New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
‘A BENEFIT FOR ALL OF US’
Town looks to buy country club property; voters to decide in Feb.
ORANGE — The Board of Selectmen has voted unanimously to hold a referendum Feb. 16 on a plan for the town to buy the Race Brook Country Club building and grounds for $8.5 million.
Public details on the plan are limited to date, but before going into executive session at a board meeting, First Selectman James Zeoli said the plan is to buy the buildings and “soil” of 287 acres and lease it back to the club.
He said he and the town attorney have been in discussions with the principles of the Derby Avenue club.
“Race Brook has expressed an interest in selling the property,” Zeoli said. “The town is not buying the Race Brook Country Club golf and banquet business”
“In the long term it’s a business investment consideration,” Zeoli said at the meeting. “In the long run, I guess it will be a benefit for all of us.”
Zeoli told selectmen at the meeting that he would look to the press with well-developed information, including a video to help townspeople understand the plan. He also noted appraisals had been done.
Contacted by email , the first selectman said he wasn’t ready to discuss the matter further until closer to the referendum.
Management at Race Brook Country Club could not be reached Friday for
comment.
Selectman Mitchell R. Goldblatt said he is looking forward to hearing what residents and taxpayers, country club members and club officials have to say about the proposal.
“I think it is an idea worth moving forward on as a novel way of saving a business and also preserving open space,” Goldblatt said. “Our vote was to bring it to referendum.”
Goldblatt said an important element of the plan to consider is that it would give the town control over the property and not, potentially, a developer. The town would not be involved in the golf course, he said. “Hopefully the intent is to preserve the golf course and allow it stay as a viable business,” he said. “It’s going to remain Race Brook Country Club.”
“This town has got a wonderful track record of preserving open space; here is a large parcel of land that has been of historical use as a premiere golf course and country club,” Goldblatt said.
The club is among a number of golf courses in the region, including two others in Orange: Grassy Hill Country Club and Orange Hills Country Club. In 2009, the town of Woodbridge purchased the 150acre property, golf course, pool and clubhouse of the Country Club of Woodbridge for $7 million to keep it from being developed. The golf course that was run there after the purchase was later closed and proposals to build housing there have not moved forward. While some Woodbridge residents supported the idea of generating tax revenue from the site, others have pushed
for it to remain as open space.
The Race Brook Country Club website highlights its “long and illustrious history” begun in 1912, and “a golf course second to none. ... The Club can look back with pride on its history as it continues to provide its members and guests with golfing excellence and fellowships which are its hallmark.”
As previously reported by the Register, Former President William Howard Taft was the club's first honorary member, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson once played an exhibition match there and comedian Bob Hope also played a round there.
Further, as noted in a Register story about the
club’s first 100 years, as of 2017, it had acted as host for six Connecticut Opens, six Connecticut Amateurs, including this year, and the 2004 New England Amateur Championship.
But, back in January 1912, a “committee of prominent citizens from New Haven, Orange and Derby met at the Union League Club on Chapel Street in New Haven to discuss the organization and construction of a new golf course,” the website states. Further Rollin S. Woodruff, Connecticut’s governor from 1907-09,
“was elected as the club’s first president,” the club website states.
In 2001, much of the original clubhouse was knocked down, though not its “fieldstone columns and
fireplaces,” to build a “modern, more spacious facility,” and the club’s 28,750square-foot clubhouse reopened in November 2002, the website states.
“Significant changes to the clubhouse also came in 2009 as a result in a surge in membership. In the winter and spring of 2009,
Race Brook added 85 new members, most coming from Woodbridge Country Club, which closed in January of 2009. As a result, the Board of Governors approved plans to demolish the Mixed Grille Room and the Men’s Grille Room, which had been built as part of the 2002 clubhouse renovation. The two grille rooms were incorporated into what is today the Grille Room, which has double the seating capacity of the old Mixed Grille,” the website states.
Since 1912, many wellknown professional and amateur golfers have played at the club, the website states, including professionals Harry Vardon, Ted Ray, Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazan, Ben Hogan, Bryon Nelson, Patty Berg, Julius Boros and Tom Watson, and amateurs, Bob Hope, Tony Martin, Bing Crosby and Jackie Robinson.
The most famous member, the website states, likely was President William Howard Taft, a Yale University graduate, who joined Race Brook in 1913 and played regularly until he left New Haven in 1921 to become chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.