Shady Rest Country Club

820 Jerusalem Road, Scotch Plains, NJ 07076

908-397-3552

www.preserveshadyrest.org
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The Shady Rest Golf and Country Club is the oldest African American golf clubhouse in the United States. In the mid-1700s, the story of Shady Rest began with the construction of the Ephraim Tucker Farmhouse, nestled in a thirty-one-acre plot of rural landscape in Scotch Plains. The property served several uses until the late 1890s when it was sold and converted into a 9-hole golf course by the Westfield Golf Club. Finally, in the early twentieth century, a group of Black investors from the Progressive Realty Company acquired the property and established the Shady Rest Golf and Country Club. Shady Rest stood as the center for African American society at the time; the first African American professional golfer, John Matthew Shippen, Jr., served as head professional from 1924-1960; esteemed guests W.E.B. DuBois, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and others were welcomed to share their talents; and Shady Rest offered golf, tennis, horseback riding, and skeet shooting for all ages.

Today, Shady Rest is run by The Preserve Shady Rest Committee, which has a mission to educate and present the rich history of Shady Rest and John Shippen, Jr., preserve the clubhouse, and create a public center and museum to display the site’s memorabilia, photographs, artifacts, and oral histories.

WHAT TO SEE AND DO

• Learn about the rich history of Shady Rest through memorabilia, photographs and artifacts dating back to the eighteenth century
• Play a round of golf or mini golf
• Attend a holiday event or musical performance