In
1937, a group of eleven Scottish-American men founded and were charter
members of the Santa Barbara Lawn Bowls Club. They were avid bowlers
and extremely devoted to the game--so much so that they failed to
devote much time to permanent record keeping. As a consequence, our
archives provide a rather incomplete history of the club's early years.
Mr. Roy Cameron, a real estate agent, was the first president of the
club and Mr. Hugh Cumming was the first secretary-treasurer. It appears
that Mr. Cumming must have also wielded a huge presence at the club
during that inaugural year because he took over the presidency for
the next six years: 1938-1943. The city directory indicates that Mr.
Cumming was a carpenter and a gardener and also in later years worked
in building maintenance.
It was apparently Mr. Cameron and Mr. Cumming who
approached Parks Superintendent Charles Waugh to request that the
City add a bowling green to an existing Community Center – a
Center that had been created by the Parks Department at the former
site of Santa Barbara High School. A severe earthquake that shook
the city in June of 1925 destroyed the high school building. That
building, constructed of quarried stone, faced Anapamu Street on the
site of what is now our lower green.
One green and a very modest clubhouse were created
using WPA funding, and “modest” probably overstates the
architectural style of the clubhouse: it was a long, narrow, rather
squat wooden structure located in what is now the bench area between
our lower and upper greens. It contained a small locker room and equipment
storage areas, but no kitchen or clubroom. The appearance of this
small, rather drab clubhouse was enhanced by a beautiful bougainvillea
adorning its outer walls.
Those initial years reflected a dramatically different
era. Individual members hosted meetings and parties at their homes,
and when visitors were entertained at the club, coffee was delivered
in large urns from the Copper Coffee Pot—a landmark restaurant
on State Street near Figueroa. Fine wines were available at a nearby
Piggly Wiggly Market for 49-cents per gallon.
A record of the club’s presidents is one of
the most complete documents in our archives; we have a list naming
all 46 of our club’s presidents and the dates in which they
served (many served more than one year in office). Our most cherished
archival piece is a unique plaque on which is mounted small brass
plates engraved with the name of each president and the year or years
each was in office. This truly classis piece, which now nearly runeth
over with names, is on display in our clubroom. (See List at end of
article)
Although the club was created as an all-male organization, four ladies
(some wives and/or future wives) very soon put an end to that nonsense
and were permitted to bowl starting sometime in 1938.
The ladies elected Anne Adamson as their president
and were initially organized separately from the men and bowled separately
but paid dues (25-cents per month) to the men’s club treasury—the
male members paid $10 per year. This policy of gender discrimination
also did not last long. It was apparently only about six months before
the ladies were welcomed to bowl with the men, but the exact date
at which the club attained complete gender equality is uncertain:
Existing meeting minutes record that at the December 1947 annual meeting
(10 years after the club was founded) it was moved and approved to
“carry our ladies as holding full membership.” Yet it
was not until 1989 that a female was elected to the club’s presidency
when Betty Miller, a petite ball of fire who ran a small store on
the Breakwater, took over the helm. Betty now lives in Las Vegas.
The club’s membership slowly increased over
the years—by 1949 it had 42 members and was rapidly increasing.
By 1956 there was a clear need for a larger and more elegant clubhouse;
enter Mr. Spencer Adams. Mr. Adams was a Chicago attorney who had
come to Santa Barbara when he retired, bought a home on the Riviera,
joined the club and became a devoted bowler. He offered to finance
the construction of a new clubhouse with the condition imposed on
the City of Santa Barbara that this land be “officially dedicated
to park and recreational purposes” and “shall be designated
and known as Spencer Adams Park.” This was made official on
April 26, 1956 by City Ordinance No. 2534. The parcels so named include
a rectangle defined by a line starting at the south corner of said
parcels extending 225 feet along Anapamu Street and 300 fe
et
along De La Vina Street. We might note in passing that the temporary
parking lot adjacent to our greens is entirely within the boundaries
of Spencer Adams Park. The new clubhouse was built at a cost of approximately
$16,000, donated entirely by Mr. Adams. It was an extremely generous
contribution; in 1956 that amount of money could buy a small home
in Santa Barbara. The club entered into a contract with the City of
Santa Barbara under which the club dues and other incomes pay for
greens’ maintenance and incidental expenses associated with
the Club’s activities, while the City provides landlord services
for the property and its basic landscaping. Over the years—especially
over the most recent years—club members have also donated a
huge amount of time, labor and funding to enhance the peripheral landscaping.
