In 1806 Dr. John Anderson built a small stone hotel in Bedford to take advantage of the alleged restorative powers of the many mineral springs in the area. As the reputation of the springs grew, so did Anderson's hotel, and by the middle of the 19th century Bedford Springs Resort was one of the world's most renowned spas, its finely decorated hallways running longer than a filibuster.
For more than a century the posh resort was the place to summer. The U.S. Supreme Court sat on the grand veranda one hot August day in 1855 to deliberate over the Dred Scott case, one of the few times the justices ever met in session outside Washington, D.C. Three years later President James Buchanan received the first transatlantic telegram, from Queen Victoria, while staying at Bedford Springs, which he annually turned into his summer White House. Six other sitting U.S. presidents were guests at the resort.
By the mid-1900s, however, the popularity of sprawling summer resorts and mineral springs had waned, and in 1986 Bedford Springs Resort was closed and abandoned, although the golf course remained open.
Enter, in 1998, Bedford Resort Partners, Ltd., with a bold restoration plan. At $90 million, the partners' proposal was no mere face-lift. It was a total reinvention (with a price tag that eventually rose to $120 million). The project took almost two years to complete, and when the hotel grandly reopened last July, it featured long white balconies, timeless decor and a rare 39-star (circa 1865) American flag behind the front desk.
"I like to call the hotel a retro rebuild," says Keith Evans, managing partner of the development group. "We were shooting for 1905 style with modern functionality. We wanted to embrace history."
The new resort pays homage to its past by surrounding you with it, which leads us back to the golf. When the Old course closed for reconstruction, in November 2005, the following summer was the first in 111 years that the game was not played at the resort. Spencer Oldham built the original layout in 1895. It was 6,000 yards long and included a 605-yard par-5, pretty daunting in the age of hickory shafts.
"That's a monstrously long hole given the equipment of that era," Forse says. "A 6,000- yard course was huge in those days."
Maybe it was too daunting. By 1912, when Tillinghast worked on the course, it had been scaled back to nine holes. Did Tilly do that, or had the course already been reduced? The answer is lost to history. What is known is that Tillinghast's changes included the creation of the Tiny Tim par-3 (now the 14th hole), which he diagrammed in his book Gleanings from the Wayside: My Recollections As a Golf Architect.
"It's a neat little drop shot from a precipice over a lagoon and a creek," says Forse. "It's simply fun."
To the left of the green Tillinghast sculpted the Alps, a group of modest (by today's supersized standards) mounds meant to penalize wayward shots. The hole is 135 yards from the back tee. Ross rerouted the course in 1923 and restored it to 18 holes. It has remained largely unchanged since. That's right — the existing course is a combo of Ross and Tillinghast holes, with only slight tinkering.
Go ahead, pinch yourself.
"Like the hotel, we had to pick a period for the course and went for 1923," Forse says. "We didn't put in 18 holes exactly as they were, although we maintained the Ross routing. We ended up, in a sense, with a living golf museum."
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