Sleepy Hollow Country Club is a historic country club in Scarborough-on-Hudson in Briarcliff Manor, New York. The club was founded in 1911, and its clubhouse was known as Woodlea, a 140-room Vanderbilt mansion owned by Colonel Elliott Fitch Shepard and his wife Margaret Louisa Vanderbilt Shepard. It was built in 189295 at a cost of $2 million ($ in ) and was designed by the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White; the estate became a contributing property to the Scarborough Historic District (on the National Register of Historic Places) in 1984.
Woodlea's exterior was designed in an Italian Renaissance Revival style, incorporating Beaux-Arts details. The building's facades are composed primarily of buff-colored Italian brick. The south and west facades are symmetrical, but the overall plan of the house is not. The house's west facade is the longest and most ornate, and has a view of the Hudson River from its west-facing windows and adjoining terrace. The main entrance is on the building's south, directly approached from the south drive. The interior also has significant features, including marble fireplaces, coffered ceilings, and extensive carved wood and plaster detail. The house has between of interior space, making it one of the largest privately owned houses in the United States.
Club
The club currently has and a 27-hole golf course with tree-limb footbridges. Facilities include the main clubhouse, a pool complex, ten Har-Tru tennis courts, four aluminum heated platform tennis courts, four squash courts, eighteen guest rooms, skeet and trap areas, a 45-horse boarding facility, twenty paddocks, a large indoor riding arena, pro shops for golf and paddle sports, a fitness complex, the golf course and practice range (non-contributing), outdoor riding rings, stables, and a carriage house. Youth activities include golf, tennis, squash and riding. The clubhouse has three dining rooms, and altogether the club can hold 400 guests.
The club currently has 570 members, and a staff consisting of 60 year-round employees and 200 during the height of the season. The stables have a tack room, fifty stalls, and two indoor arenas, and they host the Sleepy Hollow Stable and Riding Academy. The club's gross revenue is $12 million; of it, $2.5 million is from food and beverage sales. The club property surrounds Saint Mary's Episcopal Church on three sides and slopes upwards east from U.S. Route 9. The clubhouse, which is open through every season of the year, sits on a wide central plateau. Notable early members included George G. Haven, V. Everit Macy, George W. Perkins, Moses Taylor, Oakleigh Thorne, and Frank Vanderlip; notable current members include Bill Murray, James Patterson, and several members of the Rockefeller family.
History
Name Sleepy Hollow Country Club, founded in 1911, predates the 1996 renaming of the neighboring village of North Tarrytown to Sleepy Hollow. The club is named after its location in the river valley of the Pocantico River, a river which was once called Slapershaven ("sleepers' harbor" in Dutch); the Dutch name later grew to apply to the valley. Today, as a geographic term, "Sleepy Hollow" refers only to the incorporated village.
19th century
Sleepy Hollow's clubhouse was once a private residence named Woodlea. The mansion retained the name of a former house of J. Butler Wright (son of Benjamin Wright), who lived there and called it Woodlea; it dates to around 1806. Wright's Victorian house, of painted brick with porches and a high tower on one end, was later renamed the Villa. The current property was originally made up of various farms. Colonel Elliott Fitch Shepard came to the Briarcliff area in the early 1890s, and having purchased the house and its property, ordered construction of the existing house and improvements to the grounds. Construction on the mansion began in 1892, and it was completed in 1895. In 1892 Shepard ordered the construction of Scarborough's first dock (at the present Scarborough Park) to allow construction materials to be shipped to his property. Shepard died in 1893, leaving his wife Margaret to oversee the completion of Woodlea. After his death, Margaret lived there only during spring and autumn, with less frequent trips as time went on. In November 1896, Maria Louisa Kissam (Margaret's mother and widow of William Henry Vanderbilt) died in the house. Maria's sister and Margaret called for a Scarborough doctor who was unable to assist her.
On September 11, 1906, New York businessman Archibald S. White purchased the then- property from Mrs. Shepard for between $1 and 1.5 million. He bought it as a present for his wife Olive Celeste Moore White; together they lived on the property. The house and property's worth at the time was estimated between $4 and 6 million, and it was often said that its owners didn't know how much money had been spent constructing and improving the estate. Around 1910, Frank Vanderlip and William Rockefeller purchased the estate. Vanderlip thought of it as too big of a bargain to pass up – it was offered for only $165,000 ($ in ). Narcissa Vanderlip thought the house too large and grand to live in, and so the Vanderlip family remained in their nearby property of Beechwood.
20th century to the present
The two men assembled a board of directors to form a country club, including future Titanic victim John Jacob Astor IV, coal baron Edward Julius Berwind, cotillion leaders Elisha Dyer and Lispenard Stewart, and sportsmen W. Averell Harriman, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, and Harrison A. Williams. The country club was incorporated on May 11, 1911, with 600 members. The directors' first meeting took place at Vanderlip's office at 55 Wall St., the National City Bank Building (Vanderlip was the president of the bank at the time). Initiation and yearly dues were each $100 ($ in ). For the first few years, the club rented Woodlea for $25,000 ($ in ) a year, and in 1912 the club purchased the property from Vanderlip and Rockefeller for $350,000 ($ in ).
