IN THE NEWS

CASTLE HISTORY 2

October 2004

MOULTONBOROUGH - Thomas Plant's vision and contribution to the Lakes Region was not limited to the Castle in the Clouds. He also envisioned and created a country club on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, across Route 109 from the original Castle in the Clouds property. The Bald Peak Colony Club has survived over the years because of the love members have for that beautiful spot.

The story of the creation of the Bald Peak Colony Club and its first 40 years is told in Elizabeth Crawford Wilkin's 1964 history entitled "The Castle and the Club."

After Plant sold his shoe business and his shoe machinery company to The United Shoe Machinery Corporation, he was looking for a place to retire. He took an option on Ossipee Mountain Park and then toured Europe with his niece to see if anything rivaled Ossipee Mountain Park's beauty. Nothing did, and Plant cabled his Jamaica Plain factory manager, Albert Grover, to "take up the option." When Plant returned, he began planning for the mountaintop Castle that was to be his retirement home. While planning Lucknow, he conceived of the idea of a country club on the lakefront, where there was a sandy beach.

"It came to him that he could share all this beauty with many others in no better way than to establish a residential golfing Club. He pictured it as a Club Colony with cottages, a clubhouse and an 18-hole golf course," Wilkins wrote. (It should be noted here that the definition of "cottage" in those days bears no resemblance to what is considered a cottage today. The term meant only that the buildings would be seasonal and unheated. They were large, well-designed residences.)

It would be five years before he could put the wheels in motion for the establishment of such a club. It began with clearing of the trees, a monumental job undertaken by men with horses and dynamite. Next came consultation with noted golf course architect Donald Ross and creation of the 18-hole golf course. Simultaneously, construction of the clubhouse and nine cottages began, six on the ridge and three to the northeast of the clubhouse. This was followed by construction of a boathouse and a dormitory-garage for 20 cars and chauffeurs of the guests.

By all accounts, the work progressed under the watchful eye of Tom Plant who oversaw every detail, including furnishings and drapes for the clubhouse and cottages.

"But at last, two years after the breaking of the first ground, everything was finished. The clubhouse was staffed and ready, the golf course awaited its first players, the stable, boathouse, garage and dormitories were open, and the nine cottages were completed and furnished, ready to be sold or rented. These latter were not built for housekeeping. The guests were expected to take their meals in the clubhouse dining room," Wilkin relates.

Club membership was fixed at $2,500, a sum Tom Plant felt was fair for what was offered. A man used to making decisions, Plant retained complete control of the colony he had built. That extended itself to the kind of people he wanted as members. In her entertaining writing style, Wilkin wrote that these were to be "guests who were vigorous, decorative if possible, and who did things well. He liked to see golf clubs and tennis racquets swung properly and he employed professionals to teach those who were not adept at such things but were willing to learn. He admired a woman who mounted a horse gracefully and rode it with a gentle hand. He liked to see a man bring his gun up to his shoulder and drop his bird with a quick sure aim, or to watch someone play a small-mouthed bass on a light fly rod without muffing it."

He seems to have had an aversion to people who were overweight. He didn't want "a lot of old, sleepy people sitting around on the veranda," nor did he want a lot of children running around.

"He didn't permit the sale of liquor on the premises, and he objected strenuously to what he termed 'Dirty Words.'"

At this period in Plant's life, he was wealthy enough to fulfill his vision of creating something unique at Bald Peak and doing so under his own strict terms.

Wilkin extracted much of her information from minutes of the meetings of the Club directors. In an introduction to that section of the book, she credits Plant for his vision, but she also credits the "First Families" with being responsible for the Club's survival. "Without them, there would be no Bald Peak Colony Club today," she asserts. The members exhibited their love for the Club's beautiful setting by supporting the Club through lean years as well as good, through a fire in the clubhouse attic and through the damage inflicted by the hurricane of 1938. "When the Club has stood in danger of not being able to open the next season, the cottage owners have reached for their check books and given what was needed, sometimes more than they could easily afford, always what they could have used themselves," she writes.

The Club was incorporated on Aug. 31, 1920. The entire 5,588 acres and all the buildings including the Club Inn, garage, dormitories, nine cottages and buildings then under construction, were conveyed by Tom Plant to the Club in consideration of the 200 certificates of ownership.

Plant planned to sell the 200 certificates of ownership at $2,500 each to people he considered would be desirable members. Opening day was scheduled for August 1, 1921. Additional funds were needed to complete the work on time, and Plant, the treasurer, was authorized by the executive committee to borrow $300,000. But Plant was able to raise only $60,000 of the $300,000. And he had sold only eight of the 200 ownership certificates.

Perhaps it was the economy, or perhaps Plant's dream had just been too grandiose, but he seemed unable to get others to share that dream.

Wilkin wrote, "At this point one must unhappily visualize the bewildered and slightly aging but still handsome gentleman with his apple-red cheeks somewhat paled sitting at the directors' table in the office of Mr. Remick in Concord.

