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At the U.S. Open, Saving the House That Built Golf


BROOKLINE, Mass.- The 19th-century cottage with a golf course view barely noticed the hundreds of motorists speeding 40 miles per hour on Clyde Street in the Brookline suburb of Brookline. Boston. While the two-story house once stood like a prison overlooking acres of cow pastures, the neighborhood is now filled with posh cottages, four-lane streets and a bustle worthy of a vacation. community just seven miles from downtown.

The location doesn’t look like a landmark for the birthplace of American golf. But it is, in both tangible and symbolic ways. This week, the venue will come to the fore as the US Open returns for the fourth time with the Country Club in Brookline.

Neighbors of the Clyde Street property have recently noticed a flurry of activity at the residence as contractors’ trucks fill the driveway daily for what is clearly a costly restoration project. . In late April, two workers peeled back the attic ceiling panels of the 1893 home and then had to crouch when a pair of antique golf clubs fell to the floor.

“They’re Francis’ club!” one of the workers, Aldeir Filho, shouted. His colleague, Christian Herbet, rushed down the stairs to alert the group of merchants below.

From the second floor, Herbet shouted: “We have found Mr. Ouimet’s club.”

In 1913, Francis Ouimet, then a self-taught 20-year-old amateur golfer, left the second-floor bedroom he shared with his brother at 246 Clyde Street and crossed the street to the Country Club, where he beat the world’s two best. defeated British professional tennis players, Ted Ray and Harry Vardon, to win the US Open title.

The great disappointment of Ouimet, son of immigrants and a caddy at the club, made front page news nationwide and is credited with creating explosive growth nationally in the game. While there were only 350,000 American golfers in 1913, that number grew to 2.1 million less than 10 years later. Ouimet’s reputation for breakthrough achievement – no amateur golfer has ever won the US Open and very few working-class golfers have played in the championships – goes back 109 years, no doubt. furthermore, was helped by a hit 2005 movie, “The Greatest Game Ever Played. ”

The house that Ouimet’s father, Arthur, had just happened to buy across from the Country Club often plays a key role in Francis Ouimet’s success story. The humble home of a tony country club that has come to represent two worlds, Ouimet dared to cross as he descended his unadorned wooden steps and onto the club’s gilded pitch. set for the final 18 holes of the 1913 US Open. About 4 hours later, he was carried from the last green floor on the shoulders of cheering fans. The duality of Ouimet’s life on either side of the Clyde Road, including the bondage, poverty of his upbringing, is a strong part of the story. For example, there are 17 scenes depicting life in the Ouimet house in the 2005 film.
However, until recently, preserving or officially recognizing the importance of the house has never been a priority. While the structure remained in the Ouimet family for 94 years, it changed ownership several times. The exterior and interior were changed and a tall white fence rose up in the front yard to obscure much of the ground floor from the street.

As home prices in Brookline have skyrocketed for decades, some at a nearby club, a founding member of the American Golf Association, worry what might happen if the property is bought and refinished. develop. For example, many years ago, what used to be the family barn next to the Ouimet house was sold, rebuilt, and turned into an apartment building.

“If you let that house be demolished,” Fred Waterman, club historian, said of the Ouimet house in an interview last month, “you have allowed a very important part of sports history. America disappeared.”

Tom Hynes, a member of the Country Club with a real estate background in Boston stretching back to the 1960s, happened to befriend the home’s owners, Jerome and Dedie Wieler, not long after they moved in. neighborhood in 1989. Hynes lived nearby and would see Wielers walking their dogs almost daily.

“When you are ready to sell your home,” Hynes told the couple, “I am your buyer.”

Wielers replied that they weren’t for sale and were curious why Hynes would want it. Hynes explains the history of Ouimet to the Wielers, who know nothing about golf. But Wielers was intrigued by a moving story.

“Someday, maybe 20 years from now, you might make a sale and please let me know,” Hynes said, adding that he will remind Wielers about once a year. “I just want the house back on the golf course.”

At the end of 2020, Wielers contacted Hynes, who first set foot at 246 Clyde Street and 30 minutes later had an agreement to start buying the house for $ 875,000.

