Golf in the Gilded Age:
Robber Barons, Railroads, and Resort Hotels
2: The Gilded Age 1870s-1890s
|
|
|
|
|
|
American golf had its birth in the Gilded Age (1870s-1890s),
and by the close of the 19th century the United States had more golf
courses than Britain. This start is inextricably intertwined with the
dominant Tycoons of the day, and this in turn entangles the foundation
of golf in America with the expansion of their railroads and their associated
Grand Hotels in exclusive resort locations.
From 1900 to the advent of WWII, golf in America added
sinew and muscle on this underlying frame to make the Resort golf experience
truly spectacular and widely accessible outside the echelons of elite
society. The enduring legacy has been that the popularization of golf
in America is indelibly stamped with the watermark of excellence set
by these fabulous early Resorts.
The Gilded Age
 B.
Europe in the 1870s-1880s.
The Belle Époque 1871-1914
The Belle Époque (French for "Beautiful Era") was
a period in European history that began during the late 19th century
and lasted until World War I. Occurring during the time of the French
Third Republic and the German Empire, the Belle Époque was considered
a "golden age" as peace prevailed between the major powers of Europe,
new technologies improved people's lives, and the commercial arts adopted
modern forms. The years between the Franco-Prussian War and World War
I were characterized by unusual political stability in western and central
Europe.
The Belle Époque was an era of great scientific
and technological advancement in Europe and the world, in general. Inventions
that either are associated with this era or became generally common
in this era include the automobile, the aeroplane, the phonograph, the
telephone, the cinématographe and the subway or underground railway.
While many of these were pioneered in the United States, the automobile,
in particular, was developed primarily in Europe.
The arts underwent a radical transformation during the
decades before World War I, and new artistic forms associated with cultural
modernity emerged. Impressionism, which had been considered the artistic
avant-garde in the 1860s, gained widespread acceptance. In the early
20th century Expressionism became the new avant-garde. The visual art
style known as Art Nouveau (called Jugendstil in central Europe), characterized
by its curvilinear forms, become prominent and dominated design throughout
much of Europe. Many successful examples of this style, with notable
regional variations, were built in France, Germany, Belgium, Spain,
Austria (the Vienna Secession), Hungary, Bohemia, and Latvia. It soon
spread around the world, including to Mexico and the United States.
It is sometimes called Belle Époque style.
Belle
Époque, Wikipedia.
The
European Belle Époque
Internationalists - Paris, Deauville, Biarritz, Bagnoles
de l'Orne, The Riviera / Côte d'Azur, Monte Carlo
For many Europeans, transnational, class-based affiliations
were as important as national identities in the Belle Époque.
A middle- or upper-class gentleman could travel through much of Europe
without a passport and even reside abroad with a minimum of bureaucratic
regulation.
Paris Second Empire Icons
The Palace at Versailles, Louis XIV, the Sun King, circa
1680s.
Versailles
Petite Trianon, Versailles
Paris Opera House (Palais garnier), by Charles Garnier
1874 (Second Empire style Beaux Arts, classical structure plus quasi-Baroque
ornamentation). Garnier was hired to build a smaller version of this
Opera House for the Monte Carlo resort, and completed it in 1879.
1875
Paris Opera Interior
Paris Opera, Grand Staircase 1875
French Spas for the Elite
Deauville
A resort on the Norman coast started in 1862 by the Duc
de Morny, half-brother to Emperor Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon Bonaparte).
Morny later established throughbred horse racing in France and the Deauville
La Touques Racecourse and its Prix Morny is the French equivalent of
the Kentucky Derby and Ascot races. The Second Empire style dominated
the first 40-50 years of Deauville, with a second building boom in 1910-1915.
After William K. Vanderbilt's divorce, he relocated to Deauville and
started a throroughbred horse farm for breeding and racing champion
horses.
The train from Paris took about 6 hours, for arrival at
the station on the River Touques. The present Trouville-Deauville station,
built by the architect Jean Phillipot, became operational in 1931. It
replaced the Second Empire station inaugurated in 1863 by the Duke of
Morny.
In the 1860s visits by Napoleon III made the coast of
Normandy adjacent to Deauville fashionable, and soon speculators developed
the infrastructure necessary to accommodate members of the Imperial
court and the growing Parisian bourgeoisie. The railway arrived at Trouville-sur-Mer
in 1863. Using the station called Trouville, passengers could reach
Deauville in 6 hours from Paris. The locked harbour was dug up in 1866.
