Golf Courses – History of Schaumburg Township

THE BLUE HILLS COUNTRY CLUB OF SCHAUMBURG TOWNSHIP

*Map of Cook County, Illinois, 1929, Showing Highways and Forest Preserves Issued by Board of County Commissioners.*

Appearing for the first time ever on our Schaumburg Township history radar is the Blue Hills Country Club. If you look at the 1929 Cook County map above, you will see the Westmoor CC that is now known as the Schaumburg Golf Club and the Meadow Brook CC that was originally built on, what is today, the Village of Schaumburg property on Schaumburg Road. Until now, knowledge of the Blue Hills CC had died along with those who could have told us about it.

In doing a bit of research, the name appeared, ironically enough, in the September 21, 1928 issue of the Daily Herald under a list of upcoming auctions. “Tuesday, October 16, 1928. Fred L. Broker on the old Fasse farm, 2 1/2 miles east of Schaumburg, 1 mile south of Higgins Road, on Medinah Road, at present known as the Blue Hills Country Club.” (They were actually referring to Meacham Road in Schaumburg Township.)

*1926 Thrift Press plat map* of Schaumburg Township

You can see the Herman and Henry Fasse farms on this map on the east side of Meacham Road, though it is Herman’s farm that is directly on Meacham/Medinah Road. Herman (alternatively known as Heinrich) was the father, and Henry or Herman Heinrich was the son. Herman married Bertha Redeker, the daughter of H.C. Redeker, whose farm was directly to the north.

The road that separated the Redeker and the Fasse farms was Old Schaumburg Road which, even today, exists and takes a jog off of the main portion of Schaumburg Road, reconnecting with it further east.

Schaumburg Township District 53 School on the Fasse farm. Photo credit to LaVonne (Thies) Presley

In addition, the District 53 School, which is visible on the 1929 map, was also on the Fasse farm. Because the land for the school had been contributed by the Fasse family, the school was locally known as the Fasse School. The school was just off of Meacham/Medinah Road.

Going back into the Daily Herald a bit earlier, we see a mention in the April 23, 1926 issue that states, “Her. Fasse sold his farm recently to a Chicago party.”

Thanks to Carolyn McClure of the Schaumburg Township Historical Society who passed on an article from the November 27, 1927 issue of the Chicago Sunday Tribune, we know that that group was the Master Masons of 30 N. LaSalle Street, Chicago.

Their plan for the property involved “two courses, one an eighteen hole and the other a nine hole affair.” The unique aspect of the plan was that “each member of the Blue Hills Country Club will designate a boy for membership… these youngsters will elect their own officers and do their own governing, independently of the grownups.”

This 1935 map shows the location of the District 53 school and the various driveways off of both Old Schaumburg Road and Meacham Road.

The Chicago Tribune article states that the club was “on the east side of Medinah Road [formerly called Meacham Road] and is bounded on the north by the Schaumburg Road. Its east boundary if Rohlwing Road. The property is half a mile south of Higgins Road.” So, we had the correct location pegged for the golf course.

The plan also included clubhouses for both the members and the boys. In addition, they were considering an “athletic field with a stadium where all kinds of outdoor sports may be enjoyed and tournaments held by the boy members.”

The main clubhouse “will be of colonial type, designed by Robert M. Hyde, one of the directors of the organization and will be arranged for a wide variety of activities. Mr. Hyde also is preparing plans for the stadium… The golf courses and the grounds will be laid out by James Faulis Jr.”

Work was supposed to begin in the spring of 1928 “with the expectation of having things ready for golfing by fall, possibly a few holes in the late summer.”

Apparently these plans fell through as Fred L. Broker inevitably wound up the owner of the property in late 1928, per the auction notice in the Daily Herald.

We know that Fred Broker married his first wife Amanda in 1909. The couple then had two children before Amanda, unfortunately, died at a young age in 1920. Fred later married Emily Becker in 1924 who was born in Schaumburg Township. They then purchased the former Fasse property from the Master Masons in 1928.

The country club plans lasted a mere two years–at the most. As a follow up to the 1928 auction, a March 1, 1929 issue of the Daily Herald, stated that “Mr. Fred Broker is leaving this place and moving to West Chicago.” Three months later, a mention in the June 28, 1929 issue of the Daily Herald states that “Mr. and Mrs. Fred Broker have left for their home in Kansas.” They were eventually buried there in Aliceville, KS.