Hynes began trying to offset the cost of buying a home by raising money with the aim of donating the house to the club, which could use it for a multitude of activities, including housing for staff and guests on the first floor. two. The decision was also made to restore the house to the way it was when Ouimets lived there in 1913.

“When you walk into the house, we want you to feel like you walked into the family home 109 years ago,” says Waterman.

But first, there’s more work to be done. While the house is in good condition, it needs countless improvements to meet modern building codes. The cost of restoration increases. As Hynes, grandson of a three-term Boston mayor who has brokered some of the city’s most sweeping real estate transactions, says: “I started walking around town with my tin cup. ”

Hynes has a powerful, almost divine ally in her fundraising quest. It was as if Francis Ouimet was mysteriously assisting him. Ouimet, person died in 1967remained a lifelong resident of the Boston area and went on to win amateur golf championships for many years after 1913. He also had a career in finance.

In 1949, an Ouimet university scholarship program for students was established. Since then, the Ouimet Foundation has given out nearly $44 million to more than 6,300 men and women. Need-based scholarships can be worth up to $80,000 over four years of study.

When Hynes began calling for help to restore his home, he was sometimes surprised to see donors being generous with their money. They are Ouimet Scholars, now in their middle age, believing they would never have gone to university without the support of the foundation.

Additionally, more than 40 members of the Country Club contributed, most donating $25,000 each. The first phase of the renovation was completed last week.

A tour of the 1,550-square-foot six-room Ouimet home these days is like stepping back in time as its appearance has been tailored to match the early 20th century style. Wallpaper, lighting, curtains and The shades are all classic. The furniture is faithful to the period: chairs, sofas and tables from the early 1900s presented to the club by an architect who had heard of this renovation. The common rooms were small then, but added a cozy, family feel.

Just inside the entrance of the first floor is an old, preserved wooden wall telephone, the kind with a crank on the side. It was designed so visitors could pick up the receiver and listen to a recording of Ouimet describing his US Open victory. He was featured on the tape of Eddie Lowery, who was Ouimet’s 10-year-old caddy. The two remained friends for life.

Elsewhere on the first floor are memorabilia documenting what happened nearby in 1913, including newspaper clippings and photographs. The tall, imposing roadside fence has been removed to reveal newly planted sycamore trees bordered by perennials.

The second phase, which will renovate the building’s exterior by adding new shingles, windows and a cedar shingle roof, won’t be completed until next year. After that, Hynes hopes to hand over the house to the club. As the club, which has about 1,300 members, still does not own the Ouimet house, its president, Lyman Bullard, said no decision has yet been made on its access or primary use.

Hynes, who mentioned being sensitive to the neighbors of a residential property, does not envision the home being open to the public or offering tours like a museum. But Waterman feels obligated to share the house and its history in some way.

In the movie “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” there’s a bit of early foreshadowing: a scene where the docile but surreptitious Francis Ouimet practices feeding at night after his parents have gone to bed. If it could be a Hollywood asthma attack, there’s no question the buzzing, golf course-focused view from Ouimet’s second-floor bedroom window. Crossing Clyde Street, Francis could see the pristine 17th hole of the Country Club. The scene is now altered by the decades-old growth of trees growing on the perimeter of the site. But standing at the bedroom window, with the home’s newly revived original floor creaking underfoot, the manicured 17th hole is still clearly visible.

Francis Ouimet’s boyhood dreams seem present, not far-fetched.

His impact on golf, even the American sport, is still alive in the spirit of his homeland.

In 1913, golf icon Gene Sarazen, then known as Eugenio Saraceni, was an 11-year-old caddy in upstate New York. The son of Sicilian immigrants, he read about Ouimet’s stunning victory over famous British experts. As Waterman noted, Sarazen said to herself at the time, “If he can do it, I can do it.”

When Sarazen was 20 years old, like Ouimet, he won the US Open, the first of seven major golf championships he won between 1922 and 1935.

For Waterman and Hynes, one of their biggest hopes is that the Ouimets, recently returned to golf, will not affect future US Open champions. Hynes raised the possibility that one of the golfers in the field this year might want to stay indoors for game time.

Calling it “the ultimate,” Waterman added: “It would be a tennis player to say, ‘I want to wake up in Francis Ouimet’s bedroom because he came downstairs and won the US Open. Maybe that’s what will happen to me. ‘ ”



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