The Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough Historical Society, where I’m currently volunteering, recently received this wonderful gift of a silver platter from Jeff and Jackie Haught of Santa Fe New Mexico.

The inscription reads:

“Henry Smith Tournament
Low Net
Winner
Leon Svirsky
1963”

 

The small shield above the inscription bears the words “Briar Hall”.

“Henry Law established the Briar Hills Country Club on the site of the old Briarcliff Golf Club in 1921. A clubhouse was built and an eighteen-hole golf links of 6,366 yards was designed by golf architect Devereux Emmet. The 150-acre property was bounded roughly by Dalmeny, Poplar and Pine roads, with a strip south of Pine extending behind Tuttle Road to Long Hill Road East. The grounds included the Christie, later Melady, property and the large white house named Elderslie, which for a time served as the clubhouse. Two generations of the Law family, Henry and, after him, Theodore Gilman Law, directed the club until some years after World War II, when it was sold and became Briar Hall Country Club (1922-1993). “Besides…golf, tennis, riding, skiing, tobogganing, skating and coasting, the Club…[offered] every facility for indoor entertainment””. (From “The Changing Landscape – A History of Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough” by Mary Cheever.

Trophy being presented at the Briar Hall club. Date unknown, but possibly in the 1940s.

Elderslie. The house still exists at 233 Pine Road

Car in front of Elderslie

Picture of the Platter taken with a Sony A7IV and Samyang 45mm f1.8. Other pictures from the Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough Historical Society archive.