by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As many posts here have previously observed, the tremendous growth of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century involved so many dimensions, with the country emerging as an economic powerhouse and this leading to a greatly expanded middle class with more disposable income and leisure time. The latter could be used on attending concerts and plays, enjoying the outdoors (as was discussed in a recent post for National Trails Day) or supporting or playing sports.
Our “Games People Play” series on this blog has touched upon many aspects of sports in greater Los Angeles during that period, including several examples concerning the rise of golf, such as one sharing a very early 1899 photo of men and women playing the sport in Pasadena and others discussing the Griffith Park course “field house”, Tarzana’s El Caballero Country Club, and Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles.
While the story of the growth of golf is notable from a purely sports perspective, there is much to be said about what courses and country clubs represented in terms of community development and growth, as well, with these explored in those prior posts, as well as this one. Last night, the Chino Hills Historical Society commemorated the centennial of the Los Serranos Country Club, which opened to the public in April 1925. David Kramer, whose tennis champion father, Jack, began operating the course in 1953, shared his family more than seven decades of running it, but emphasized its place in the community.
Here we look to do the same by examining the first several years of the club’s operations, from 1925 to 1930, in the context of the sport, the region and the community in which it was located. As golf became increasingly popular in the first three decades of the 20th century, courses and clubs sprung up all over greater Los Angeles. While in some cases public courses, like Griffith, were attached to parks and some private ones were built to serve a dedicated membership, including Jews with Hillcrest who were denied involvement in other clubs, some were part of a broader plan of development.
Near the Homestead, for example, there was the Hacienda Country Club, which we’ll look to discuss in a post next May and which was established in 1920 amid a new residential project called La Habra Heights. In a similar fashion, a few years later, the Los Serranos club was established but in conjunction with a connected residence tract. In both cases, the fortunes of the clubs were directly tied to these new subdivisions, but with very different results.
The prime mover at Los Serranos was Harlow C. Davidson (1873-1931), a native of Cairo, a town at the southern tip of Illinois, bordering Kentucky and Missouri where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers intersect and which played a key part in Mark Twain’s classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The son of a tinsmith and housewife, Davidson began his working life in the lumber industry in Mobile, Alabama, after which he settled in Memphis, Tennessee. He then spent four years in New York City, but decided to leave the lumber business behind when he migrated to California in 1912.
A widower with no children, Davidson tried his hand in a new career in real estate in Los Angeles, where he lived and worked for two years. He then found the burgeoning Long Beach to be the best place to pursue his avocation and formed a partnership with John S. Harper in what was, strangely, called The Only Harper and Company. This enterprise lasted until 1920, when Davidson formed his own firm and, two years later, incorporated as the Davidson Investment Company, in which he was joined by brothers Charles and Frank.
When the Signal Hill oil field (in which Walter P. Temple drilled wells later in the decade) was brought in during 1921, Davidson formed the 50/50 Oil and Land Syndicate and, with Midway Oil Company drilling, he sold shares in which buyers purchased stock with land and a share in 50% of the oil produced. By mid-1924, there were four Davidson oil wells producing crude as part of the scheme.
No doubt with money earned from the oil revenues, Davidson then turned to creating his own town, much as Temple did at the same time with the Town of Temple in the San Gabriel Valley. Davidson City was launched in spring 1923 on what was then unincorporated Los Angeles County land just west of the Los Angeles River. Advertisements and full-page sections in Long Beach newspapers promoted the project, including what was then the “Auto Truck Highway” terminating at the burgeoning Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach.
Davidson used the tag line of “A Garden City At The Gateway of Industry,” employing much of the same language and concepts as what would soon be utilized at the Montebello Park project recently covered in a multi-part post here. The two ports were servicing a growing industrial region, including oil fields and refineries and Davidson City was intended to provide “artistic yet inexpensive” houses for those working in this South Bay section.
Davidson City was bordered on the west by the “Auto Truck Highway,” now the portion of Alameda Street that is State Route 47; Perris Road, today’s Santa Fe Avenue, on the east; Dominguez Street to the north; and Carson Street to the south. Aside from a pair of north-south streets (Harbor View and Prospect avenues), the east-west thoroughfares are named for the first ten presidents, from Washington to Tyler. After attempts by Long Beach to annex the area, Davidson City became, in 1958 the part of the easternmost limits of the city of Carson.
