Source: VT Golf Magazine | Issue: Summer 1996 | Author: Arthur Ristau
Synopsis: This article is about the formation and history of Basin Harbor Club and how it has evolved into the club we see today.
Wafting in the warm October wind, the simple sign tells the story: “Since 1886 and still here. The Basin Harbor Club.”
It has been 114 years since Ardelia Beach was summoned from an Iowa schoolroom to return to her native North Ferrisburgh, Vermont, to acquire and operate a 200-acre farm set between the Adirondacks to the west and the Green Mountains to the east. Four years later, she began taking in boarders.
They came via the nearby Vergennes stop on the Hudson Valley Railroad or by ferry up Lake Champlain from New York City. Pennie Beach and her brother, Bob Beach, Jr. are the fourth generation of the Beach family to welcome guests with Basin Harbor hospitality.
On the threshold of three centuries of operation, the Basin Harbor Club is still the centerpiece of a gorgeous farm and lakeside complex whose essential elements have changed only marginally since Ardelia converted her farmhouse into a tourist destination. The property remains prime dairy country in the heart of a country that calls itself “The Land of Milk and Honey.”