The club then constructed the golf course in close harmony to the existing lawns, and also built an outdoor garden theater with clipped cedars and a 16th-century Italian portal. The club ended up paying $310,000 for the land and house, and spent another $100,000 on improvements. The club spent four years, starting in 1910, rearranging the house's kitchen, pantries, and service wing to house and serve more people, and in renovating one of the stables into a garage. The club also constructed more tennis courts and a toboggan slide for use in the winter. The grounds and Italian garden had been designed by the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted from 1895 to 1901, including long stretches of lawns and using American and foreign trees; the club had Charles B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor design the first golf course in 1911, and A. W. Tillinghast designed an update in 1935, succeeded by Gil Hanse's redesign from 18 to 27 holes around 2008.
In 1916, golf course architect Devereux Emmet and his son Devereux Emmet Jr. won the father-son tournament at Sleepy Hollow Country Club. This prompted the United States Golf Association to institute the "architects rule" that barred golf course architects from competing as amateurs in tournaments.
In 1917 the club had 1,000 members, and its president was Frank Vanderlip. In June of that year, William Rockefeller purchased for the club, bringing its area to (the house was originally sold with only ). Rockefeller spent $600,000 ($ in ), making it the largest single real estate transaction in the county. The purchases allowed for the construction of about 40 houses on the club property. New facilities were built in the 1920s, including a manager's house, skeet house, squash house, indoor riding ring, and swimming pool. The club had operated at a loss from the beginning, and after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, club members were not successful in maintaining their wealth, and membership declined. Cuts were made – horses were sold, Woodlea was closed except for special occasions, and the golf house became the primary clubhouse. building lots north of Woodlea were sold to members. In 1933, notable amateur golfer Bobby Jones played at the course. The club was also not successful during World War II and later; in 1950 a member could stay overnight at Woodlea for $5 ($ in ), and for less in the golf house. The first formal dance that year also cost $5 a person. In 1961, in time for the club's 50th anniversary, Woodlea was redecorated with more modern fabrics, warm gold and forest green carpets, dropped lighting, and some lowered ceilings.
Original to the house, and occupying its northwest terrace against its service wing, was an Italian garden with vine-clad pergolas on each side, symmetrical gravel paths, marble benches, and long stone balustrades, giving it characteristics of a hanging garden. The garden was below the house's first floor, and was built against the hillside, occupying a portion of the slope that falls far below it. The lower walls of the house were screened with a row of large cedars planted on the highest part of the garden. The garden formed an immense rectangular space, and on the four sides of the terrace there were pergolas thickly overgrown with vines. In the center was a pool and a carved stone fountain imported from Rome. Walks and beds of flowers and shrubbery occupied the rest, visible from the west-facing windows of the house.
The garden was demolished in the 1960s, as was the golf house (in 1967). In the garden's location and replacing the use of the golf house, a wing was added to the clubhouse, constructed on the northeast terrace and completed in 1962. The building holds a pro shop, dining facilities, and locker rooms. The structure was designed to be spacious and convenient and not be noticeable from the grounds below, although from Woodlea, the sight of the tar roof and ventilators was noted to be worse than the prior standing gardens. The club hosted the NYNEX Commemorative from 1986 to 1993. In 1989, professional golfer Bob Charles set a current record when he won the tournament. In 2002, the club hosted the U.S. Women's Amateur Golf Championship.
In 2014 the country club expanded and renovated the snack bar building, renovated the locker room building exterior, constructed a large array of solar panels on the roof of the locker room and dining facility building, and performed other renovations. Replacing the golf house's location, a pool facility and tennis shop was constructed in 1968.
Architecture Woodlea
The architect of Woodlea is variously stated as McKim, Mead & White, and Stanford White, although according to William Mitchell Kendall in his 1920 list of the firm's works, he attributes the house's design to McKim, Mead & White, with W. R. Mead as the supervising architect. Mead was rarely involved in architectural design in the partnership, making his design of Woodlea and another Vanderbilt house, Florham, unusual. He was related to Shepard, as Mead's sister was married to Shepard's brother.
Exterior
Woodlea's exterior was designed in an Italian Renaissance Revival style. The house is said to have been modeled after Kimberley Hall in Kimberley, Norfolk. Its classical devices of 18th-century English architecture include urns, pediments, columns, and balusters. The house also is a full-blown expression of the American Renaissance. Woodlea incorporates characteristics of the Beaux-Arts style of architecture – the exterior dictates the use of the interior, with family and guest rooms on the third floor. At the north end of the house, situated farthest from the main entrance, and of a size larger than most houses, is the service wing, which contains the servant quarters. Compared to the rest of the house, this wing has lower ceilings, smaller windows, and less exterior trim. In the early 1900s, the wing was clad in ivy.