CHESTNUT HILL, MASSACHUSETTS | From the window of what was Francis Ouimet’s bedroom 109 years ago, the view has changed but the legend endures.
The road that runs in front of 246 Clyde Street is wider and busier than it was in 1913 before automobile traffic was commonplace, and the view of The Country Club’s 17th hole is obscured by trees that have grown taller and the temporary collection of fencing, trailers and equipment needed to stage the 122nd U.S. Open.
The meadow on one side of the house where Ouimet and his brother fashioned a 150-yard golf hole is now part of the backyards of houses that weren’t there when 20-year-old Francis walked down the twisted staircase in their two-story home and across the street to change the history of golf in the United States.
For years, the Weiler family lived in the house at 246 Clyde Street, knowing that an important golfer had once called it home but never fully appreciating that their address was akin to Monticello or Mount Vernon in the story of American golf.
Built in 1887, it was like so many other houses in the neighborhood just outside Boston proper, sturdy with three small bedrooms, a basement and an attic in 1,550 square feet of living space. There was a small front yard, made smaller now by the encroachment of the road, and a narrow front porch, big enough to accommodate a couple of chairs from which to watch the world go by.
For years, Francis Ouimet would come down the stairs from his upstairs bedroom, turn the corner in the stairway near the first floor and walk to school by cutting across what is now the championship course at The Country Club. He would find stray golf balls and then make his way home after classes, early steps that ultimately changed the path of golf in this country.
At the urging of friends, Ouimet reluctantly agreed to enter the 1913 U.S. Open, which had been moved to September to accommodate the travel schedules of Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, the Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson of their day, from the British Isles. Ouimet was just a skinny youngster who worked at a sporting goods store and had feisty 10-year-old caddie Eddie Lowery when he took down Vardon and Ray in an 18-hole playoff to pull off one of the most colossal upsets in the game’s long history.
It started by Ouimet walking out the front door at 246 Clyde Street.
“They said, ‘We’re not selling the house.’ I said, ‘I know you’re not, but one day you will, and when you do, I’m your buyer.’
Tom Hynes
Tom Hynes, a commercial real estate executive in Boston, stood on the front porch of the Ouimet house in early May as several construction workers went about the business of rebuilding and restoring the house he always had wanted to purchase. On the porch, a worker was cutting new molding to fit in the living room while inside, new bathrooms were being constructed, pieces of a larger puzzle of bringing something more than a century old into today’s world while maintaining what it was in 1913.
“See those daffodils down that street?” Hynes said, pointing about 300 yards away. “That’s where I live and I water the grass there, which is as much gardening as I do.”
Hynes could see the Ouimet house from the sidewalk in front of his house, but it was another family’s home. One day when the Weilers were walking their dog, Hynes introduced himself.
“If you ever decide to sell your house, I’m your buyer,” Hynes said.
“They kind of chuckled a little bit, and they probably thought I was a little daft. I never harassed them or knocked on their door, but about once a year I would remind them. I never told anyone at the club about it.”
The offer wasn’t meant to be audacious, just genuine.
“It should be a part of the history of the game,” Hynes said, not to the Weilers but to himself.
Years passed.
Then one day the Weilers asked Hynes if his offer was still good.
“I’m your buyer,” Hynes said.
A day later, in the fall of 2020, they met in the living room at 246 Clyde Street and shook on the deal.
“They had a price, and I said, ‘OK.’ Then I thought, ‘Now what do I do?’ ” Hynes said.
For $875,000 plus closing costs, Hynes – who lives across the street from The Country Club and has a second home on Cape Cod – had the Ouimet house.
Hynes had envisioned The Country Club buying the house and refurbishing it. When he called club president Lyman Bullard to tell him about the house, Hynes didn’t get the answer he expected.
The club had just spent millions of dollars on a locker-room project and other improvements, mainly aimed at enhancing the facilities for women at a club that is about much more than golf. With the U.S. Open approaching, the timing and the finances didn’t work for the club.
The meaning of what Hynes had done wasn’t lost on Bullard. If you can raise the money and donate it to the club, Bullard told Hynes, we are all in.
“To think of Francis with his father, not loving the whole idea of golf, being able to see the 17th hole and realize it played such a seminal role in his victory, he literally lived there and looked at that hole before the trees grew up,” Bullard said.
Hynes began calling friends and fellow members, seeking donations to pay for the house with the goal of eventually gifting it to The Country Club. He did it quietly, never advertising his project and asking the contributors to keep it to themselves.
The asking price was $25,000 per person, and Hynes had no trouble getting the first $200,000.
“I got a call from a gentleman I didn’t know, and he asked me, ‘How much do you need?’ I said, ‘$25,000’. He said, ‘I’m in,’ ” Hynes said.
“I said, ‘The heating system is going to cost another $25,000.’ He said, ‘I’m in.’ I asked him what the hook was and he said, ‘I’ve been successful and I’ve made some money. I’m a Ouimet Scholar, and without that I would not have gone to college.’ ”
The Francis Ouimet Scholarship Fund, created in 1949, has awarded more than $43 million in scholarships to more than 6,300 students who have worked at least two years in the golf industry in Massachusetts.
Eventually, Hynes recruited 40 donors at different levels, opened a line of credit with a local bank and set about renovating the home, with a goal of having it ready for the U.S. Open.
It was not a small undertaking. The house needed more than a coat of fresh paint. Architects, engineers, electricians, plumbers and HVAC specialists were called in.
The goal was two-fold: To fully modernize the home with state-of-the-art infrastructure while also maintaining the essence of what it was like when Ouimet lived there more than a century ago.
Bathrooms and the kitchen have been updated. Walls have been stripped and repainted. There is a new roof and new siding on the exterior that will be painted light yellow. Custom shutters modeled after the original shutters have been ordered.
With the pandemic and supply-chain issues, the project has had its challenges, but it also has touched a sweet spot.
“We had some work we wanted done, and I asked a guy if he could do it. He said, ‘I would tell you it will take a year, but for the Ouimet house, I’ll start tomorrow,’ ” Hynes said.
When the upstairs carpet and padding were removed, the original wood floors were exposed. Hynes arranged for the planks in what was Ouimet’s bedroom to be pulled up and de-nailed. The boards were sent to a company on Cape Cod where they have been restored, and they are being reinstalled in the same bedroom.
Earlier this year, two workers were in the attic, tearing out old insulation. In the eaves, they found a shelf and when they pulled it down, two golf clubs fell out of the ceiling along with a painted coconut toy and a Morse code tapper.
“A day before I had been talking to a friend and said, ‘Imagine finding a special club in there,’ ” said Aldir Filho, one of the workers who found the clubs.
Did the clubs belong to Francis Ouimet?
It seems likely, but there is no proof.
As the U.S. Open returns to The Country Club for the first time in 34 years and more than a century after Ouimet changed the direction of the game here, the house has a place in the story.
When it is fully restored – probably around Thanksgiving – Hynes will hand it over to the club to use as it sees fit.
“It’s incredibly meaningful to come about the year the Open comes back,” Bullard said. “It will be such an amazing moment when it’s given to the club, and it will forever be a part of our club.”
The Ouimet House will have come home.
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