Last hint of golf course disappears

By KRISTYN HALBIG ZIEHM

Ozaukee Press staff

TOWN OF BELGIUM - The last hint that Forest Beach Migratory Preserve in the Town of Belgium was a golf course with a long history in northern Ozaukee County will soon be no more.

Demolition of the clubhouse for the former Squire’s Country Club and Port Washington Country Club began last week and is expected to be completed by the end of the month, Tom Stolp, executive director of the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust, which owns the property, said Monday.

And when the work is done and the land restored, the area will provide a fitting entrance to the preserve, Stolp said.

“As people come to the preserve, the preserve is going to open up in front of them,” he said. “As beautiful as the building was, this will open up the viewshed so visitors can be immediately immersed in nature.”

When the buildings are gone, the area will be graded, a smaller parking lot installed and a welcome area and trailhead created, Stolp said.

The design for the area is currently being finalized, he noted, adding the welcome area won’t include a building but instead such things as educational signs and a kiosk.

The Ozaukee Washington Land Trust hired Heys and Associates as the general project manager and Interstate Demolition is doing the actual razing of the buildings.

Last week, Interstate took down a utility garage on the west side of the clubhouse, and Monday it began tearing down the 16,000-square-foot clubhouse.

“It was kind of amazing,” Stolp said, noting he was there in the morning and the entire entrance and deck were demolished and the debris removed.

The demolition, he said, is “surgical. There’s no wrecking ball, no huge disturbance. It’s still very peaceful out there.”

Despite the demolition, the preserve remains open to the public, Stolp said, noting the clubhouse and demolition area are cordoned off.

The Land Trust made the decision to raze the building after studying the improvements that would have been needed there and realizing the cost wasn’t justified.

When announcing that decision several years ago, Stolp said, “It was a tough and bittersweet decision. The life cycle of that building has gone up and beyond what many expected.”

The clubhouse was a gathering place for many through the years, serving as the site of wedding receptions, parties and celebrations through the years.

It was a pro shop for the golf course and a popular restaurant for years.

Stolp noted that the Land Trust provided numerous opportunities for people to bid farewell to the clubhouse where so many memories were made, including a sale of items used at the business that brought in thousands of dollars.

Stolp said he also recently received a letter from a woman who said her family had “long connections” to the area asking if there was something they could send her. Stolp said he’s planning to send her some Squires letterhead they found.

“I’m thinking I have to put it in an old Squires envelope,” he said.

Before the building was razed, Habitat for Humanity took out “at least a full moving truck” of architectural items to sell at its ReStore shop, Stolp said, and a number of other items were donated to another Ozaukee County charity.

Other items were salvaged by the Land Trust, Stolp said. Workshop equipment, including a significant number of power tools, will be reused at other preserves.

“I’ve been impressed with how much was salvaged,” Stolp said.

An old clothes rack once used in the pro shop will be repurposed to dry field gear, Stolp said, and a number of racks from the kitchen once used to store baking sheets and the like will now be used to dry seeds collected at the preserves. An old chest freezer will also be used to freeze seeds.

There’s also talk with the staff at the Lake Michigan Bird Observatory about the possibility of replacing the clubhouse chimney with a structure to provide habitat for migrating chimney swifts.

The demolition brought a few surprises too, Stolp said. For example, more than 30 blue-spotted salamanders were removed from around the building foundation and relocated elsewhere on the property.

The legacy of Port Country Club began decades ago. Barbara St. Peter Casper told Ozaukee Press several years ago that her parents Clarence and Maxine St. Peter developed the country club before she was born in 1946.

“I picked weeds there. I picked rocks,” she said. “I did caddying and worked the back bar. The whole family worked there.”

Casper said her parents bought a farmhouse and land for a nine-hole golf course using money they borrowed from Ozaukee County Judge Charlie Larson.

“My dad was athletic,” she said in explaining why they decided to open a golf course. “He was very much into anything athletic.”

The family lived on the second floor of the house and used the first floor as a restaurant and clubhouse.

Through the years, the family added onto the farmhouse and built a pro shop. They also purchased more land and added nine more holes to the golf course.

By the early 1960s, Casper said, her father hired Milwaukee architect Herb Grassold, who lived across the street from the country club and had worked on portions of the Milwaukee County Zoo and the Milwaukee Stadium, for “the big renovation.”

That included the bulk of what was the clubhouse, a modern building with a lower-level pro shop, a large bar and restaurant that seated more than 500 people and had large windows that overlooked the golf course and featured views of Lake Michigan.

But in February 1961, Casper said, her father died in an airplane crash. The family continued to operate the country club until 1972, when it was sold to Roman Erdmann of Mequon and his partner. The course was renamed Squire’s Country Club.

It changed hands several times before Bruce and Bonnie Bloemer bought it. They sold the course to the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust in 2008.