"He is bemused and incredulous that amongst all his friends, business acquaintances, his contacts and theirs can be found only eight people in the whole of the United States of America who are willing to expend $2,500 on his unquestionably beautiful Club on which he had spent an enormous amount of money, and now a further $200,000 as well as the past three years of his life."

Construction of the Castle and then of the Club had bitten heavily into Plant's wealth. In December 1920, he asked the executive committee to return to him all of the property he had conveyed to the Club except that property needed for the usual purposes of a country club. He agreed to assume outstanding obligations against the Club in the amount of more than $260,000. The committee voted unanimously to do so.

On Nov. 11, 1922, The Bald Peak Country Club leased the club to the newly-formed Bald Peak Realty Company for five years. Plant thought that at the end of five years, he would have sold 200 memberships, with members paying $200 annually. Wilkin writes that the Club's future seemed assured.

"What happened between that day in November 1922 and the 14th of May, 1923, we shall never know, but on the latter date there must have been the father and mother of a row!!" Two members of the executive committee resigned, the resignation letter of one "so virulent that it practically jumps off the page and pulls a trigger." New officers were elected, the executive committee voted out and supplanted by a board of directors that included Thomas and William Plant, and Tom's wife, Olive. This board seems not to have done any better financially than did the committee, and in November 1924, Tom Plant guaranteed to cover any operating deficits of the Club for the years 1925 and 1926.

In January 1925, yet another slate of officers was elected. The President, William H. Childs, and the Treasurer, Thomas Plant, were authorized to borrow $10,000.
A marketing campaign was undertaken, with an eye toward attracting the new members the Club sorely needed. A limited number of candidates for membership were to be invited, all expenses paid by the Club, to spend the four-day Columbus Holiday at the Club.

"The time chosen should have been ideal golfing weather with its cool, sparkling days. The autumn coloring should have been at its peak. We have not been told how many were invited nor how many guests came, but Mother Nature took a hand in the weather. It rained constantly for three days and then turned very cold. On the night of the 11th of October there was an unseasonable blizzard, and on the following morning the horrified members and guests found the ground covered with six inches of snow," Wilkin wrote in 1964, pointing out that there was no record of any Columbus weekend blizzard since, "nor has there ever been another Club houseparty."

Despite continuing efforts to attract additional members and a variety of tactics used, membership continued to lag behind what was needed to make the Club financially viable.

In October 1925, Plant tried to sell his eight cottages to the Club for about $250,000, but the offer was refused.

In November 1927, an annual deficit of $7,000 was reported. The board accepted Tom Plant's resignation at the December meeting. Also at that meeting, the first bail-out of the Club by members took place. In 1928, associate membership was created, with dues at half the price of dues for full members, or $150.

Also in 1928, an arrangement was made with Boy Scouts of America to establish a camp of 50 boys at the Club from which the Club could draw the necessary caddies. This was the founding of the Caddie Camp at Bald Peak.

Continuing her perusal of the minutes, Wilkin begins naming members who were to become the backbone of the Club. Although no longer a member of the board, Tom Plant still owned membership shares, and in August 1929, the board president was given authority to "conclude arrangements with Mr. Plant involving purchase of his membership shares." Plant sold his rights to the Club for $146,250 with the exception of the six cottages he still owned. At that same meeting, the directors were authorized to borrow a further $500,000.

Sprinkled in with facts on the status of the Club, Wilkin interjects anecdotes about various people involved at all levels in the activities of the Club. The following is one such interjection: "Justine remembers Frank Kennison from Concord, N.H., who was then employed as Night Clerk at the Desk, and is now Judge Kennison, Chief Justice of New Hampshire."

By 1931, there were 49 active members of the Club, who were each given 15 shares of new common stock, following a reorganization of the structure. Wilkin reports that membership would be a problem for the next thirty years.

Tom Plant died in August 1941.

The onset of World War II presented more problems for the Club. Wilkin says no one wanted to be president of a dying Club, but two members, "to keep it going, took it in turn."

Wilkin doesn't document the trials that continued beyond 1941, but switches here to writing about the so-called "First Families," relating their arrival on the scene and telling tidbits about each.

What brought the Club to its current prominence is beyond the time frame of information in this book, and, as it is a private club, no further public recording is available. But Wilkin gives a strong hint of what probably brought Bald Peak to the success story it now represents. It was and is the members.

Wilkin writes, "Perhaps in his quiet smiling way he (Tom Plant) may have bequeathed to those members his own deep love of Bald Peak that saved it from the rocks upon which it was so nearly destroyed. But whether it was by Divine Providence or men's willingness and ability to pay, we still have our beloved and cherished Club, and we pray that we and our children and theirs may continue to for many years to come."

Note: Both the Moultonborough and Tuftonboro Public Libraries have copies of Wilkin's book: "The Castle and the Club." It is entertaining reading as well as an interesting historic document.