New Haven Lawn Club

The New Haven Lawn Club is a private club that offers outdoor tennis, paddle tennis, swimming, indoor squash, community activities, and dining to members and their guests. Located in the heart of New Haven, the clubhouse has been at the center of the city’s social life for more than 125 years and continues to host many events, concerts, dinners, dances, weddings, and celebrations. The New Haven Lawn Club has a storied past and was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2003 (1). The Lawn Club’s history is intertwined with the professional and upper-class families of New Haven over the last century, including many Yale faculty and staff.

The New Haven Lawn Club has been the tenant since they purchased the lot in 1891. The current clubhouse was the second to be built on the property and was completed in 1931.

In 1884, the Lawn Club secured “the use of a large tract of land owned by Colonel Frank Fellows just north of Sachem Street” (24). According to Sanborn Maps and other maps, no buildings were on the property when the Lawn Club began their activities (25). In 1891, the group organized the New Haven Lawn Company which purchased several cities lots from the Fellows family (26). To accommodate its growing membership, the Lawn Club purchased a 40’ by 109’ lot running west from Orange Street in 1912 (27). Finally, in order to head off possible street extensions from the east (Pearl Street) and the south (Lincoln Street) two additional lots were added in 1920 and 1923 to reach its current size of 6.38 acres (28).

The New Haven Lawn Club Association was founded by members of New Haven’s old-line upper-middle class in the mid-1880s to create a place for leisure activities, including ‘lawn tennis’ and other sports. One of the earliest mentions of the Lawn Club can be found in the September 25, 1884 edition of the New Haven Register, which states that “prominent New Haven lovers of lawn tennis” planned to open courts, archery, and croquet grounds on Whitney Avenue (11). The Lawn Club formally incorporated in 1891 and purchased an interior piece of land with access to Whitney Avenue from Colonel Frank Fellows (12).

Lawn tennis became increasingly popular in the late 19th century and considered suitable for women to play (13). Many athletic and country clubs were springing up around the U.S. as interest in sports and outdoor activities rose along with more leisure time for certain economic groups. The Lawn Club was one of the earliest social clubs to be built in New Haven or in the central Connecticut area, preceding the New Haven Country Club by more than ten years. Many regional and statewide tennis competitions were held at the Club regularly, including the first New England Tennis Championship in 1886 (14). The Lawn Club continued to host important tournaments and matches by national champions through the 1920s and 1930s, including the Connecticut State Championship (15). Other sports offered at the Club included squash, badminton, and bowling, as well as sledding and skating in the winter. 

In addition to athletic activities, the Lawn Club served as a social focal point for New Haven’s elite class at the turn of the century. The original clubhouse included a stately ballroom and other dining and entertainment areas and offered dancing and social etiquette classes for children of members. From its very beginning, the New Haven Lawn Club carved out an important role as a venue for many local celebrations, dinners, weddings, concerts, parties, and important occasions.

New Haven has a long history as a center for squash enthusiasts and it started at the Lawn Club (16). The original clubhouse incorporated two squash courts, two more were added in 1916 and a professional squash player hired to work with dedicated members (17). Five courts were included in the 1931 clubhouse building and have been converted to four international courts. Yale houses the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame and built the Brady Squash Center with 15 international courts which opened in 1999. Women’s intercollegiate squash had its origins in New Haven when the women Lawn Club members grew tired of including college players in their national Howe Cup tournament and convinced Yale to host the first intercollegiate women’s tournament in 1973 (18). Finally, in 2010, the Hopkins School, a college-preparatory school located in New Haven, converted part of a gym into the Kneisel Squash Center with six international squash courts. The Lawn Club has played an important role in building and maintaining the squash tradition in the central Connecticut area.

The original subscribers of the Lawn Club included many New Haven families from the business and academic elite and the membership grew to 350 families by 1890. Membership dipped in the late 1900s but grew again to more than 600 families by 1916 (19). While the number of memberships has fluctuated over the years, it has stabilized to number about 500 families. Original membership was limited to mostly white, protestant families and excluded “Catholics, Jews and newcomers,” according to Yale professor Douglas W. Rae (20). However, the Lawn Club has evolved to include new activities, children’s summer camps, and events that appeal to a broader range of the community. 

The Lawn Club’s association with Yale goes back to the Club’s very inception. In the 1890s, Yale University held a mortgage for the New Haven Lawn Company and continued to provide second mortgages and loans in the years after the Company first incorporated (21). The Lawn Club membership included many Yale faculty and alumni who remained in the area after graduation. Given the Lawn Club’s proximity to Yale, many University-sponsored events and meetings continue to be held in its various dining rooms and the ballroom. 

The architect for the 1931 clubhouse, Douglas William Orr, was an avid member of the Club and had already “developed a national reputation as an outstanding designer” according to a history of the Club prepared for a centennial celebration in 1991 (22). Orr had earned his Master’s in Architecture at Yale in 1929 and went on to build a thriving architecture firm based in New Haven. Mr. Orr served two terms as the President of the American Institute of Architects and served on a commission to renovate the Executive Mansion of the White House (23).

The New Haven Lawn Club is a rare open area near the center of the city surrounded by institutional and commercial buildings and several older residences. The Lawn Club is located several blocks north of downtown New Haven on the northeastern edge of the Yale University campus. The Lawn Club and its facilities are situated on a hidden, interior lot of 6.38 acres, with access to Whitney Avenue to the west and Humphrey Street to the north. The Club is surrounded by the institutional buildings of Yale University to the south and west, including the School and Management and other commercial and administrative buildings. Several multi-family and single-family residences share the Lawn Clubs eastern and northern borders (8).

The Lawn Club sits in the southern edge of the Whitney Avenue Historic District, an extensive residential neighborhood that stretches north along Whitney Avenue and east to Orange Street (9). This Historic District was designated in 1989 and is primarily residential but includes some institutional buildings, such as churches, schools, and a fire station, as well as small commercial buildings. The architecture of the Whitney Avenue Historic District is dominated by the styles of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, particularly Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Tudor Revival (10).