Local headlines might have read like that in 1925. Unfortunately for fans of golf, the course is not some well-kept secret—in fact it has been gone for years.

Around 1925 the team of Lyon, Monroe and Miller had a grand scheme to create an 18 hole golf course adjacent a tony club house complete with swimming tanks, tennis and handball courts and a children’s wading pool that would be the envy of the Peninsula. The clubhouse would be called
“Belle Monte” and cost $65,000 to complete. An innovative tactic was employed to attract would-be buyers which included free bus rides from San Francisco, where prospective buyers were plied with beer and induced to buy a lot. Membership for the club cost $100, but was included with every home sale on the very streets that bore their names.

Around 1929 the Belle Monti project fell on financial hard times and an attempt to salvage the operation was launched by opening the club to the public. But in 1929 the stock market crash forced members to either drop out or move away and the corporation went bankrupt. The “Hillcrest” golf course was eventually subdivided into lots for the WWII returning veterans, and today we find only remnants of a bye-gone era with street names such as Fairway and a few stately homes (now on Belmont’s historic registry) which are on what once was the perimeter of the course.

On the topic of streets, did you know Senator William Sharon was a U.S. Senator from Nevada, who has a small street, Sharon Road, named after himself in Belmont? Find out why Belmont had a lake named after him too in our next issue or visit our web site at local Belmont blog at BeautifulMountinBlog.org and find out what happened to the old club house before it became what is now the Congregational Church of Belmont.

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