Golf in the Gilded Age:
Robber Barons, Railroads, and Resort Hotels
6: More Early Grand Hotels
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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.
More Grand Hotels of the Gilded Age
 A.
The Greenbrier, The Homestead & the Chesapeake & Ohio RR
Greenbrier Resort, White Sulphur Springs WV
History of The Greenbrier
The story of The Greenbrier begins at the spring of Sulphur
water that remains at the center of the resort property. It issues forth
below the green dome of the white-columned Springhouse that has been
the symbol of The Greenbrier for generations. Since 1778, people have
come to "take the waters" to restore their health. In its first 125
years the resort was known by the name White Sulphur Springs.
Due to the isolated location, development proceeded slowly
until a stagecoach route was carved through the forested mountains.
By the 1830s, the resort attained its first period of prominence as
planters, judges, lawyers, and merchants from the southern states congregated
in the mountain village.
The resort originally consisted of rows of cottages, many
of which still stand today, including Paradise Row, Alabama Row and
Baltimore Row. The cottages of Baltimore Row were designed by John H.B.
Latrobe, a Baltimore lawyer and son of famed architect Benjamin Latrobe.
His style extended later to the Tansas, South Carolina and Florida Rows
and became the basis for the design of the new Copeland Hill cottages.
The Civil War Era
By the eve of the Civil War, White Sulphur Springs' reputation
as the most fashionable social resort in the Southern states was well-established.
This led to the 1858 addition of the first large hotel on the property,
officially named the Grand Central Hotel, but known to long-time patrons
as The Old White Hotel. The hotel boasted three stories of porches to
catch summer breezes and ample space to promenade displaying one's fashionable
attire.
The resort was closed during the Civil War. Over the course
of the conflict, both sides occupied the grounds, using the hotel either
as a military headquarters or hospital. Shortly after the war's end,
the resort reopened. Its prospects were incalculably enhanced with the
arrival of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. For the next 100 years,
White Sulphur Springs was one of the classic railroad resorts of the
country. Trains brought visitors from New York, Washington, Richmond,
Atlanta, Louisville, Chicago, Cleveland and scores of points in between.
In 1910, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway purchased the
historic resort property and embarked upon a major expansion. By 1913,
additions included The Greenbrier Hotel (the central portion of today's
hotel), a new mineral bath department (the building that includes the
Indoor Pool) and an 18-hole golf course (now called The Old White Course)
designed by the most prominent golf architect of the day, Charles Blair
MacDonald. In 1914, for the first time, the resort was opened year round.
That year, President and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson spent their Easter holiday
at The Greenbrier, and Joseph and Rose Kennedy traveled from Boston
for their October honeymoon.
The Roaring 20's
Business was booming in the 1920s. The Greenbrier took
its place on the fashionable society resort circuit that stretched from
Palm Beach, Florida to Newport, Rhode Island. The Old White Hotel, a
summer-only hotel, was torn down in 1922. This led to substantial expansion
and rebuilding of The Greenbrier Hotel at the end of the decade. Cleveland
architect Philip Small redesigned the hotel's Main Entrance, and added
both the Virginia Wing to the south (with porch lines echoing Mount
Vernon) and what is now the signature North Entrance faade. Mr. Small
was mixing elements from the resort's Southern historical roots and
motifs from The Old White Hotel.
World War II Era
During World War II, The Greenbrier was put to two quite
different uses by the U.S. government. The State Department leased the
hotel for seven months after the U.S. entry into the war and used it
to intern German, Japanese and Italian diplomatic personnel, along with
their families, until they could be exchanged for American diplomats
stranded overseas. In September 1942, the U.S. Army purchased The Greenbrier,
converted it into a two thousand-bed hospital and renamed it Ashford
General Hospital. For four years the resort served as a surgical and
rehabilitation center, and 24,148 soldiers were admitted and treated
at the facility.
