Nomination - National Park Service

NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018
BALTUSROL GOLF CLUB Page 4
United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service
National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Describe Present and Historic Physical Appearance.
Summary
Located in northern New Jersey in the greater New York City region, when it was founded in 1895, Baltusrol
Golf Club was one of the first clubs organized in this country for participation in the newly-popular sport. Its
primary significance derives from its two courses, the Upper and the Lower, designed by leading American golf
architect A.W. Tillinghast between 1918 and 1922. Baltusrol Golf Club, with its pivotal position in
Tillinghast’s career, its construction under Tillinghast’s direct supervision, and its manifestation through thirtysix
holes over varied terrain of his design philosophies of “the course beautiful” and the strategic approach of
course design, meets NHL Criterion 4 as the most influential and representative example of the work of a
master. The club has maintained the courses since their completion, allowing them to evolve sufficiently to
keep them relevant to the modern game while retaining those aspects of Tillinghast’s design philosophy that
define them as the work of a master. The continued use of Baltusrol as a venue for national championship
competition further attests the high degree of design quality and integrity of the courses. The focus of the
property are the Tillinghast designed Upper and Lower courses. The number of noncontributing resources,
mostly service oriented buildings and structures necessary for the maintenance and operation of the golf club,
does not diminish the high degree of integrity of the primary feature of the property – the Tillinghast courses.
The two courses that comprise Baltusrol Golf Club retain the highest degrees of historic integrity of location,
setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. Alterations have been in the spirit and intent
of the original Tillinghast design and have been made to keep the historic facility competitive in the modern age
of golf. Noncontributing resources are ancillary in nature, necessary to the continued functioning of the facility,
and subservient to the designed landscape.
Introduction
The club is composed primarily of two eighteen-hole golf courses, the Upper and the Lower, and a Tudorrevival
style clubhouse located on a 474 acre site on a foothill of the Watchung Mountains, known locally as
Baltusrol Mountain. The property is an irregular rectangle in form, running from the southwest to the northeast,
with a centrally-located projection extending toward the southeast, and is entered at the northeast corner from
Shunpike Road. To the southwest and southeast the golf courses, for the most part, abut the property lines of
residential development. Shunpike Road and Mount View Road provide borders on the northeast and northwest,
respectively, while Mountain Avenue borders a portion of its southeast flank.
The clubhouse is located near the entrance in the northeast portion of the property; the two golf courses lie
parallel to each other toward the southeast, along most of the length of the property. To the northwest, a foothill
of the Watchung Mountains rises on the property, buffering from view Interstate 78, which runs parallel to the
northwest property line about 2000 feet away.
Baltusrol Golf Club began with a single nine-hole course on 140 acres in 1895, and evolved year by year over
the next quarter century. The current courses were constructed between 1918 and 1922, when the original
leased property, plus an additional 318 acres, were purchased from Louis Keller.
As well as integrity of design, Baltusrol also has integrity of location; the current site is essentially the same as
it was when the Upper and Lower were designed and constructed by Tillinghast in 1918 – 1922. The
surrounding area has changed from rural to suburban over the past century, but the property is large enough to
allow substantial buffers between the two courses and the rest of the neighborhood; the setting of the courses
themselves retains its integrity. The clubhouse exhibits integrity of materials and workmanship, particularly on