When Tom Donatelli was a kid in the 1960s, the golf and country club less than a mile away from his home in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, was known as Scotch Hills Country Club. 

Donatelli, now 68, can recall a time when he’d go golfing and sledding with friends on the property. Still, despite its close proximity and the fact that his family had lived in the city since the 1800s, he knew little about the country club’s history. 

“Back in those years, I only knew it as Scotch Hills. A lot of the stories were just suppressed or just forgotten, I don’t know. We don’t really know why a lot of the stories went away,” he said. 

The property was purchased by the Scotch Plains township in 1964 and named The Scotch Hills Country Club. Before then, it was known as the Shady Rest Golf and Country Club. It is widely considered to be the first Black-owned and operated country club in America. 

Shady Rest Golf and Country Club was founded in 1921 when a group of Black investors, known as the Progressive Realty Company, purchased the 9-hole golf course previously known as the Westfield Golf Club. 

“They teamed up with prominent doctors and lawyers from Plainfield, Westfield and Scotch Plains, and they purchased the land for some $100,000 back then,” Donatelli said. 

Back then, Black people weren’t allowed access to the nearby country clubs. “Their slogan was ‘A Place for Us.’ And it was for them,” he added. 

Members of the country club were privy to performances from legendary acts including Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, and Louis Armstrong. “[Shady Rest] became a well-known host of after-parties for the performers who used to perform in Newark, New Jersey, and New York City.” 

Despite its standing as a hub for entertainers in its early years, Shady Rest owners defaulted on their taxes and the foreclosed property was purchased by Scotch Plains Township in 1938. The township made the golf club public in 1964, which effectively racially integrated the space that was once owned and attended solely by Black people.

Around 2013, Donatelli said, Scotch Plains was considering using the site to build a “modern facility for the recreation department.” A group of residents rallied to create a volunteer-based committee to preserve the property instead. The country club’s name was changed back to Shady Rest in 2021.

Today, as a founding member and chairman of the Preserve Shady Rest Committee, Donatelli is working to uncover stories from the Black people who were once patrons of the country club and to preserve the physical building that remains on the property. 

Donatelli said the space benefited the larger community, too. He said he’s recently heard from locals who recall how the staff cook would often feed families from Scotch Plains, even if they weren’t members of the country club.

The historic New Jersey country club was one of 30 sites granted between $50,000 to $155,000 in funding — $3 million in total — by the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund earlier this year. The $75,000 received by the Preserve Shady Rest Committee will help the organization create a master plan that will inform its future efforts. The committee has previously received grants that assisted with flood remediation, replacing the roof and the wood floors in the former grand ballroom.

The Action Fund was launched by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2017 to uplift Black cultural contributions and experiences through the preservation of sites of “activism, achievement and resilience,” according to its website. Since then, the organization has supported more than 300 Black historical sites through preservation investments totaling $27 million.

“History is crucial to our nation’s understanding of where we’ve come from, who we are today, and how we envision our future,” Brent Leggs, executive director of the Action Fund, said in a press release about this year’s grantees. “These grants will support critical preservation efforts to revitalize and sustain tangible links to our shared past that we hope will inspire future generations.”

In addition to honoring the social and musical legacy of the country club, the Preserve Shady Rest Committee is also hoping to pay homage to athletes John Shippen Jr. and Althea Gibson. Shippen, widely considered the first American-born pro golfer, spent over three decades as Shady Rest’s greenskeeper and golf professional, beginning in 1931. Donatelli said they hope to eventually transform Shippen’s former living quarters on the property into a museum. Tennis champion Gibson, the first Black person to win a Grand Slam, was a regular at the country club in the 1950s.

Donatelli said he often receives messages from people who are interested in the country club’s history. “I get phone calls from people from all over the country asking me about it,” he said. The public is able to contribute to Shady Rest’s preservation efforts by purchasing merchandise online or making donations.

As a historic site and future museum, Shady Rest will eventually be open to everyone again. But, for the first time in more than 60 years, it will amplify the unique experiences of Black residents in Scotch Plains and beyond.