The club soon began to prosper as more and more
Santa Barbarans were introduced to the game of bowls. Nearly all of
the members in those early years had come from the British Isles.
Playing in teams of three bowlers on each competing side, a single
green accommodates only 48 bowlers per game. As the Club’s membership
approached and passed 100 in the late 1950s, there was a crying need
for a second green—and for the $10,000 needed to build one.
Parks Superintendent Finlay MacKenzie favored building the new green
but the City was apparently struggling with its budget and would not
approve the needed funding. Again enter Mr. Spencer Adams (now 90
years of age) who offered to donate $5,000 toward the cost of a new
green if the City would match that amount. Again, the City balked.
Apparently for the first time, the Club became
aware of the existence of the Joslyn Fund, a fund created by Marcellus
Joslyn, another Chicago attorney, who had retired to Santa Monica
and donated several million dollars to senior community centers and
lawn bowls clubs in Southern California. The archives are not entirely
clear, but it appears that the Joslyn Fund provided the matching $5,000
although there are reports indicating that other members may have
also contributed to the funding. The second green was completed in
1960.
We do not know if it was a case of build-it-and-they-will-come,
but the club’s membership soared in the 1060s. It soared to
such an extent that the City needed an additional bowling club: The
MacKenzie Park Lawn Bowls Club was opened on January 6, 1966. The
MacKenzie Park greens were also partially financed by the Joslyn Fund.
A total of 91 members from the SBLBC became charter
members of the MPLBC, and a major fraction of the members remaining
on our roster were members of both clubs. Today about 10 percent of
our members choose to maintain dual memberships. In the glory days
of Santa Barbara lawn bowling (the 1960s and 70s), both the SBLBC
and the MacKenzie Park clubs reached membership roles numbering about
200 members, each.
Our membership then ebbed for several years but
peaked again at around 180 members in the early 1990s—it has
slowly declined since then to its present level of about 112 regular
members plus 15 associate members (associates are non-bowlers who
enjoy our social events). Hopefully, we can look forward to another
peak, but the mystery of membership fluctuations remains an enigma
crying for a solution. Many promotional tactics have been tried, but
drive-bys and word-of-mouth between neighbors and friends still seem
to be the most productive sources of new members.
In April of 1966 our clubhouse was extended to
provide more much-needed space. About 15 feet were added to the south
end of the building to extend the locker room and to add the equipment
storage room. Again, the City had balked at the cost and timing of
the proposed addition. Since the Club was scheduled to host a large
group of visitors from Canada later that year, the members wanted
extra clubhouse space added sooner rather than later. In a fine demonstration
of club spirit, members donated the entire $3,200 needed for the addition.
A final project was completed in June of 1985 when a wooden shed adjacent
to the clubhouse was extended to its present configuration (contiguous
with the south end of the clubhouse.) The extension of the wooden
structure provided an additional storage room for a tractor and also
a convenient storage space for the many umbrellas frequently used
to provide welcomed shade for our bowlers during summer bowling—which
means nearly all year in this Paradise on the Pacific.
Other noteworthy capital improvement projects financed
with club funds and completed by the labor of our members were the
construction of the trellis on our lanai in 1992 and replacing the
wood in all of our “bus stop” benches (22 of them) with
pau-lope in 2002. Pau-lope is an extremely hard wood (a nail cannot
be driven into it) and was rather pricey ($3,708 worth), but it should
be as good as new when the club celebrates its 100th Anniversary.
We certainly hope so. Redoing the benches with pau-lope was another
of the vast array of projects guided and nurtured to completion by
Life Member Gino Mangini. Gino has calluses on his calluses but, unfortunately,
he is now retired from lawn bowling because of failing health.
