A clubhouse needed but raising money difficult; controversial land sale in 1926 to raise funds resulted in a number of member resignations but ultimately made the clubhouse a reality

For four years the Club tried to raise enough money for a clubhouse by selling stock, but it was unsuccessful. At the 1926 meeting of the Tennis Club, John Jackson proposed another means of getting cash: He moved that up to an acre of the Club’s property be sold to raise money to build a clubhouse and new tennis courts.

It is clear that the proposed land sale provoked considerable debate. Four of seven directors of the Tennis Realty Corporation, among them President Pfeiffer, Jackson, Kent, and Stowell, resigned from the board. Although resignations signed by Jackson and Stowell dated July 26, 1926, are in the minute’s books, both are listed as present for a special meeting of the Tennis Realty Corporation on that date. A draft of the minutes says the board discussed an offer of $10,000 from John Jackson to buy the southern half of land facing Church Lane, which he would use as a home-site. (The official minutes do not mention the offer.)

In September, a reshuffled Board of Directors accepted Jackson’s bid. It also authorized the president to sell a second half-acre of land on Church Lane. This decision was followed by another round of resignations from the boards of both the corporation and the Club, and the corporation’s board finally decided not to sell any more land.

The $10,000 sale to Jackson in 1926 made it possible at last for Fox Meadow Tennis Club to plan a clubhouse. Financing was completed by consolidating the old mortgage with a new loan in a note of $20,000 at six percent. Walter Collet, a Scarsdale contractor who built dozens of homes in the community, built the clubhouse, designed by Walter Pleuthner, for $9,000. The new clubhouse was a small stone building with a roofed porch along one side and a large stone chimney. Small and spare, it set a modest tone for the Club. With no bar and no dining room, the clubhouse helped establish the unpretentious family atmosphere that typifies Fox Meadow even today.

A committee of Mrs. Rudolph Culver, wife of the Club president; Edith Wilson; and Harriet Mason chose wicker and stained oak furniture for the new building.

Source: Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983