Last vestige of Squire’s Country Club to be razed

The clubhouse at Forest Beach Migratory Preserve — formerly Squire’s Country Club and Port Washington Country Club — has been the site of many wedding receptions, parties and celebrations through the years.

But its time is coming to an end. The Ozaukee Washington Land Trust, which owns and operates the preserve, is planning to raze the building in the near future.

In preparation for that, the Land Trust will hold an “estate sale” at the clubhouse on Sept. 17 and 18.

“We’re literally selling the store,” Land Trust President Marji Tomter said. “Virtually anything in the clubhouse will be for sale. If someone wants to buy the stone in the wall and can figure out how to get it out, we’ll consider it.”

The clubhouse, she said, needs upgrades, but the cost of those improvements didn’t make sense for the Land Trust.

“For all the money it would cost, it just didn’t make sense to do it,” Tomter said. “It’s going to be sad not to have it there.  I love that building. When it’s dressed up, it’s charming.”

Tom Stolp, executive director of the Land Trust, said “It was a tough and bittersweet decision. The life cycle of that building has gone up and beyond what many expected. It was costing us more to operate than our office building.”

News that the clubhouse is to be razed was sad news to Barbara St. Peter Casper, whose parents Clarence and Maxine St. Peter developed the Port Washington Country Club before she was born in 1946.

“Oh my God,” she said when told the clubhouse would be razed. “I had no idea.

“I picked weeds there. I picked rocks. 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.

The Port Washington Country Club was a popular place, Casper said.

“I remember sitting outside when people would line up to get into the clubhouse to eat,” she said.

Her father, she said, knew members of the Milwaukee Braves who would come out to the country club.

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.

“I remember picking those rocks and watering the greens at night,” Casper said.

The whole family, including her parents, grandparents and siblings, worked at the country club, she said, doing virtually every job there was.

“We worked our tails off there,” she said.

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 is today 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 they sold it 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 sold the course to the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust in 2008.