Our Story
Manor Country Club is Montgomery County's best kept secret since 1922!
In 1922, a group of foresighted men, among them E. Brooke Lee, T. Howard Duckett, and Charles Zeller, dreamed of providing professionals, businessmen, and their families relief from the heat and pressures of the city.
The respite was The Manor, a beautiful century-old stone house surrounded by 431 acres of wooded land and just 14 miles from the White House. Rolling hills 500 feet high overlooked Rock Creek Valley to the south, the main valley of Montgomery County to the west and north, Sugar Loaf Mountain and the Blue Ridge to the west.
In the early days of Manor Country Club, the clubhouse operated as an inn; the four-story building housed employees on the fourth floor, and weekend guests (members) on the third, according to Bill Jones, President of the Board during the war years.
Manor Country Club, with 27 holes of golf, 10 tennis courts, and two swimming pools, still retains much of the beauty of the rolling hills, water, foliage, and trees. Our club rooms, dining rooms, golf, tennis and swim programs are managed by professionals. Now surrounded by homes, business, and highways, it still provides a retreat in a tract of natural beauty.
Manor History Facts
The Piscataway Indians once hunted the land now occupied by the fairways and grounds of Manor Country Club. The trail used by these Indians when trading is now Georgia Avenue.
In 1849, 925 acres were sold to Charles Abert and his wife. The property now owned by Manor Country Club made up part of this acreage.
In the 1850's the Aberts began construction of "Homewood", a manor house. This mansion would eventually serve as Manor Country Club's first clubhouse. The estate with its mansion having been referred to as "The Manor" is the source of the Club's name.
The "Homewood" and its grounds were sold in September, 1921 to the Foreston Manor Club, a club newly incorporated in DC. The purchasers believed there was need for a country club to serve the eastern part of Montgomery County & the District and they saw this property as having great potential for that purpose.
They determined that part of the acreage could accommodate a twenty-seven hole golf course, tennis courts, swimming pool and stables for horses and paths for riding. The remainder of the property's acreage could be developed and sub-divided into lot sites for weekend cottages or year-round homesites. They believed that the sale of these lots could also be the source of capital to underwrite the improvements needed to transform the property into a recreational club.
Despite its promise, members of Foreston Manor Club soon realized that additional financial resources and the assistance of others would be needed to complete what they had started. They invited other prominent men to join them. In the course of bringing in new participants, it must have been decided that separate corporate entities should be established for the country club and the organization that was to develop the property and the residential lots and promote club membership and lot sales. Accordingly, in August of 1922, the Sixteenth Street Highlands of Maryland was incorporated in the state of Delaware.
In the fall of 1922, work began to clear the woods on part of the "Homewood" estate and to start improvements on the mansion. Also, William S. Flynn, designer of some of the most famous golf courses in the United States, was hired to lay out plans for constructing twenty-seven golf holes on the property.