Niche magazine recently reported that Rye ranked fourth in its annual survey of “Best Places to Raise a Family in Westchester County,” behind Scarsdale, Ardsley, and Bronxville. The key factors cited were “public schools, crime rates, cost of living, and family-friendly amenities.”
Among Rye’s many “family-friendly amenities” are various clubs that have provided social, athletic, and other benefits for many years to numerous families and their guests. Described below and in a future issue are historical sketches of six clubs located in Rye, as well as one club with facilities in both Rye and Harrison.
American Yacht Club
Founded in 1883 by “robber baron” Jay Gould and other yachting enthusiasts, the American Yacht Club is one of the oldest yacht clubs in the United States. In 1887, the club acquired its present property from the Wainwright family, which owned most of Milton Point at the time. The purchase included 12 acres at the tip of the peninsula together with the adjacent rocks in Long Island Sound, known as the “Scotch Caps.”
In its early years, most of the members of AYC owned steam yachts, but by the end of World War I those had been replaced by sail boats and modern power boats. The club’s fleet has included America’s Cup Defenders as well as Trans-Atlantic and Bermuda Race winners.
AYC has attracted many accomplished women sailing competitors and leaders, including Lorna Hibberd, Frances Wakeman, and Allegra “Leggie” Mertz. It has also had an active junior sailing program for many decades, called the “JAYC,” and in 1925, it developed a new class of boats specifically for junior sailors.
The original clubhouse, built in 1888, managed to survive the devastating hurricane of 1938, but it was destroyed by an electrical fire in 1951. In less than 18 months, however, a new clubhouse was completed, opening a new era for AYC.
Apawamis Club
The Apawamis Club, which was founded in 1890, took its name from a Native American word that described part of the Rye area. In 1891, the original members opened the club on leased property where the Church of the Resurrection now stands. They began with a nine-hole golf course on the Boston Post Road in 1897, but the demand to play the sport kept growing.
In 1899, the club purchased 120 acres of the former Charles Park estate and created an 18-hole course, which has remained virtually unchanged from its original design. Ben Hogan once called it “the toughest short course I have ever played.”
The first clubhouse was built in 1899, but in 1907 a fire destroyed almost the entire structure as a heavy snowfall slowed the arrival of the horse-drawn fire apparatus. Within 18 months, however, a new building was opened.
In 1904, Apawamis built one of the first squash houses in the country. It was one of the 25 founding clubs of the National Squash Tennis Association in 1911, and its squash program is the third oldest in the U.S.
For those of us who were employed as Apawamis caddies in our youth, it is good to know that we were preceded in that job by such notables as the famous golfer, Gene Sarazen, and the entertainer, Ed Sullivan, who were natives of Harrison and Port Chester, respectively.
Among the Apawamis members, one of the club’s most renowned golfers was Mrs. Allison “Sis” Choate, who was captain of the 1974 Curtis Cup team. No member, however, has matched the record of John Ellis Knowles, who won the Club Championship 16 times.
Coveleigh Club
The history of Coveleigh is intertwined with the Wainwright family. John Howard Wainwright and his wife, Margaret, a direct descendent of Peter Stuyvesant, bought most of the land on Milton Point in 1864, and their sons settled there as well.
The beautiful Georgian mansion that serves as Coveleigh’s clubhouse was built between 1902 and 1904 for Richard T. Wainwright as his family home. Very briefly, it was part of an earlier club, but Coveleigh Club’s website notes that “six determined and farsighted individuals officially established the club in 1933, believing in its viability even during the challenging economic climate of the Great Depression.”
After leasing the property for 20 years, the members of Coveleigh purchased the buildings and grounds outright in 1953. Located across Stuyvesant Avenue from another Rye landmark, Wainright House, Coveleigh is primarily a beach and tennis club, but the sport of lawn bowling has long been a favorite past-time of the club’s members.
Note: In a future issue, this column will continue with historical sketches of the other four clubs (Manursing, Rye Golf, Shenorock, and Westchester). Whitman Bailey made drawings of six of the clubs, which were originally published by The Rye Chronicle in the 1930s, but Shenorock did not yet exist.