Herman and Bertha (Redeker) Fasse farmhouse. Photo credit to Jerry Kern

We also know that the country club was never developed because we have this photo of the Herman and Bertha (Redeker) Fasse farmhouse that was part of the farm eventually purchased by L.D. and Dorothy Kern in 1935. They had the house torn down and remodeled the barn as their new home with the help of architect Paul Schweikher.

There is a bit of roll to the land in this area and the local branch of Salt Creek meanders through on its way to Busse Woods. It would have made a bucolic golf course and, ironically enough, this area contains the Fox Run Driving Range.

The Roaring Twenties was a busy time in the Chicago area golf world and Schaumburg Township was no exception. Fortuitously, the Blue Hills Country Club managed to be on the local radar just long enough to appear on the Cook County Highway map of 1929.

Jane Rozek
Local History Librarian
Schaumburg Township District Library
jrozek@stdl.org

HILLDALE GOLF CLUB IN HOFFMAN ESTATES

Our guest contributor this week is Pat Barch, the Hoffman Estates Historian. This column originally appeared in the August 2021 issue of the Hoffman Estates Citizen, the village’s newsletter. The column appears here, courtesy of the Village of Hoffman Estates.

Hoffman Estates is home to a beautiful golf course. In fact our village hall sits right in the middle of it. We may be the only village hall completely surrounded by a golf course. Holes 12, 14 and 15 are laid out to the west, north and east side of the village hall. Of course I’m talking about Hilldale Golf Club at 1625 Ardwick Drive.

The 18-hole course straddles Hassell Road and the beautiful, winding Huntington Boulevard. Being in the middle of a golf course you’d expect a few golf balls hitting a window or two, but Mayor Mcleod claims that is hasn’t happened….yet.

Its 50 years since its opening in 1971. Robert Trent Jones, Senior ASGCA, designed and laid out the 18-hole course over what had been the Marshall Field Hunting Club and Skeet Shooting Range.

Many of the majestic, more than 100 year old oaks were saved and remain from the original Wildcat Grove that was the first settlement of pioneer families who immigrated to this area in the 1840s. Hilldale Golf Club golfers, as they play the course, have little knowledge of the history of the land their walking on.

Hilldale is a Par 71 course that is open year round, weather permitting. It is a public course that is known for “the best greens in the burbs” according to the Chicagoland Golf Guide that rates Hilldale as one of the top 50 courses in Chicagoland. Hilldale has bent grass greens and bent grass fairways.

When golfers have finished their round of play, there’s CK Mulligan Bar and Grill where they can quench their thirst and settle down to a nice plate of food.

I spoke with General Manager Jim Rogers who has been at the Hilldale Golf Club for 18 years. Neither he nor I could pinpoint the exact day or month the golf course opened in 1971. Fifty years is a good long run for any business. I wish them well with many more years of driving and putting ahead of them.

Pat Barch
Hoffman Estates Village Historian
agle2064@comcast.net

GOLFING IN THE ROARING TWENTIES AT THE MEADOWBROOK COUNTRY CLUB

For nearly 80 years the family of Conrad Salge lived on the 160 acres he purchased from the government in 1847. The location was prime. It was on East Schaumburg Road across from St. Peter Lutheran Church where Mr. Salge was a charter member. It was gently rolling and ripe for the developer who bought it from the Salges. Prime location indeed.

In the later years of the roaring twenties, the property was sold to a group called the Deauville Country Club. In fact, in a January 21, 1927 article in the Daily Herald, it is stated, “Mr. Lengl and Mr. Jensen took a little exercise and walked to the Deauville club house Sunday and enjoyed it through the deep snow, but it is good for the health.” By July 17, of the same year, the golf course had opened as the Meadowbrook Country Club.

In a July 15, 1927 article in the Daily Herald, it was stated that “all furniture was installed and the public will find the most excellent service and food. The club house is in charge of Mrs. J. Hood of Miami, Fla., where she has been owner and manager of the Millionaire Club. (Imagine that transition!) Miss Garnett Hood is in charge of [the] cashier’s desk and main lobby where her pleasant smile will welcome all the people that come to Meadowbrook golf club. The Meadowbrook golf course is a public course and people of this district are especially invited to patronize the club house for meals and refreshments and parties. The ladies of nearby towns will find Meadowbrook a wonderful place to have their card parties and social affairs.”

