial routings to make that determination?   I'm not sure he could as he didn't yet know which Ideal holes he would use, no?

In "Scotland's Gift" Macdonald mentions that he decided to build a golf course in the Shinnecock Hills a few weeks after the Realty company purchased their land but he doesn't include the timing of the offer on the 120 acres near the Shinnecock Canal.   It makes me wonder if there are other sources the author used?

[Sven Nilsen]

I'm getting confused Mike.  First the Walker Cup report is used as definitive evidence in this thread, and then its being discredited. 

Which one is it?

In any case, where do you get your basis for the statement that he thought he could build on 120 acres a few months prior to offering on the land they bought?

Or is this just speculation, as well.

Sven

[MCirba]

David:

More importantly, the Founders didn't give a $hit about the RE component.  

It was a throwaway clause.  Basically, he was saying if there is extra land its up to you what we do with it.  In 1911/12, the Founders had no interest in using whatever little extra land there was for cabins, cottages, or anything else.

Sven

Sven,

For someone who rightly cautioned me against presenting pure speculation as fact, you may want to cite your sources for the above contention or re-consider your wording.  

[MCirba]

I'm getting confused Mike.  First the Walker Cup report is used as definitive evidence in this thread, and then its being discredited.  

Which one is it?

In any case, where do you get your basis for the statement that he thought he could build on 120 acres a few months prior to offering on the land they bought?

Or is this just speculation, as well.

Sven

Sven,

My "few months" could have been anything up to about a year, which in the grand scheme of things is pretty inconsequential, no?   One factor leading to a 70% increase in acreage size may have been the Haskell Ball, but that wasn't new news by 1906.

I do think your theory about his trip abroad changing his thinking is an interesting one and I'm going to delve a little deeper in that regard.   Is there anything in particular you think might be evidence of that?   I'm going to poke around some of his earlier articles about his Ideal Course thinking to see if anything is revealing.

As far as the Walker Cup article, I thought it sounded extremely well researched and presented.   I just find that offer four weeks after the Real Estate company purchased the land to be inconsistent with Macdonald's meticulous style and wonder what the source may have been.

[Sven Nilsen]

A few months is two or three.  A year is twelve, including a fairly important voyage to Europe. 

You see the difference?

[DMoriarty]

Jim,  this is probably no the place to get into the machinations of real property law (and frankly I don't remember much of it anyway), but if what the developer is saying is accurate, then it looks as if the developer had retained either a Possibility of Reverter or a Right of Entry in the entire property, which is a fancy way of saying that if CBM had tried to use the property for anything other than a golf course, then the property would have reverted back to the development company. (After returning payment and interest, and excepting the clubhouse.)

Of course this didn't mean that every square inch had to be used as fairway, tee, or green, but it did mean that CBM couldn't give away portions of the property for residential building lots.   The developer had a a PoR or a RoE for the entire parcel, including the parts you think CBM could give away. Stripping away portions of the land for other uses would have been stripping away the developer's rights.  

Another way to look at it is, if the developer is correct, then NGLA only owned the property for the purpose creating and operating a golf club. It didn't own the rights to build houses, and it couldn't grant others rights that NGLA didn't itself possess.

[JESII]

David,

I agree that yours is a very possible interpretation of Redfield's words...but the fact that CBM mentioned still thinking about what to do with the land indicates he thought they had options. I think CBM's comments simply tie back to his initial offer/suggestion/intention with the Founders based on assumed acreage. If there were material changes to those expectations in December 1906, he could/would/should have made that clear to his subscribers.

[DMoriarty]

Where did CBM mention that he still thinking about what to do with the land?

In 1912 he mention that it was up to founders decide what to do with the remaining land, but this would obviously have been subject to whatever the limitations of the purchase.

[JESII]

Which he seems to have never mentioned, hence my reading of Redfield to require a golf course to be there...where your reading limits it to only a golf course being there.

[DMoriarty]

We don't know if he ever mentioned it. All we know is he didn't explicitly address it in the few sources we have seen.

As for our respective readings, I don't think it is just a difference of opinion as to the developer's intent.  Your reading would have allowed CBM to do strip the developer of his legal interest in portions in the property, and this is not the way such things work.

Lets say CBM had given all 70 founders building lots and they all built their mansions, or sold them, or even sub-divided them, but then the golf course closed.  What would have happened to all this land  What would have happened to the developer's possibility of reverter? How could CBM give away a property interest that NGLA didn't itself possess?
____________________________________

The only thing that gives me slight pause is that in 1912 CBM indicated that NGLA held the land in "fee simple." Technically, if the developer's description was accurate, then NGLA held the land in something like fee simple determinable or fee simple defeasible subject to a condition consequent, but not fee simple absolute.  Maybe CBM was just not being exact with the legalese, but it makes me wonder if perhaps the developer's statement was not entirely accurate, or if there is more to the story.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Looks pretty snug to me.

32 available acres in two plots (and moreover another 10 acres scattered about) of land un-used for golf (not even considering the considerable acreage between the holes in stretches) looks pretty snug?  

Mike,

Several points.

There is NO considerable acreage between holes.
If you were intimately familiar with the topograhy, you'd know that.

Would you tell us how homeowners were going to gain access to the shaded site adjacent to the 9th hole ?

With regard to the land adjacent to # 17, that was steeply sloped land, hardly the land that would be used for development in 1906.

This considering that Macdonald thought he could build an entire course on 120 acres a few months prior and in fact, DID build entire courses on only 120 (i.e. Lido) in the future?   That's over 25% of the land of a golf course that he left unused at NGLA!

Mike, this is what I really object to with respect to your posts.
The above paragraph is incredibly disingenuous.
CBM could NOT build NGLA on 120 acres.
To posit that he did so at another course, ergo he could do so at NGLA is so disingenuous and intellectually dishonest .
His motives and design at NGLA required far more than 120 acres and you know it.

Donald Ross could build courses on 100 acres, does that mean that Mountain Ridge was intended to have homes on the 150 acres not used for a 100 acre course.

There's an intellectual dishonesty, an intentional intellectual dishonesty, when you present your position couched in the terms above.

Please stop stretching the truth to reach your goal.

Thanks

[Patrick_Mucci]

David & Jim,

Again, let's not look at the purchase from the buyer's perspective (CBM), but, from the seller's perspective.

Why would a real estate developer sell land to potential competitor after they just recently acquired the land for the purpose of developing the real estate ?

As a "real estate" developer, why allow a competitor to acquire the land that the competitor cherry picked out of the entire parcel ?

Answer, you wouldn't sell land you just acquired, and intended to develop, to a competitor.

The developer, selling the land to CBM, felt that the building of a world class golf course would send real estate prices skyward.
Ergo, the developer would never create a competitor on his own land, especially after giving his competitor, first choice on the land.

Sometimes, common sense isn't so common on GCA.com