Morny, who had influence at Court, managed to persuade the aristocracy
that staying on the coast would benefit their health. Land was bought
and large villas, sometimes even palaces, were built. A casino and hotels
soon followed and rich tourists came in their numbers.
Deauville and its Grand Casino is associated today with
James Bond and Casino Royale, the Great Gatsby honeymoon, and Prout's
depiction of Balbec as a resort.
Deauville,
Wikipedia
Charles
Auguste Louis Joseph, duc de Morny, Wikipedia
Deauville Casino
The Casino first opened its doors in 1864, but was demolished
thirty years later in 1895. It was replaced in 1912 by an edifice designed
by the architect Georges Wybo, which took its inspiration from buildings
dating from the 18th Century, evocative of festivals and the simple
pleasures of rustic frivolity, like the Petit Trianon, the opera house
of the Château de Versailles, and the small theatres on the Champs
Elysées built during the Restoration period. Its neo-Louis XVI
architecture has been modified over time to suit the tastes and fashions
of its aficionados; the fa&ccdil;ade has been moved forward by 6 metres, enabling
a large gallery to be created, and it is now open on the seaward side.
It is ranked among the major casinos in Europe and is the third largest
in France.
Normandy Barrière Hotel, 1912
Built in 1912 on the instigation of Eugène Cornuché, a
businessman and the creator of Maxim's in Paris, Désiré Le Hoc, the
Mayor of Deauville, and the architect Théo Petit, the Normandy Hotel,
with the casino, replaced and updated the Second Empire style of construction.
The new luxury hotel was immediately successful thanks to its level
of comfort, facilities, furnishings and novel interior decoration. The
exterior fa&ccdil;ades are finished with imitation wood panelling in celadon,
the pale green used in Chinese porcelain.
Deauville Hotel Royal Barrière, 1913
In 1912, Eugène Cornuché, who had already shared in the
founding of the Normandy Hotel, decided to built a second hotel, a symbol
of Deauville's luxury and elegance. So it was that the villa La Louisiane
belonging to the Duke of Morny was superseded by the Royal Hotel, designed
by the architects Théo Petit and Georges Wybo, in 1913.
Henri de Rothschild built a villa at Deauville in 1907.
Deauville
Tourist Bureau
Live
Webcam / Television of Deauville
Biarritz and the Villa Eugénie / Hôtel du
Palais
Satellite
Map of Biarritz, Atlantic coast of France, near border with Spain's
Basque region in the Pyrénnées mountains.
Settled by Viking raiders in 840, Biarritz was for centuries
a whaling town and the original ethnic population remained distinct
until the beginning of the 20th century. In the 18th century, doctors
recommended the beach as a healthy retreat. The Spanish Comtesse de
Montijo vacationed there with her daughter Eugénie, who later
married Napoléon III and persuaded him to construct La Villa
Eugénie at Biarritz in 1855 in the style of the Second Empire.
"For sixteen years, with the exception of only 1860
and 1869, the imperial couple never missed its rendezvous with Biarritz.
And in its wake, all of the most famous names of the era followed. The
Biarritz locals, mesmerized, witnessed the successive arrival of Queen
Isabelle of Spain, the King of Wurtenberg, Léopold II of Belgium,
the crowned heads of Portugal, Prince Jérôme Bonaparte,
Prince Albrecht of Bavaria, Prince Walewski, the Princes of Metternich,
authors Prosper Mériméé and Octave Feuillet, not
to mention the illustrious Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, who had a
liaison with the charming Princesse Orloff.
From this time on, festivities followed one after another,
a succession of balls, well-groomed picnics, sparkling receptions, fireworks,
and boat excursions all punctuated by diplomatic meetings. At the Villa
Eugenie, guests were entertained by live"tableaux," charades,
and other courtly games including "portraits", "petits
papiers", and the great trend of spiritualism that made tables
turn. Ladies also played at "serviette", whereby with the
flick of a napkin they pursued gentlemen in tails or the officer each
had chosen as partner for the next quadrille.
