User:Drmies/Beauvoir Club

The Montgomery Country Club is a privately owned club in Montgomery, Alabama, with a history going back to 1894. It started as the Beauvoir Club, a social club for men founded in 1894. The club was likely named for the country estate of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, and catered to the white gentry of Montgomery's population. It was housed first on South Perry Street, at the time the most fashionable street in Montgomery, and in 1907 moved to the top floor (with a roof garden and penthouse) of a newly-built 12-story building in downtown Montgomery. In the 1930s it moved again, to occupy its current location on Narrow Lane Road, adjacent to a golf course.

Club members were local notables, many of whom had deep ties to the Confederacy, and the club played host to organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It excluded Jews and African Americans until the 1990s.

Early history, Perry Street
The club was founded in 1894, with J. B. Thompson as its first president. It owned a "handsome old mansion" on Bibb and Coosa streets. In 1902 the club merged with the Joie de Vie club, which had been one of the most fashionable clubs in Montgomery; the Joie de Vie club had started as the German Club in 1878, at a time when there was a dearth of social clubs in the city, though there was a Bachelors' Club, which existed from 1851 to 1860, and a Benedict Club, whose purpose was to enroll the men who had become ineligible for the Bachelors' Club because they got married. The "itinerant" German Club (which organized its events, the dancing of germans, in local homes) became the Joie de Vie club in 1879, and took over the rooms formerly rented by the literary club Arlington, on Perry Street. It declined mergers with other social clubs, including the Southland, and when that club came to an end in 1900, Joie de Vie took over Southland's (larger) building on Perry Street.

In 1902 the merger with the Beauvoir Club took place. The statutes of the Beauvoir Club were changed to increase membership from 150 to 300, and the club went looking for a place where they could offer "golf, tennis, and other outdoor sport". J. P. Ferrall was the first president of the New Beauvoir Club, and Robert F. Ligon the vice-president. In August of 1902 the Beauvoir Club struck a deal with the local Elks Club, which occupied a stately mansion, known as the Knox House, on the corner of Perry Street and Scott Street. The Beauvoir Club took over that mansion for $27,500, and the Elks moved to the Beauvoir club house (for which they paid $20,000 ), the Murphy place, on Bibb Street. Planned improvements included a two-story annex with a bowling alley on the first floor and a ballroom on the second. The building was described as "one of the finest homes in Montgomery", and Perry Street was at the time the most fashionable street in the city.

The club served alcohol on Sundays and was indicted for it by a grand jury in July 1906 (and so was the equally exclusive Standard Club, for Jewish Montgomerians). Whiskey had been sold, and the club was fined $50. The club appealed this violation of a 1903 state law, arguing that the serving of alcohol to members of a private club did not constitute a sale of alcohol, but was denied by the Alabama Supreme Court in a decision rendered on January 24, 1907.

By 1907 the members had decided, though not without discussion and controversy, to sell the property and move to the newly-constructed Bell Building, in downtown Montgomery. One reason given was the distance from the house on Perry Street to the business district. The mansion on Perry Street, described as "one of the handsomest of the Colonial homes in this section of the country," sold for $34,500, in what was called "one of the largest real estate sales of a private dwelling" ever in Montgomery. The buyer, M. W. Steward, a real estate dealer, announced plans to turn the building into an apartment building and sell off part of the property.

Move to Bell Building
In the Bell Building, the club occupied the entire 12th floor and the roof garden above it (totaling 3,000 square feet), and signed a ten-year lease for about 35 cents per square foot. The 12th floor had a "buffet, baths, ball and reception rooms, library, observation parlors, music and dining rooms, [and] amusement rooms". All cooking was done on the roof, and food was moved by way of a dumb waiter to a serving room on the 12th floor. The official opening was on December 16, 1908, a Wednesday, with a german to follow the next Monday.

Women were not allowed on the 12th floor but could be invited to the roof garden, where once, according to legend, Zelda Fitzgerald danced on the parapet. The club was also made available for visiting groups such as medical associations.

Move to Narrow Lane Road, Country Club
An actual country club existed already in the city: in 1897 a club was founded with a club house in the Cloverdale area; they laid out tennis courts and a 9-hole golf course. The club chartered itself on November 24, 1903, as the Country Club of Montgomery. Montgomery's first golf tournament was held here, in 1898. John M. Inglis was hired as designer and teacher in 1905, and he started on an 18-hole course and was apparently able to make smooth putting greens from Bermuda grass. Zelda Sayre met Scott Fitzgerald, at a dance in the clubhouse, in 1918. The two-story clubhouse, built in 1903 and located at Carter Hill Road and Mulberry Road, burned down in 1925; according to Zelda Fitzgerald, the cause was the explosion of a gallon of moonshine kept in a locker.

By the 1930s the Beauvoir Club had joined the Montgomery Country Club, in their new clubhouse on Narrow Lane Road, at the end of Fairview. It disallowed Black members; Jewish members were not allowed until the 1990s. Jewish congregants of the Temple Beth-Or, across the street on Narrow Lane Road, founded the Standard Club--and in turn, disallowed Sephardic Jews to join. The club's original name lives on in the official full name of the Montgomery Country Club, which by 1940 was still called "Beauvoir Country Club".

golf course
The Women's Western Open golf tournament was held at the MCC in 1957, where Patty Berg won with a score of 291, making a 35-foot putt for an eagle on the final hole.

Presidents and members

 * J. B. Thompson, first president (1894)
 * J. C. Cheney, president
 * William K. Pelzer, president
 * James Ferrall, president (1902)
 * Robert F. Ligon, vice-president (1902), president (1903 - ? - 1924
 * Charles Gunter, president (1907 - 1908 )
 * J. Kirk Jackson, president (1908-)
 * Bill Lawrence, president (1930s)

Notable members

 * Frank Minis Johnson was a member, but attended the Club very seldom because he was not particularly social. His wife, Ruth, recalled in an interview that "I did not know that the Montgomery Country Club was non-Jewish. I'd never heard of that before." and related that her husband preferred for playing golf the officer's club at Maxwell Air Force Base because of the security arrangements and that they also ate at the officers' club "because the food was cheaper".

Notable non-members

 * Julian L. McPhillips, civil rights lawyer, declined an invitation to join because the club would not accept Black members
 * Rod Nachman the lawyer for the plaintiff in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan was not invited to join the club because he was a Jew.
 * Solomon Seay, who relates in his autobiography that his nine-year-old daughter Ettra attempted to attend a Ladies' mid-day luncheon for the Alabama Bar Association at the MCC on 1967-07-20, to be followed by a bus tour of local attractions, tea at the Governor's mansion, and an evening banquet and dance at the Jefferson Davis Hotel, buying a US$40 dress for the occasion; but was not even let onto the bus from the Whitley Hotel to travel to the MCC luncheon. Seay filed suit in federal court the next day, and in settling the suit John B. Scott of the Board of Commissioners of the State Bar of Alabama acknowledged that the reason that she, and a family friend Barbara Thomas, were not let on the bus was that they would be refused admittance when they arrived at the Club.