Fenwick – The Summer Escape for the Rich
First established about 1895, this spit of land that has direct borders on the Connecticut River and Long Island Sound was settled by insurance men and other wealthy settlers of Hartford. They built sprawling Victorian shingle houses around a short but serviceable golf course. When I was growing up there during the summers of my childhood (See Chapters 6 and 17 in “Surviving High Society”), there were about 75 houses in the community. Practically all of the residents were connected by blood, marriage or the fact that they went to Yale University and lived in Hartford.
Fenwick’s golf course was where my Dad taught me to play golf and it was, in effect, a private course. We would walk out to the fourth tee which was short distance from our house and we would play nine holes as my Dad instructed me how to swing, how to select clubs, and how analyze what I had to do for my next shot.
In 1947, the town of Old Saybrook realized that the golf course actually consisted of multiple empty lots which could be taxed. Old Saybrook then notified many of Fenwick’s residents, whose ancestors had owned the lots that was now the golf course, and asked for payment of taxes that reached back for decades. Horrified, the Warden of Fenwick and his board went into negotiations with Old Saybrook.
What emerged was a compromise. Old Saybrook would not tax the lots that were now the golf course but the course would become a public course. But the fact that it was a public course did not become widely known until about the middle 70’s. By that time, my life as a resident of Fenwick was nearly over so I played on what seemed to a private course.
Of course, the most famous resident of Fenwick was Katherine Hepburn (See Chapters 6 and 17 in High Society). I also fished and learned to shoot a gun in Fenwick (see Chapter 5 in “Surviving High Society”. It was a wonderful place, the place I go to in my thoughts when I think of the happiest days of my young life.
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