Since the club operates on an annual budget (this
year that budget is $24,000) financed entirely by annual dues (now
at $200), maximizing membership equates to minimizing dues. There
are, of course, also advantages inherent in a small membership—it
is easier to manage a smaller club, no crowding, no parking problems
and a more intimate atmosphere. It seems that 140 to 150 members is
about an optimum number for our club.
Although annual dues cover the club’s operating
expenses, other resources, namely donations, must cover capital investments
in equipment, facilities and other club improvements. The Joslyn Fund,
mentioned above, was one such resource and donations by many members
and past members have been and continue to be another generous source
of funds. Many members add a little extra when they pay their annual
dues. The Joslyn Foundation was liquidated a few years ago and its
residual largess divided among all the lawn bowling clubs in Southern
California. We received a final $2,500 check. In toto the
club received about $60,000 from the Joslyn Foundation over several
years.
We also make a modest income by encouraging our
members to collect and bring in aluminum cans to recycle and our 25-cent
between-games coffee/tea/cookie charge is profitable because we do
not have to purchase many cookies—our ladies donate a generous
supply of delicious baked goodies. Long-time treasurer Russ Morgan
is a no-nonsense watchdog of our treasury and we can rest assured
our general fund is wisely invested and rigorously scrutinized.
The Heritage Club, a brainchild of Life Member
Carol M. Smith, was established in 1995 to honor those who have expressed
their devotion and appreciation to the club through sizable donations—both
cash donations and by naming the club as a beneficiary in their wills.
The Heritage Club maintains a Donors’ Tree on which the names
of these thoughtful members are engraved. Tax-deductible donations
are made to the Parks and Recreation Department’s ARC Fund,
earmarked for the SBLBC.
Members and former members whose names now appear
on the Donors’ Tree are: Lynn Abbott, Thelma Bresnan, Kee
Cubert, Mina Launt, Charles Fleck, Stan Palmer, Van Wingerden Family,
Paul McCahen
By Far the biggest project the club has completed
since the construction of the Spencer Adams clubhouse in 1956 has
been the installation of an artificial surface on our lower green.
Over the years, our lower green (the club’s first green) was
beset with problems—mostly recurring bare spots and moss growth—blamed
on the proximity of the beautiful Morton Bay Fig tree located at the
south end of that green. There was much debate regarding the actual
cause of this green-maintenance dilemma but there was a clear need
for drastic action, either to completely replace the sod and its substructure
with a different more hardy grass and add a drain field or to install
an artificial surface: enter Mr.
Stan Palmer.
Mr.
Palmer, a long-time member who is extremely devoted to lawn bowling,
offered to donate $50,000 toward an estimated $100,000 needed for
a new green if the City or some other entity would come forth with
matching funds. The costs of a new grass surface or an artificial
surface were essentially identical. Through a welcomed coincidence,
it was at this time the City offered to compensate our club to the
tune of $33,000 for the temporary use of several spaces in our parking
lot for city-employee parking during construction of the city’s
Granada Building parking structure. The remainder of the necessary
financing was available in our general fund and in the money accumulated
in the Joslyn Fund, so a new green seemed attainable.
The big decision was the choice between grass and carpet as the bowling
surface. By an overwhelming majority in a vote held on July 16, 2002,
the members opted for installation of an artificial surface.
President Bill Schultz labored heroically through the city bureaucracy
to obtain all of the necessary fund transfers, permits and approvals—and
also negotiated a materials and labor contract with the winning green’s
contractor, AJ & EA Berry Pty Ltd of Glen Waverly, Victoria, Australia.
An enormous amount of physical labor was also provided by the dedicated
volunteer work primarily performed by members Ray Togni (now deceased),
Gino Mangini and George Glerum, who installed a root barrier between
the huge Moreton Bay Fig tree and the new green, connected the green’s
drainage system, replaced several backboards, and installed needed
hardware items. Many other members also contributed to the prodigious
effort needed to realize the dream of a new green.
After 21 months of meetings, planning, permits, command performances,
fund raising, negotiating, debating and hard work by a bunch of good
people, we celebrated a rain-delayed Valentine’s Day and the
opening of the new green of February 20, 2003. The total cost (contractor
and associated expenses) was $112,100.
