Of golf clubs and country clubs
January 19, 2009
By Phil Dougherty
The beginnings of Sahalee
Courtesy Sahalee Country Club – The First Twenty Years Founder Carl Jonson (middle) presents “well done” plaques to project manager Jim Porter (left) and golf architect Ted Robinson (right), opening day at Sahalee, Aug. 9, 1969.
This is the first in a two-part series about the history of Sahalee Country Club.
It’s surprising to realize how a perfect confluence of events made Sahalee happen on the Sammamish plateau. Any slight nudge in direction for any one of these events during the last half of the 1960s would have meant Sahalee would have been built elsewhere, or maybe not even been built at all. One of Sammamish’s biggest attractions just wouldn’t be here, and none of us would know the difference.
Beginnings
The Sahalee story begins in December 1965. Members of the Inglewood Country Club in Kenmore were interested in buying the property, and thought they had a deal lined up with owner Jack Barron. But at the last second the deal fell through. This had happened before, at least once, maybe twice, but this time the members had had enough.
A small group of men retired to the bar to drink and debate. John (Jack) Wright hit upon a solution: “Let’s build our own golf course.”
Wright was immediately joined by Harry Wilson, Maurice “Maury” Proctor, and Dixon Ervin. The men searched for property suitable for an 18-hole golf course in several locations in the Redmond area. They seriously considered at least three different sites, but all in the valleys below and north of the Sammamish plateau.
In 1967, four other men — at least one of them from the Broadmoor Golf Club in Seattle — joined the group: Carl Jonson, Richard Strand, Gene Lynn, and Buck Biddle. Biddle soon moved to Spokane, but not before suggesting that the golf course be expanded to 27 holes to accommodate any overflow among players, as well as to accommodate junior golfers and beginning golfers. Harold (Hal) Logan joined the group as Biddle’s replacement, and these eight men became known as the founders of Sahalee.
In the spring of 1967, the group went so far as to sign an earnest money receipt to buy property known as Holiday Lake northeast of Redmond, but the deal fell through. At Jonson’s urging, the group then began looking for higher ground, one with better drainage that would be less susceptible to flooding, and learned of property owned by Dr. Darrell Leavitt on the northern end of the Sammamish plateau.
Leavitt’s property was 200 acres of second growth cedar; the only structure on it was an old cabin located next to where the 3 East green and 4 East tee are today. The only way to get onto the property was to take an old logging road from the northern terminus of 228th Avenue NE, which in 1967 ended at Inglewood Hill Road.
Leavitt agreed to sell the property for $400,000, which translated into $2,000 an acre, and the contract was signed in July 1967. The next month, the group purchased another 120 acres of adjacent land from Robert Evans.
The Sahalee Country Club
As it became apparent that a deal was going to be worked out to buy land for the project, the founders held a dinner meeting in June 1967 at the Swedish Club in Seattle to raise money for construction of the golf course and for the Sahalee real estate development that would adjoin the course.
More than 50 people attended the dinner and were offered limited partnerships for $5,000, which entitled them to a $1,500 golf club membership and a fairway lot for $3,500. Within a few weeks, about 100 limited partnerships had been sold, enabling the group to purchase the first 320 acres for the project later in the summer of 1967.
The Chinook word Sahalee, meaning “high heavenly ground,” was chosen for the name of the new club, and the Sahalee Country Club was incorporated in September 1967.
Golf architect Ted Robinson was hired to design the course. Robinson walked the property and told the group that it needed another 80 acres of land if it wanted a top-quality 27-hole golf course. Two 40-acre tracts were purchased early in 1968, bringing the total number of acres for the Sahalee project to 400.
James “Jim” Porter, a registered professional engineer, was hired to be the project manager. Porter oversaw the entire construction project of the golf course, sometimes working 18-hour days; when he died in his early 40s in 1971, some members speculated that he worked himself to death and questioned if the project would have been successfully completed without his Herculean efforts.
Robinson also recommended that the club increase its membership to 500, which helped pay for the project’s completion. Memberships were sold as family memberships, meaning that dues for one member included playing privileges for a spouse and children under 18 years old.
Membership requirements were fairly simple: Applicants had to pass a credit check, and they had to pass a “good guy standard,” meaning they had to have a serious passion for playing and talking golf. And many of them did.
Husbands and wives joined together, while other members who usually played together in foursomes at other clubs joined Sahalee in groups of four. Membership increased quickly, passing 200 members in January 1968 and reaching the magic number, 500, the day before the course opened in August 1969. Membership prices increased too as membership went up: The 500th membership sold for $4,500.
Next week: The Country Club opens with a nationally-known golf pro, and survives the Boeing Bust of the 1970’s.
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