United Hunts Racing Association 1941 Spring Meeting Piping Rock Club
$250
[32] pp.
United Hunts Racing Association
1941
6 3/8" x 4 1/2"
Racing was revived at the Piping Rock Club here on June 14, when the United Hunts Racing Association held its Spring meeting on the historic club course, which was opened in 1912. The mile turf track, which was last used for racing in 1917, encircles the polo fields to the north of the clubhouse, in a setting reminiscent of picturesque pre-war English country-sides.
The Piping Rock clubhouse was designed by American designer Guy Lowell and built in 1911. Lowell based his designs on American colonial architecture and a desire to link the house with the landscape. Most of the rooms open into a hall that surrounds an internal courtyard.
The Piping Rock Club has an 18-hole links-style golf course that was designed by Charles B. Macdonald. Its tennis facilities include several indoor courts, clay courts and grass courts. A separate facility on Long Island Sound provides beach, pool and summer dining facilities for members.
The club hosted the Piping Rock Horse Show from at least 1912 to 1915. On October 24, 1937 Cole Porter was in a riding accident there that crushed his legs, leading to one of them being amputated years later.
Members
It was the "Augusta of its Day" and boasted members like J. P. Morgan Jr., Benjamin Strong Jr., the first president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Percy Chubb, co-founder of the insurance company, Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass, Frank Nelson Doubleday, publishing, Condé Montrose Nast, publishing, William L. Harkness, Standard Oil, Frederic B. Pratt, George Dupont Pratt, Harold I. Pratt, Standard Oil heirs and philanthropists, W. Averell Harriman, future New York Governor, Payne Whitney, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and Vincent Astor.