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Talamore at Oak Terrace - Club
History
James W. Hilty
VII. Bankers' and the Great
Depression
John Fretz never realized his Pine
Run dream. Despite the wealth generated during the Bull market boom era of the
1920s, Pine Run failed to prosper. New clubs opened in the area and existing
clubs improved their facilities, drawing away membership from Pine Run. In 1927
alone, Melrose CC opened, Lulu Temple CC dedicated a new clubhouse, and
Huntingdon Valley CC began construction of its magnificent Horace Trumbauer-redesigned
clubhouse.
While other clubs prospered, Pine Run
struggled. Then, in 1927 John Fretz, Pine Run's president and principal investor
died suddenly, forcing the sale of the club. The club floundered through the
1927 season. In April 1928, the Ambler Gazette reported that a prospective
purchaser named C. C. Lewis announced plans to purchase the club and operate it
as a “select country club operated by its members.” Lewis may have been an agent
for James P. Rothwell, Jr., who purchased the entire club and its 208 acres in
November 1928. When Lewis's ambitious plan failed to materialize, some of
Philadelphia's leading financial lights moved quickly to gain control of the
property.
In September 1928, a group of Philadelphia bankers, insurance executives, and
investment managers formed the Bankers' Realty Company to lease and then
purchase the 208-acre Pine Run Country Club property for $250,000, with Rothwell
likely acting as their agent. The property included the golf course (eighteen
holes), tennis courts, swimming pool, and clubhouse. Bankers' Realty Company,
headed by J. Vaughan Clarke and Jay Cooke, 2d, announced that, by charter, 80
percent of the membership had to be "affiliated with" or "connected" to a
Philadelphia "business house in the Bank, insurance or financial field." More
than four hundred members were enrolled by December.
The gala opening of Bankers' Country Club occurred December 1, 1928. Newspapers
reported that "several hundred" guests from Philadelphia and the suburbs
gathered for a day of festivities, including a tea dansante in the afternoon and
an evening dinner-dance. Weekly dances at the club continued throughout the
winter, attracting as many as two-hundred-fifty members and guests. The parents
of some current Talamore residents fondly recall the elegant settings and good
times at the club during the "Roaring 'Twenties," when Prohibition was the law
but good times were the rule.
By 1929 there were over 4,500 golf courses in America, but only one in Horsham
Township. Bankers' Country Club was the one. This, however, was the era of Bobby
Jones. Golf had become wildly popular, particularly among the professional and
business classes. When the growing demand was combined with the energies of the
new owners, Bankers' consequently attracted golfers to join "at a rate unknown”
among other clubs affiliated with the Golf Association of Philadelphia.
 New
demands and new expectations soon made the Alexander Findlay layout inadequate.
The existing course, according to the new owners, was "indifferently planned and
maintained" and, thus, "fell far short of the needs of a country club." During
the winter and early spring of 1929 the Pine Run course was renovated and
"modernized." The changes to the course, under the supervision of Jock Neville,
the club professional, were numerous but not intended to alter its general
design. Findlay's small greens were enlarged, new tees were built, and sand
traps added, but the routing of holes remained the same.
Intent on setting a “new standard”
for country clubs in the area, the owners upgraded the entire facility. The
interior of the McKean mansion (used as a clubhouse) was remodeled and
refurbished. Dining rooms were expanded, a men's grille added, and eighteen
guest rooms created on the upper floors. Fourteen houses and cottages, ranging
from four to eighteen rooms in size, were renovated and made available as member
residences. The swimming pool behind the mansion (clubhouse) was virtually
reconstructed. An outdoor dance floor was put down near the clubhouse terrace.
Dancing was available every night except Sunday.
Bankers' Country Club managed to
survive the stock market crash of October 1929 and to hang on fitfully as the
subsequent economic slide carried the US deeper into the Great Depression. As
the 1932 season opened, members contemplated the impact of rising unemployment,
failing banks, depreciating currency, and falling stock prices, yet they decided
to plunge ahead with additional capital expenditures.
In that year of unprecedented
economic turmoil, Cedarbrook and Manufacturers Country Clubs decided, according
to news reports, to “leave well enough alone.” However, the more optimistic
(some might say foolhardy) Bankers' Country Club decided to continue its
expansion program. Believing it a time to get the jump on their competition,
Bankers' hired a new greenskeeper (Phillip Williams, who worked with Joe
Valentine at Merion for ten years) and a new pro (Johnny Schuebel, a US Open
qualifier the previous two years, formerly at LuLu Temple CC). Phillip Williams
oversaw an extensive improvement program, leading to the reconstruction of
fifteen greens and their reseeding with the “Washington strain of creeping bent
grass,” the latest, most advanced strain of grass for the surfaces of greens.
Also, several tees were enlarged.
Over six thousand banks failed
between January 1932 and February 1933, and many businesses, including Bankers'
Country Club, suffered as a consequence. By the mid-point of the 1932 season
Bankers' was no longer able to be either restrictive or discerning when it
 came
to its members. To attract patrons they began offering cut-rate prices, even
advertising in the newspapers for members. “Why give up your golf,” a Bankers'
Country Club ad asked Inquirer readers, “when you can join a private club for as
low as $15, without initiation fee and then pay a small green fee of 50 cents
weekdays, $1 Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays?” Boasting a “large outdoor
terrace for dining and dancing,” Bankers' Country Club offered “special
memberships” for $50, to include full golf privileges.
The ads failed. Not even the repeal
of Prohibition in October 1933 could save Bankers' Country Club. The unrelenting
Depression struck the Ambler area with devastating impact. The Keasbey-Mattison
asbestos empire collapsed, forcing the closure of their Ambler plant, which had
become the borough's economic lifeblood. The once privileged and protected upper
classes lost their fortunes and their social leverage. One by one the
pretentious country estates were sold and converted to public use or were
demolished.
Private golf clubs in the northeast
US were particularly hard hit by the Depression. Hundreds of clubs failed. Many
were taken over by municipalities and, if they survived at all, became public
courses. In 1931, according to the National Golf Foundation, 78 percent of all
American golf facilities were private. By 2002 public facilities accounted for
61 percent of the total.
 To
no one's surprise, in July 1934 the Bankers' Country Club property went up for
sheriff's sale, to be purchased by the Pennsylvania Company for Insurance on
Lives and Granting Annuities (PCILGA). A trustee of the Bankers' Country Club
debt, PCILGA, with offices in Philadelphia at 15th and Chestnut Streets,
purchased title to the club evidently for the price of the outstanding mortgages
and taxes on the property. PCILGA kept on many of Banker's employees and
continued operation of the golf club, changing its name to Oak Terrace Country
Club. All the while, the insurance company sought ways to unburden themselves of
the obligation. As the Great Depression deepened, few persons had either the
interest or the means to purchase a golf club.
Chapters
I. Earliest History
II. Pine Run Farms - The McKean Estate
III. McKean Manor House - Pine Ridge
IV. Horace Trumbauer and Talamore at Oak Terrace
V. Scandal and the Declension of the McKeans
VI. Pine Run Country Club and Alexander Findlay
-- Brushing Against Golf Immortality
VII. Bankers' and the Great Depression.
VIII. Oak Terrace - The Wingel Years
IX. The “Old Oak”.
X. “Slammin' Sammy” Snead Comes to Oak Terrace.
XI. Location, Location, Location
XII. Oak Terrace - The “Bud” Hansen
Years.
XIII. Talamore at Oak Terrace - Realen and Bob Levy,
Jr.
XIV. Talamore at Oak Terrace: The making of a golf
course
XV. The switchover, 1993-1995:
XVI. THE END OF THE BEGINNING |
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