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway reacquired the property
in 1946 and initiated a comprehensive redecoration of the hotel interior
by noted decorator Dorothy Draper. The origin of The Greenbrier's distinctive
dcor goes back to Draper's legendary post-war redecoration, when she
was at the peak of her fame. Architectural Digest described Draper as
"a true artist of the design world [who] became a celebrity in the modern
sense of the word, virtually creating the image of the decorator in
the popular mind." When she retired in the 1960s, Carleton Varney took
over her firm. He has decorated The Greenbrier for over three decades.
When The Greenbrier reopened in 1948, after the war, Sam
Snead returned to where his career had begun in 1936. For many years,
he was the Golf Pro Emeritus, until his death in May 2002. More than
any other individual, Snead established The Greenbrier's reputation
as one of the foremost golf resorts in the world.
1950's to Current
In the late 1950s, the U.S. government approached The
Greenbrier for assistance once again. It wished to construct an Emergency
Relocation Center-that is, a bunker or bomb shelter-for use by the U.S.
Congress in case of war. Between 1959 and 1962, the classified, underground
facility was built in conjunction with an above ground addition to the
hotel, the West Virginia Wing. For 30 years, the owners of The Greenbrierthe
railroad that eventually evolved into today's CSX Corporation-and the
federal government agreed that, in the case of an international crisis,
the entire resort property would be conveyed to government use, specifically
as the emergency location for the legislative branch of Congress.
Above ground, life proceeded normally as The Greenbrier
upgraded the historic cottages, rebuilt The Greenbrier Course under
the direction of Jack Nicklaus, added extensive conference facilities,
hosted international golf matches (the Ryder Cup and the Solheim Cup)
and, in short, did all the things necessary to stay competitive in the
increasingly crowded luxury resort market of the 1980s and 1990s. But,
because of the agreement with the government, most of the property was
closed to residential development until the final closing down of the
underground bunker in 1995.
History
of The Greenbrier - America's Resort since 1778
The
Greenbrier's first 18-hole golf course, The Old White Course, opened
in 1914. The course was named for the well-known Old White Hotel, which
stood on the grounds from 1858 to 1922. One of the first golfers to
play the Old White was President Woodrow Wilson in April of 1914. The
course features generous fairways and challenging, undulating putting
greens. Every hole has an obvious and well defined strategy that allows
for either a very challenging approach to the green, or one that has
less risk, and a higher chance of success. Charles Blair Macdonald,
a dominant figure in the early history of American golf, designed the
course and modeled several holes from some of the most famous European
holes. The Old White's No. 8 hole was styled after the Redan at North
Berwick, No. 13 after the Alps at Prestwick and No. 15 after the Eden
at St. Andrews. Over the years, golf greats including Ben Hogan, Byron
Nelson, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Lee Trevino and Tom Watson have
played these challenging greens. Sam Snead shot his final hole-in-one
on The Old White Course's No. 18 in 1995. To ensure the future of this
traditional course, The Greenbrier began a multi-year restoration process,
which was done by Lester George of George Golf Design and was completed
in 2006.
The
Greenbrier Course, originally constructed in 1924 by Seth Raynor,
was redesigned by Jack Nicklaus in 1977. It is the only resort golf
course in the world to be the site of both professional international
cup matches: the Ryder Cup Matches (1979) and the Solheim Cup Matches
(1994).
Served by the Chesapeake and Ohio RR since 1870s.
After the Civil War, the southern railroads required northern
capital to maintain and expand operations, and the Virginia railroads
looked to Collis Huntington of NYC for help (one of the Central Pacific's
"Big Four"). With Huntington's capital, the railroads of the
defeated Confederacy in and around Virginia (Virginia Central RR) stirred
back to life and extended the line across the mountains to Ohio, completing
a significant link in the transcontinental rail system.
