Photographed by Emiliano Granado
“The Death of the Country Club” cried a 2010s headline, citing a nationwide decline in the private-member institutions as young families opted out of the very communities many had grown up experiencing. Around the same time, an urgent letter-writing campaign began: “Save Forest Hills Stadium,” spurred by the impending sale and demolition of a landmark building that had served as the symbolic and architectural lynchpin of West Side Tennis Club. Nearly a century old, the stadium appeared to have been given its last rites following decades of declining revenue and memberships—a trend for clubs across the country.
But reports of the demise of the private tennis club are greatly exaggerated—and as the pandemic gave clubs across the US a second chance at life, Forest Hills, as it has been known since hosting the first US Open in 1915, was experiencing a resurgence as well. Even after the community board voted to save the stadium and began a hugely successful concert series that continues to this day, the West Side Tennis Club kept searching for ways to engage with its history and diversify its membership. It’s paying off.
“I play in the national age tournaments—I’m 82, and I’ve been playing here and all over the country,”
Vera Konig
“Post-pandemic, clubs became a safe haven for families,” said Layosh Toth, the club’s GM who has worked at some of the most storied clubs in the country, including Los Angeles Tennis Club. “This country where you can experience playing on grass. It’s the Yankee Stadium of tennis.”
West Side Tennis Club is also a reliquary for some of the world’s most treasured tennis totems, largely thanks to Bea Hunt, who has been a member for 53 years and co-chairs the archive com- mittee. She’s grown the collection three fold in the past decade, and brought in the archives—91 boxes of memorabilia, papers and the Encyclopedia of Tennis itself—belonging to legendary broadcaster Bud Collins, to whom the club’s library is now dedicated.
“We started heritage day in 2017, trying to connect the past with the present,” she said. “Even before then, we had local kids Mary [Carillo] and Vitas [Gerulaitas] play here in the member-guest tournament. I remember Vitas told Mary, ‘don’t worry, we’re only playing for an ice bucket.’ That ice bucket still lives in our basement.”
I started here in utero, I grew up at WSTC. I was born and raised in Forest HIlls, Queens, and my parents were members as they were expecting my arrival. It's been an insane increase in new members since 2020— the club has never been better.
JP Evangelista
It’s that history that keeps coming up for members, and why, in the midst of
a surging interest in playing and watch- ing tennis, we’ve partnered with Gucci; the Italian designer is out with a new collection of on-court tennis wear. Only at the club does the everyday player become the protagonist, the hero of their own journey, taking their place on center court. To celebrate, we talked to—and captured—players and WSTC members in their element.
