The Country Club of Ridgefield’s clubhouse, ca 1915. Note the caddies on the porch, waiting for jobs.
I’ve heard that Ridgefield figures prominently in the early history of American golf. True?
Probably not “prominently,” but the Country Club of Ridgefield was among the earliest golf courses in the United States, and was one of the first two in Fairfield County.
Also called the Ridgefield Golf Club, a 65-acre, nine-hole course was started in 1894 — the same year the United States Golf Association was founded — and incorporated and completed in 1895. (The first courses in the country date from 1887 in Quogue, N.Y., Foxburg, Pa., and West Orange N.J.)
The Press on Aug. 2, 1895 said, “Probably the new Country Club will be ready for its members by the middle of September, judging from the activity of the building committee, and golf will then be as popular as in other watering places.”
The Press was careful to point out how the project was affecting the local economy. “The bid of Contractor William Sunderland of Danbury, who built the Olcott country-seat (Casagmo mansion on Main Street), has been accepted and the mason work will be done by Hiram Davis & Company. The mason’s material will be furnished by H.D. Keeler.”
By 1901, Harper’s Official Golf Guide reported that the club had an entrance fee — a share of stock — of $300 (about $7,000 in today’s money). Annual dues were $25 ($580). The layout was 1. 324 yards, 2. 196, 3. 267, 4. 178, 5. 208, 6. 282, 7. 310, 8. 245, and 9. 260.
Officers were George G. Haven Jr., president; George C. Shelton, M.D., vice president; and Albert H. Storer, secretary-treasurer. All were no doubt millionaires, and all — no surprise — lived within a mile of the course.
The club closed in 1932 when the 18-hole Silver Spring Country Club course opened. Most of it later became Jack B. Ward’s Ward Acres Farm, where show horses were raised, but in the 1980s and 1990s, much was subdivided and is today house lots along Peaceable Street Golf Lane, and Lewis Drive.
The clubhouse managed to survive until the early 1980s. The late Francis D. Martin had moved the building in the 1930s to Grove Street where he used it as a goat barn. In the 1950s, it was incorporated into the scientific laboratories of the New England Institute for Medical Research. The institute closed around 1982 and vandals burned the clubhouse portion. (The site is now the 90 Grove Street Executive Pavilion office condominium.)
Golf Lane was so called as early as 1902. However, the road existed long before the course, and is shown on the earliest road map of Ridgefield (1856). The road was probably in use as early as the 1700s as a short cut from Peaceable Street to West Lane.