The owners didn’t plan to stop with just a golf course and club house either. In the following week’s edition of the paper, it was stated that “the Meadowbrook intends to put in a children’s ground and 3 tennis courts which when completed will be a great improvement towards our town.”

By 1928, however, the property had already changed hands. In a March 3 edition of the Chicago Tribune, mention is made of the property being transferred the day before to a group of brothers–Samuel G., Gustave G. and Peter Feclura–from the Northwestern Trust & Savings bank as trustee. They, in turn, commissioned Coolidge and Hodgdon to draw up plans “for a $50,000 addition to the farm house now on the property. The club is to have an eighteen and a nine hole course.”

On a 1930 map of Schaumburg Township found on the website of the University of Chicago’s library, Meadowbrook Golf Club is still shown on Schaumburg Road. But, not for much longer. With the full onslaught of the Depression hitting the area, Meadowbrook was forced to close.

It is not known if the property went into foreclosure or whose hands it was in through the remainder of the 1930s. We do know from Wayne Nebel’s oral history that his family lived in the clubhouse for a year or two during this time when he was a young boy. One presumes they moved into a beautiful new clubhouse that had been built by the original Deauville owners. Instead, those owners remodeled the farm house into a club house. Not only does the Chicago Tribune article from above confirm that fact but a 1959 article from one of the local papers mentions that Walter and Helen Slingerland purchased the 160 acres in 1941 and “the house which was built around 100 years ago, was remodeled soon after they bought the property.” According to Mr. Nebel, the Slingerlands also converted the golf course back to its agricultural roots and began farming the property themselves. They later turned this job over to Melvin Jensen who leased the property for farming.

They eventually sold most of the acreage to William Lambert around 1973 who donated 40 acres to the village of Schaumburg for their municipal center. It was arranged to have the farmhouse moved across the street to the St. Peter Lutheran Church property in 1974 or 75. The house still exists today, making it one of the oldest structures in Schaumburg Township. You can see it here in 1978 in the background of the photo. The siding is obviously in disrepair. Another wider siding that was a yellowish gold in color was placed over it some time in the early 1980s and remained in place until September 2012 when it was replaced with a thinner, gray hued siding. According to Don Busche of St. Peter’s, the original siding still remains though it is wrapped in Tyvek.

The elder Slingerlands gave a small parcel along Schaumburg Road to their son, Walter, and his wife, Helen, who built a ranch house on the property in 1951, the year they married. (See above photo.) They continued to live in the ranch until the early 1990s. Through an agreement reached in 1989, the village purchased the house on its one acre in exchange for the Slingerlands living there until 1994 paying $1 in rent each year. The ranch house is still used to this day as the Nursing office of the village.

And the land itself? Looking at the beautiful grounds of the village, it’s not difficult to see how those investors thought it would make a perfect golf course.

Jane Rozek
Local History Librarian
Schaumburg Township District Library
jrozek@stdl.org

I talked to many people in the process of writing this posting. The list varies from Mayor Larson to Mr. Busche, the caretaker of the St. Peter property, to relatives of the Slingerlands to some of the longtime residents of the area. All were most helpful to me in getting the full story and I appreciate their assistance.

GOLFING AND FARMING IN THE 1920s—AN UNLIKELY MIX

Before the Schaumburg Golf Club and the Golden Acres Country Club and the Roselle Country Club, there was the Westmoor Country Club. It came about when Frank Sporleder sold his rolling farm land on Roselle Road in 1926 to a group of Jewish investors who built a beautiful golf course on the property and named it the Westmoor Country Club.

The country club opened the first nine of its 27 holes on May 29, 1927. A couple of months later the clubhouse was dedicated with speeches given by Judge Harry Fisher, Rabbi Samuel Schwartz and others. Dancing followed.

The manager of Westmoor was Charles L. Barkoff who had served as catering manager of the Cooper-Carlton in Chicago for many years. Because of his connections, the cuisine at Westmoor was known to be quite good. Sam Geyer initially served the club as the golf pro with Scotty Irwin later taking this post.

To attract golfers, the board, under the guidance of Max J. Langhaus, decided to make the course a destination for families as well. They put an outside playground in place, complete with swings, slides and large sandpiles and a playhouse for rainy days. This allowed mothers to shoot their own rounds of golf or participate in luncheons, bridge parties and other social events held at the club.

