Why does the DC area have so many country clubs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in Chevy chase. From what I can tell, one club started, wouldn’t jet certain people in, so those people started a new club, repeat x10.

Burning Tree got started bc some people WERE in and had the nerve to take weekend tee times!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up on the West Coast and was surprised upon moving here to discover that the DC area has sooo many country clubs. I know this is more the case locally because we live in Bethesda, but why and how did this country club culture develop? I am not a member of any and often think about all the other things that land could be used for as I drive by.

You would be wrong to think that there are less country clubs in California. There are just as many.

*fewer. FFS, why can no one get this right?

There are less people who understand the difference. The chances of randomly selecting the right word is fewer than 1%.

Still fewer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This. In Maryland, golf courses are statutorily nearly tax-free. It's environmental disaster and a hand-out to the ultra-wealthy but many allegedly progressive politicians don't want to piss off their rich donors.

In MD, they pay a lower tax rate because they maintain green space. Would you rate all that acreage be turned into a strip mall and townhouses?

[Anonymous]

Some of these clubs historically served different segments. Woodmont is Jewish, Columbia is Catholic, Chevy Chase was upper crust WASPs, Army Navy was for military people. It wasn't like you could just go to any of them - depending on your background you would have a shorter list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like OP, I also live in Bethesda and was genuinely surprised at the number of country clubs in our area. There are 5 country clubs just in Bethesda/Chevy Chase -- Kenwood, Chevy Chase Club, Columbia, Congressional, and Bethesda CC.

I grew up in the midwest where golf is very popular. But there are a lot of nice public courses in the midwest, where people can play. (And a lot of nice public pools.) And the country club dues are not absurdly-high. I was surprised by how few public golf courses in the Bethesda area, but I guess that, in a close-in suburb, the priority is to put housing rather than golf courses.

I really wish I belonged to a country club, as they seem awesome (golf, tennis, activities, pool, fitness center)! We can afford it, but my husband has a knee-jerk reaction against the idea of a country club, even though we know plenty of people who belong to them and who would probably be willing to write us a recommendation letter.

We do belong to a neighborhood pool club, and the only "criteria" is that you have to live in the neighborhood. There is a waiting list, but once you wait it out a few years, you can join. I wish that there were no waiting list, but the NIMBY's near the pool oppose any noise, and so hence the county limits the # of members. The pool creates a nice feel of community within the neighborhood (once you get off the wait list).

I honestly wish everyone had access to this kind of recreational amenity (like a country club). I wish counties and cities could make facilities like this more readily available to the public, as I believe it would enhance the quality of life. If I were on the Montgomery County Council, this would be my #1 priority, as I believe the quality of life is such an important goal.

Pretty much every pool and private club has a waiting list so that it doesn’t become an overcrowded hellscape.

Also, has NIMBY just become some meaningless word, like boomer or hipster or millennial, just used in place of things that you don’t like? Is a NIMBY just a person that cares about their neighbors and the neighborhood? Your use of the term is very confusing…it seems that you mean it as derogatory, but the way you use it does not convey that.

PP here. I was referring to the people who live near the pool. They chose to purchase a house near an existing pool, but then they complain a lot about the noise of the pool, which means the pool must impose strict membership caps and so the pool is therefore underutilized. So yes, I intended to use the term NIMBY as a derogatory term.

[Anonymous]

DC actually has very few clubs compared to other affluent cities/towns.

This is very normal for an affluent area, not sure why people get so butt hurt about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC actually has very few clubs compared to other affluent cities/towns.

This is very normal for an affluent area, not sure why people get so butt hurt about this.

Because they can't get in or can't or don't want to pay the price of admission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We do belong to a neighborhood pool club, and the only "criteria" is that you have to live in the neighborhood.

Look up the history of the club. Private pool clubs were created in this area once the public pools opened up to blacks. Your neighborhood pool likely opened up for that reason, and they kept out the blacks (and maybe those of certain religions) by restricting who could buy in the neighborhood (redlining).

Of course that's all highly illegal now, but it did happen back then.

There were never that many public pools. A large city like Baltimore might have had 2-3 public pools for 800-900k people. The growth of suburban pool clubs followed the growth of suburban areas and a growing middle classes with greater appetite for swimming and outdoor activities than previous urban generations. Suburban pool clubs were started in areas that tended to not have existing public pool facilities as they were outside the urban cities and till quite recently rural areas. 1950s-1960s suburbia was just a decade removed from farmlands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of these clubs historically served different segments. Woodmont is Jewish, Columbia is Catholic, Chevy Chase was upper crust WASPs, Army Navy was for military people. It wasn't like you could just go to any of them - depending on your background you would have a shorter list.

