Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
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1 4 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 5.14 thebit BLOODLINE BUILDING Q SPOTTING FLASH BACK "This guy was outside the door of our house on Barren River Lake (south of Louisville)," says reader Scott Neagli, the 49-year-old Jeffersontown resi- dent who sent us this photo. (Send us an unexpected feur-de-lis spotting of your own. It just might make a future issue. editorial@loumag.com, subject: feur-de-lis.) "I never realized Louisville has so many bridges." – a Charlotte, N.C., woman at the Exchange Pub and Kitchen in New Albany, Ind. over HEARD ( ( ( ( ( ( December 1908: The Louisville Golf Club, which leases Louisville Water Co. land off River Road, and the purely social Country Club of Louisville, which also leases Water Co. land, but on the cliff above, merge and incorporate as the Louisville Country Club. April 1909: The club makes an initial purchase of 130 acres on the high ground east of Mockingbird Valley, just up from the Louisville Interurban line that runs along River Road. It also purchases an early automobile to taxi members to and from the rail stop. The architec- tural team of Ken McDonald and William Dodd — both club founding members — is hired to design a grand clubhouse, while "Olmstedian" landscape engineer Cecil Fraser and golf-course designer Thomas Bendelow fgure ways to optimally utilize the dramatically rolling topog- raphy for roads and an 18-hole course. May 1910: The three-foor clubhouse — whose red-tile roof is shaped like an uppercase "I" from above, with a long covered porch on the south (front entrance) side and a 35-by-80-foot stone terrace looking out on the Ohio River on the north — opens for members' inspection. Architect Dodd, who also designed downtown's Beaux-Arts Seel- bach Hotel and the Classical Revival Stewart's Dry Goods Building, combined Beaux-Arts and Mediterranean elements in the $50,000 structure: the tile roof, raised frst story, bracketed projecting eaves, stucco façade, classical columns, balustraded terrace and a sym- metrical arrangement of arched windows, doors and dormers. A stately porte-cochère was attached to the clubhouse's west end for members wealthy enough to own their own automobiles. Spring 1924: Famed golf-course architect Walter Travis performs an overall course revision, including a complete redesign of the frst nine holes. Pre-1940 (according to photos in the club's centennial history book): An excavation/construction project bumps out the building's north side, greatly enlarging the dimensions of the interior. The new north façade mirrors the old, with fve French doorways and seven grand Palladian windows. Mid-1950s: The clubhouse, now with an enclosed front entrance, ac- quires air-conditioning, elevators and a sprinkler system for the course. February 1968: After months of deliberation on whether to replace the clubhouse with a new one at a nearby site, the members decide to keep the historic original. April 1993: After 15 months of major renovation and reconstruction, the clubhouse reopens. April 2014: The latest renovation to the clubhouse's north face will add to the building's current 43,000 square feet. Louisville Country Club Clubhouse 40 Mockingbird Valley Drive Louisville Magazine Vol. 45/ No. 4 May 1994 On the cover: One of the most timeless Louisville traditions: Derby hats — one woman wearing a white one, another red, and a third yellow. (May was our Derby-issue month back then, before we switched to April so our coverage would be relevant for a month before the frst Saturday in May.) We asserted that, after 120 years, colorful and diverse hats had become entertainment (like the guy on page 47 who wore a faux Derby trophy on his head). We also wrote about 1993 Derby winner Sea Hero and profled then-Courier-Journal handicapper Rick Cushing. Inside: A guide explained how to do the 120th Derby in 120 hours. The reader, if up to the challenge, had fve days to accomplish everything on the list, from visiting Muhammad Ali's boyhood home on Grand Avenue to eating rolled oysters at Mazzoni's (R.I.P.). The guide also mentioned several local radio stations to listen to while driving all over town ("Un- less you brought a satchel loaded with cassettes…"). A black-and-white photo essay depicted Derby during the Great Depression. In his monthly piece "Babes in Videoland," senior editor Jack Welch (who still holds that title) wrote about several movies, including Mrs. Doubtfre. Welch wrote that Robin Williams' "top drag-gag" was "his 'Dude Looks Like a Lady' vacuum-cleaner dance." The issue also included a hilarious, National Enquirer-inspired Maker's Mark ad with this message: "Jack Daniel Drinks Maker's Mark." Outside: Michael Jackson married Elvis' daughter, Lisa Marie Presley. To- ward the end of the month, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis lost her fght with cancer at age 64. In world news, Nelson Mandela was sworn in as the frst democratically elected president of South Africa. Oh, and how could we forget: The Arsenio Hall Show went off the air. 12-23 BIT.indd 14 4/18/14 12:47 PM