In 1929 the club was added on to with a write-up on the renovation appearing in the February 1930 issue of Slices and Hooks. A new colonial entrance gateway was built and the 8-sided foyer inside the clubhouse gave entrance to the lounge, dining room, main porch, locker room, check room and office. The dining room was built like an open terrace and a Men’s grille was added as well. It was also mentioned that “the grille has toilet facilities, phone booths, etc. so that a man does not have to leave the grille in order to get any type of service.” The locker room was expanded by 70% and was now large enough to accomodate 504 men with services provided by valets, a barber and masseuse.

Not only was golf a mainstay, but the country club was also designed to hold special dinner dances, holiday parties, prize fights and other events. In fact, in a June 10, 1937 issue of The Garfieldian, it mentions a golf party, dinner and boxing show taking place on Thursday, June 17.

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It is unknown when the Westmoor Country Club was sold but a Daily Herald article mentions the Roselle Country Club in 1941. It was still called the Westmoor in a June 1938 accounting of a small fire at the club so it is presumed the sale happened somewhere in between. Wayne Nebel stated in his oral history that the club was sold around 1941 and the membership moved to the Twin Orchard Country Club in Chicago that then bordered Bryn Mawr Avenue and Wolf Road. To confuse matters a bit more though, a July 24, 1949 issue of the Chicago Tribune makes mention of the course being forced to close during World War II “in about 1943.” It is unclear if the Westmoor owners had control of the course at that time.

In notes from the Schaumburg Township Historical Society, it is mentioned that the club was sold in 1943 to George Matthies “who stripped all the sod from it and sold in 1944.” In an 8/10/1961 article from The Herald, it also mentions that “the owners sold sod and top soil from the land.” After doing much research for a George Matthies using census, newspaper archives and websites, I can find no mention of a gentleman by that name. I did find a Chicago Tribune article from June 1, 1947, that states that a William Matthies bought the property in 1946. It is mentioned that the property sat “idle during the war.” Previously it had been operated as a private club and in an ad in The Herald from July 19, 1946, it says “formerly a private club now opened to the public…” This must have been after Matthies bought the property. According to Mr. Nebel, the Matthies owner was supposed to have owned Bloomingdale Nursery–which maybe explains the stripping of the sod.

Matthies sold the property to “Thomas Hogan and A.C. Stewart who with their wives are the owners of the club corporation’s stock…Stewart said he and Hogan bought the course for $100,000 in July, 1948.” [Chicago Tribune, July 24, 1949] A Herald article from August 5, 1949 recognizes them as Thomas B. Hogan and Archibald C. Stewart Jr. It is interesting to note that the only Thomas B. Hogan that I can track down became president of the Yellow Cab Company of Chicago in 1932. Was this the same man? And how was he connected to Archibald Stewart? It is presumed they were business acquaintances and/or friends.

The next record of the property being sold was in an article from the March 17, 1956 issue of the Chicago Tribune. It states that “LaSalle National Bank as trustee has purchased the 206 acre Roselle Country Club, on Roselle Rd. just south of Higgins Rd., from Roselle Country Club corporation for an indicated $332,500.” A January 26, 1957 issue of Realty & Building states that in March of 1956, “$350,000 was paid for Roselle Country Club, 27-hole, 200-acre golf course… Dimensions of the tract are 2640 x 3960 ft. The property was purchased by James Guerino, Louis DeLuca and Michael Laterza from Roselle Golf Club, Inc., according to the deed filed with the recorder in March.” Obviously LaSalle National Bank was acting as a trustee for the three gentlemen.

They, however, did not hold onto the property for long. A March 9, 1961 article from The Herald states that George M. Sloan acquired the property in February of the same year from a three man ownership team of the gentlemen mentioned above. Thus began a long period of stability for the golf course. Mr. Sloan promptly began a facelift of the property and also renamed it the Golden Acres Country Club. Allan Griffith of Hoffman Estates was hired as the new club manager. It remained in his hands until he passed it on to Phyllis and Curt Kotel, his daughter and son-in-law. The Sloan/Kotel families maintained the property for 27 years. It was eventually acquired by the Schaumburg Park District in 1989 from the Kotels and renamed the Schaumburg Golf Club as it exists today.

Jane Rozek
Local History Librarian
Schaumburg Township District Library
jrozek@stdl.org