With his oil and real estate enterprises well under way, Davidson turned his attention to his far-flung country club with his firm, in late 1923, agreeing to purchase 716 acres of the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino from the Chino Holding Company. The rancho was granted in 1841 to Antonio María Lugo of the Rancho San Antonio, bordering Los Angeles to the southeast and then owned by Lugo’s son-in-law, Isaac Williams and, later, his two daughters, as well as Pomona rancher Louis Phillips and Isaias W. Hellman, former banking partner of William Workman and F.P.F. Temple.
Joseph Bridger, married to another Williams daughter and superintendent of the ranch, built an adobe house there in the late 1860s and, after Chino was sold to Tombstone, Arizona mining magnate Richard Gird, he established his headquarters at what he called the “Home Ranch.” This name appears to have confused folks later who stated that the Chino Ranch headquarters from 1841 and the scene of the Mexican-American War battle there five years later was at that location, when it was actually a little to the north where today’s Boys Republic institution for troubled boys is operating now.
Included in the transaction to Davidson and his brothers was a reservoir/lake and its water system and immediately, about half of the property was dedicated to the country club, while the remainder was set aside for residential development, with club members originally having house lots as part of the package. The Bridger/Gird adobe was converted to a clubhouse, which remained in use for a few decades afterward.
The course’s architect was John Duncan Dunn, whose local work included the course on Santa Catalina Island, the Santa Ana Country Club in the Orange County seat, and the Rio Hondo Golf Club in Downey. The north course of 18 holes was said by the Los Angeles Express of 20 April 1925, just before the grand opening, to be “excellently constructed,” though the paper added “there are a few of the holes which are a bit long and hefty for the layman golfer but that can be easily remedied.” What these remedies included, however, were left unsaid.
In any case, the opening on the 25th included a foursome exhibition including three-time Southern California amateur champion George Von Elm, who not only won that title in 1925, but took the northern California and state crowns, as well, and then won the national title the following year, beating the legendary Bobby Jones, before turning professional. The others included Clare Griswold, an Oregon amateur champ; Chick Fraser, the pro at the Midwick and Fox Hills clubs locally; and Hutt Martin, who hailed from the sport’s homeland of Scotland and a four-time winner of the Southern California Open.
The club professional at Los Serranos was Cy Johnston, who came from Cleveland in 1921 and, after being an assistant at the Hollywood Country Club, became the pro at Red Hill Country Club, recently founded in what became Rancho Cucamonga, before taking the Los Serranos job. Johnston was the master of ceremonies for Club events and also long held the record for lowest score having shot a 68 (carding 34 on the front and back nines). He left in 1928 to become the pro at Long Beach Country Club and established a record of 65 there before his untimely death there at the end of the year.
While Los Serranos appeared on the surface to be doing well, with regular press reports of club tournaments, social activities and the like, the substantial outlays of the Davidson Investment Company, including stocking the lake with fish and using for boating and swimming, the building of a horse stable and laying out of riding trails, the construction of bungalows, the opening of the outdoor Mayan Court for dancing and other events, and much more led Harlow Davidson to form a holding company as he sought to stave off mounting debts incurred on multiple fronts.
In early May 1928, reported the Ontario Record of the 9th, architect Robert Stacy-Judd, perhaps best known for his Aztec Hotel in Monrovia but who also designed the “Indian Village” at Soboba Hot Springs, from which Walter Temple copies the Tepee adjacent to his house, La Casa Nueva , at the Homestead, sued for unpaid fees in the design of a new clubhouse, and a cement contractor also sought payment.
This followed a suit filed against club manager O.W. Heinz by employees with more than two dozen claims of unpaid wages totaling some $3.500 dating back to the end of the prior year. Heinz was found guilty and ordered to pay restitution and serve a month in jail. Adding to the problems plaguing Los Serranos was a bust by law enforcement officers in May 1929, as Heinz’ successor, John Etheridge, was tried and convicted for allowing slot machines (two nickel and on quarter) in the clubhouse. His punishment was a $500 fine, or, in lieu of payment, a full six months in the pokey.