CCC is on land once owned by ardent Catholics and it seems to be returning to those roots! Quasi-Klansman/Progressive Newlands is probably spinning in his Oak Hill grave!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All the white liberals creating policy for the rest of the country wanted to talk the talk but not walk the walk. Same for all the neighborhood swim clubs in areas that were developed before the 1960s.

Generally speaking, it isn't liberals who are members of country clubs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like OP, I also live in Bethesda and was genuinely surprised at the number of country clubs in our area. There are 5 country clubs just in Bethesda/Chevy Chase -- Kenwood, Chevy Chase Club, Columbia, Congressional, and Bethesda CC.

I grew up in the midwest where golf is very popular. But there are a lot of nice public courses in the midwest, where people can play. (And a lot of nice public pools.) And the country club dues are not absurdly-high. I was surprised by how few public golf courses in the Bethesda area, but I guess that, in a close-in suburb, the priority is to put housing rather than golf courses.

I really wish I belonged to a country club, as they seem awesome (golf, tennis, activities, pool, fitness center)! We can afford it, but my husband has a knee-jerk reaction against the idea of a country club, even though we know plenty of people who belong to them and who would probably be willing to write us a recommendation letter.

We do belong to a neighborhood pool club, and the only "criteria" is that you have to live in the neighborhood. There is a waiting list, but once you wait it out a few years, you can join. I wish that there were no waiting list, but the NIMBY's near the pool oppose any noise, and so hence the county limits the # of members. The pool creates a nice feel of community within the neighborhood (once you get off the wait list).

I honestly wish everyone had access to this kind of recreational amenity (like a country club). I wish counties and cities could make facilities like this more readily available to the public, as I believe it would enhance the quality of life. If I were on the Montgomery County Council, this would be my #1 priority, as I believe the quality of life is such an important goal.

Ironically, you skipped Burning Tree.

Also, those community pools are about as segregated as can be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Ironically, you skipped Burning Tree.

Also, those community pools are about as segregated as can be.

Burning Tree Country Club doesn't allow women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw a social media post that said if you see some wacky real estate situation racism is probably the reason.

It might shock you to know there is more to life than racism. Blacks made up a very small percent of the population outside the South until the great migrations started in the 30s. Country clubs were mainly founded in the late 19th century into the 1920s, although a flurry of new clubs emerged in the post war years. Most country clubs were not founded because people were worried about blacks, who, in the first place, were so poor while simultaneously useful as servants for the clubs. If anything, they were more worried about the wrong white people. Immigrant heritage whites like Italians and Poles and worse, Catholics. But more than anything, they were founded as part of the inevitable suburbanization and embracing of a leisure based outdoors lifestyle made feasible by lower density suburbanization. Which is why even the discriminated Jews and Irish and other groups built their own clubs.

Everything that you said about discrimination is true, but I think you may underestimate the impact of racial segregation on the built environment. This is why so many cities have black neighborhoods on the East site and white neighborhoods on the west, with highways or large parks or both dividing east from west.

Most people also don’t realize the huge role that the US federal government played in enforcing housing segregation in previously unsegregated ares prior to and during WWII.

If you’re interested in learning about this the entire history of Palo Alto California is an illustrative — and infuriating case study.

The long and meticulously researched book “The Color of Law” is an eye opening treatment of this entire history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC has way less older clubs than Philadelphia, Northern New Jersey, Westchester,Long Island and Boston. Even Baltimore prob has equal amount of clubs with less population. Golf craze took off early 20th century and these old close in clubs were built then. DC wasn’t an economically booming industrial area then like other Northeast cities. So you only had a small handful of these clubs built then. In contrast Philly probably has 20 old clubs and metro NYC probably 50 old clubs.

This entirely. DC had very little overall wealth until about 35 years ago. Some wealthy people had homes in DC but they were not their primary residences. Compared to the Northeast, DC so many less clubs which reflects this.

He's correct, the close-in DC legacy clubs are all about a century old, or more in some cases. Chevy, Columbia, Kenwood, Congressional, Washington Golf, Woodmont, Burning Tree, Belle Haven - they've been here a while.

[Anonymous]

Cause there are a lot of cringe weirdos in DC

I swear people who join country clubs are the ones who are trying to look wealthier than they are. Or those obsessed with status. I went to a top private school and the wealthiest students were not part of a country club. We all had our own pools at home and vacationed in Europe instead. One kid in my grade even had tennis courts at his house