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laid out the initial nine holes. “The club’s grounds are situated on that por-
dynamic man whose life philosophy could be summed up with the phrase,
tion of the Orange Mountains between the Essex County Country Club
“Do something!”—Felix Fuld.
and the Montclair Golf Club,” The New York Times observed on April 12,
Fuld was born in Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany, and came to the
1913. “Eighty men are now employed in clearing the wooded section so as
U.S., when he was fourteen. His father, Ludwig S. Fuld, was a partner in
to make playing possible by the latter part of May. It is planned ultimately
the New York banking house Sternberger, Fuld & Sinn. Felix worked as a
to have an eighteen-hole course.”
rubber goods salesman until his early twenties, and in his travels he met a
The formal opening of the Club in West Orange took place on May
young man from Baltimore who had started out sweeping floors and
30, 1913. The New York Sun noted that the planned festivities included
running errands in a thrift store for four dollars a week, found some success
several speeches, a flag raising, and a ceremonial first drive from the
as a wholesaler, but had his sights set on creating a store of his own.
location of the opening tee. That first shot was hit by the man who would
That fellow was Louis Bamberger, and the two became lifelong
be President of Mountain Ridge through the Club’s first decade, a
friends who would be closely linked in the business and personal spheres,
Temple B’nai Jeshurun, 1940.