After the war of 1870, and battle of Sedan, dresses with
bustles replaced those with crinolines, and the Republic succeeded the
Empire. Bought in 1880 by La Banque Parisienne, it was transformed into
a casino, then in 1893, into the H™tel du Palais. This was "La
Belle Epoque" with all its ostentatiousness, every bit as glittering
as before, but with a new retinue of royalty : Queen Victoria, Edouard
VII and his brother, the Duke of Connaught, Princess Yourievsky, the
morganatic widow of Czar Alexandre II ( the famous "Tatia"
who would later light up the silver screen in many films), the King
of Hanover, Queen Marie-Amélie of Portugal, the Archduke Victor
of Hapsbourg, King Oskar II of Sweden, Empress Elizabeth of Austria
(better known as "Sissi"), and even a President of the French
Republic, Sadi Carnot.
During this period, the "Saison Russe" (the
Russian Season) began in October, and there was never a Grand Duke missing.
Constantin, Alexis, Vladimir, Boris, Cyrille, André, Dimitri,
all came, followed by their violins and cymbals, by their wives and
mistresses in feathers and glittering with jewels. In the great hall
of the Hôtel du Palais, champagne flowed at will. One could say
that Champagne had a predilection for Russians. On February 1, 1903,
the Hôtel du Palais was consumed by flames. It was reconstructed
with the addition of a wing. It was here in 1906 that King Alphonse
XIII of Spain met the woman he would marry a year later, Princess Ena
Battenberg.
After the war of 1914-1918, when the Palace, like other
hotels, was transformed into a hospital for the injured from the front,
a generation of young adults traumatized by five years of nightmare
and eager to take up a new "joie de vivre," came here for
what would be called "le temps des Années folles."
In 1922, the Marquis of Arcangues organized the Second Empire Ball in
the sumptuous Rotonde of the Hôtel du Palais, presided over by
King Alphonse XIII and the Shah of Persia, the opulence of which marked
the annals of time. Many other memorable nights were to follow, "La
Verbena del Amor", "Le Bal Petrouchka" honoring Diaghilev
and the Russian Ballet. Once again, all of Europe danced in the salons
of the Hôtel de Palais. Waltzes, mazurkas or quadrilles were still
the order of the day, but a new generation danced to a multitude of
new rhythms, launching the charleston, the tango and the rumba. It was
the beginning of the jazz years.
Kings and princesses were seen less often, the celebrities
of the day included Rostand, Loti, Ravel, Kapurthala, Sarah Bernhardt,
or Stravinsky, and soon after Guitry, Chaplin, Cocteau, Lifar or Hemingway.
The parade of crowned heads gave way, little by little, to a new and
more varied set, that of the arts, literature, fashion and finance."
History
of the Hôtel du Palais Biarritz
British elite began visiting Biarritz in the 1880s and
built themselves a golf course ("Le Phare").
The Bank of Paris added a Casino in 1901, which was later
remodeled in the Art Deco style of the roaring 20s.
History
of the Casino Barrière de Biarritz, on the beach, with the
Hôtel du Palais in the background.
Eugenia, wife of Napoleon III, who grew up vacationing
as a child on the beach at Biarritz
Villa Eugénie / Hôtel du Palais
Hôtel
du Palais - Biarritz - France - Official Site
Villa
Eugénie - Wikipédia
Lobby, Hôtel du Palais
Spa, Hôtel du Palais
Atlantic Ocean
Live
Webcam, Le Grand Plage, Biarritz
Biarritz at night
Aerial view, April 2006 (Rocher de la Vierge to extreme
left)
Rocher de la Vierge, Biarritz,1913
Golf le Phare, Biarritz, designed by British golfers 1888
-- men's 18 -- redesigned by Scotland's Willie Dunn
In 1887, some british residents, members of the British
Club, who wanted to practice their favourite sport during their holiday
in Biarritz, decide to create a golf course on the Òplateau du PhareÓ.
On March 13th 1888, the British Golf Club is inaugurated in presence
of the Princess Frederika of Hanover. The course of ÒLe PhareÓ is made
up of an 18 hole course, a 9 hole course for the ladies, a croquet pitch,
another for cricket, some tennis court and clay pigeon shooting. The
following year, Tom and Willie DUNN, well known English architects,
are asked to redesign the links. Then, the course stretches as far as
the current ÒChambre dÕAmourÓ and, on some holes, includes a gap across
the ocean called Òthe chasmÓ, which makes for a demanding and beautiful
course at the same.
Golf
de Biarritz "Le Phare"
Golf le Phare -- women's 9
Arnaud
Massy, France's most famous golfer, grew up in Biarritz working
shrimp boats and caddying for the British -- 1st non-British golfer
to win the British Open (1907)
1913 Biarritz
|