On July 1, 1867 the C&O was completed nine miles from
Jackson's River Station to the town of Covington, seat of Alleghany
County, Virginia. By 1869, it had crossed Alleghany Mountain, using
much of the tunneling and roadway work done by the Covington & Ohio
before the war, and was running to the great mineral springs resort
at White Sulphur Springs, now in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Here
stagecoach connections were made for Charleston and the navigation on
the Kanawha River (and thus water transportation on the whole Ohio/Mississippi
system).
History
of the C&O, C&O Historical Society
Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs WV
HA401
Resort History
The Homestead
The Homestead, Hot Springs VA
The Homestead grew out of the popularity of the warm mineral
springs at Hot Springs VA, on the eastern side of the mountains from
the Greenbrier. The Homestead dates back to the settlers' discovery
of the springs around 1720 and the first tourist lodge built there just
before the American Revolution. The first large hotel was built there
in 1846 by Dr Thomas Goode, who had traveled in Europe studying spas
and who promoted the hot springs lavishly in America. In 1888, JP Morgan
and associates invested in both the Greenbrier and the Homestead as
part of the development of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad.
The modern development of the resort began in 1890 when
the South-Improvement Company bought all three spas in the Warm Springs
Valley--amounting to about 1,900 ha (4,700 acres). This company was
part of the same syndicate that owned the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad,
also the owner and developer of The Greenbrier across the border in
West Virginia. In 1892, a railroad spur was built to the resort, and
the hotel was rebuilt and refurbished. The Virginia Hotel was also built
as part of the railroad station while The Homestead was being repaired.
Unfortunately, The Virginia was built in the low part of the valley
with no view and polluted by the smoke from locomotives; thus, it was
used little after The Homestead was finished, and is now a dormitory
for workers at the resort. Also in 1892, the present bathhouse was completed
(Figure 3), modeled after the European spas, featured two main kinds
of treatment--hot tubs for soaking and hot showers or "spouts" (Cohen,
Stan, 1981. Historic Springs of the Virginias - A Pictorial History,
Pictorial Histories Publishing Co., Charleston, WV.).
The Homestead Spa
John
Lund, Hot Springs VA, Quarterly Bulletin of the Geo-Heat Center, Oregon
Inst. of Tech, vol 17 no. 2
The
Homestead "Little Library." [WorldCat.org]
Bath
County VA Hot Springs History
HA401
Resort History
B.
Rockies - Denver's Brown Palace
Brown Palace Denver CO
Brown Palace Denver CO
Brown Palace Denver CO
C.
Rockies - Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs
D.
Midwest - St. Louis
St Louis RR YMCA Hotel, later the Drury Inn, in St Louis
MO.
E.
Pacific Coast - San Jose
SUMMARY This brief film shows an excursion party passing
in the carriage drive of the Vendome Hotel, a major resort hotel in
San Jose, south of San Francisco. The exact date of the film is unknown,
but may be in October 1897. The camera faces north-northwest in the
carriage drive, toward the main (east) entrance of the hotel. Two excursion
stages, a surrey, and three small carriages circle past the camera with
passengers waving, while other guests wave from the hotel steps. The
light indicates an afternoon setting, which suggests a short trip to
"take the waters" at nearby Alum Rock Springs, Azule Springs, or Congress
Springs. Another possibility is an overnight trip to the James Lick
Observatory on nearby Mount Hamilton to view the heavens through the
36-inch telescope. The Vendome Hotel was built in 1888 by public subscription
for $500,000 to accommodate the expanding convention business of San
Jose, a growing town set among orchards and farmland (now larger than
San Francisco). Located on North First Street between Hobson and Hawthorne
streets (on the 11-acre estate of former Mayor Joseph Belden), the hotel
was a few blocks north of the center of town. Over the decade following
its 1889 opening, the hotel increasingly became a first-class resort
frequented by San Francisco and Bay Area society. Facilities included
a ballroom, swimming pools, tennis courts, and stables. An annex added
in 1903 was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. In 1930 the Vendome was
demolished and replaced by custom-built homes.
F.
Canadian Pacific Railroad Grand Hotels
Banff Springs Hotel 1888
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