Whether or not the slot machines were an effort to raise badly-needed funds (the renting of the Club for the making of a lost 1928 film, Someone to Love, starring Mary Brian and “Buddy” Rogers may have been for financial and promotional reasons, as well) the holding company negotiated with the State of California to sell part of the club property for a bird farm (there was one in Napa), though it was decided instead to sell 30 acres at the northeast extremity of the residential section.
In December 1929, the farm opened and it operated there for about three decades, raising and releasing birds as part of a growing state program that included agricultural experiment stations, as well—one in Chino was the precursor to what is now the University of California, Riverside. Today, an elementary school occupies much of the bird farm property and Bird Farm Road still exists as a reminder of that government enterprise.
Not quite two months prior to the farm’s grand opening, the stock market crash in New York ushered in the Great Depression. Davidson persevered with Los Serranos until his death in November 1931, after which his brothers continued operations for a short time. In 1934, Harry A. Jones, a former executive with prominent Los Angeles developer Frank Meline, took over the Club and ran it until his death several years later.
Chino car dealer and Club official James M. Fisher took possession in 1942 and renamed the facility, the Pomona Valley Country Club, perhaps hoping to broaden its appeal, though the rationing of the World War II years likely had a serious impact on his operations. He was succeeded, just before the war’s end in 1945, by a group including golf pro Johnny Dawson and associates who changed the name to Rancho Don Lugo.
After almost three years, another well-known golfer, Ken Rogers, and his brother and sister-in-law, became the new owners of what was then 312 acres. A deal made with African-American investors, led by L. Paul Grant, led to the establishment of the Valparaiso Recreation Center, but racism from some in the Chino area and uncertainty as to the specifics of the agreement with the Rogerses led to yet another change.
Realtor Clara Blum Bartlett took possession of the Club, which reverted to the Los Serranos name, and invested substantial sums in the course, clubhouse and other amenities, while also undoubtedly hoping to develop residential lots, as well. Despite the infusion of cash, the decaying water system proved to be an insuperable barrier and Bartlett was forced, in 1953, to sell the Club and a good portion of the residential tract, including the lake, to rancher Paul Greening, who owned a few thousands acres in the Chino Hills area.
While Greening proposed to turn the course to pasture if a lease could not be arranged, he soon entered into an agreement with Zell Eaton, the Montebello Country Club pro, Pasadena resident William Cranston and professional tennis champion Jack Kramer, who knew Eaton from Montebello. After eight years, Kramer took over management on a 99-year lease with the Greening family, who still owns the land and also built a mobile home park around the lake.
Kramer died in 1999 and his family, including four surviving of five sons, retain the lease and continue operating Los Serranos. What the future holds for the course through the terms of the agreement, which ends in thirty-five years, will be interesting to see as the popularity of the sport evolves, but also as land use changes, something that is of note when it comes to courses and clubs generally.
The decline of golf has become increasingly evident over the past few decades, largely due to growing concerns over water scarcity and the heightened awareness of skin cancer risks. Much like the closure wave of shopping malls, abandoned golf courses have become prime candidates for redevelopment – particularly as California faces the urgent need to build one million affordable housing units over the next ten years.
Of the roughly 1,000 golf courses in California, about 20% are publicly owned by the state, counties, or cities. Given that the average golf course spans 100 to 150 acres and residential developments typically average around 4 housing units per acre, converting all 200 public courses into housing would yield only about 100,000 units. And with current incentive regulations encouraging just 15–25% of those units to be designated as affordable, the result would be, at best, 25,000 affordable units – a mere fraction of the one million in need. It’s like what the Chinese proverb goes, “Trying to extinguish a cartload of burning firewood with a single cup of water (杯水車薪).”
There’s no doubt that housing is a pressing issue in California, but it’s important to distinguish between the general demand for housing and the specific need for affordable housing. Too often, the latter becomes a convenient justification for loosening long-standing planning and building restrictions. In my view, the more viable solution lies in the development of high-rise buildings. By increasing housing density from 4 units per acre as seen with condos, townhouses, and single-family homes to an average of 200 units per acre through mid-rise or high-rise apartment buildings, we could boost housing yield by 50 times. Won’t a fiftyfold increase bring us much faster and closer to meeting the housing demand California faces today?