A place with much history, both locally and in the sports world, faced near disaster in late 2024. Less than two years later, the Watertown’s Oakley Country Club has rebuilt and welcomes golfers and others to the first place where the “father of American golf” worked in the United States.
John Verderese, President of the Oakley Board of Directors, vividly remembers when he learned about the fire that occurred early in the morning of Dec. 6, 2024.
“I got some early morning text messages with some video, and it was of an office that had … water in it, and I assumed that had to be our controller’s office, which is on the lower floor, and we had some kind of a flood,” Verderese said. “I found out that it was our club manager’s office upstairs on the third floor that had a foot of water in it, and then they realized we had a fire.”
The fire started on the third floor, and was due to an electrical issue. The sprinklers came on and prevented spreading of the flames, and the Watertown Fire Department completely doused the flames. One section of the clubhouse suffered significant damage.
“This could have been a total disaster. Water came through this entire side of the building, all three floors,” Verderese said. “So we ended up having to essentially take out everything, rip the whole place down to the studs, to the rafters, floorboards. We had to rip out every single piece of electrical wiring, every fixture, and basically redo the whole place.”
Other parts of the clubhouse avoided water damage, but suffered smoke damage. The most impacted areas were in a section that had recently been renovated. Oakley tried to make the most of the rebuild.
“We basically ripped out everything that we did five years before that, but it gave us the opportunity to do a couple things,” Verderese said. “We improved the bar upstairs, what we call our Skyline Pub.”
The Pub got a new layout by making some changes from the plans from the 2018-19 renovation.
“We always wished we had combined this when we did the construction,” Verderese said. “So this created an opportunity to combine these two rooms, and we were able to put in this beautiful new bar, which the members absolutely love.”
The Club typically shuts down during January, anyway, and after the fire it was also closed in February and March of 2025. Staff came up with a plan, however, to host members as best they could during reconstruction.
“In April we put a tent up out by the pool. We have a small kitchen that services the pool in the summer, and so we effectively use that kitchen to provide dining under the tent for April and May,” Verderese said. “That worked out well, and we called that the Oakley Cantina. It was kind of a Mexican theme.”
By mid-May, Oakley opened up the ballroom and pre-function area, which had suffered smoke damage.
“The first phase of what we did was to redo that part of the building, which needed new carpet, paint, wallpaper, ceiling tile, anything that could be smoke damaged, and we, so we did all that very quickly,” Verderese said.
One of the rooms that was damaged after the fire was the member wine room, where people can store their bottles to enjoy with a meal at one of the club’s restaurants. The room was rebuilt, said Verderese, who added, “We like to joke, when someone opens a bottle of wine, it has a little smoky flavor.”
Three-quarters of Oakley’s dining areas had reopened by the summer of 2025, and the project was completed in February 2026.
“We got very high marks from our membership guests that we have here,” Verderese said. “They are just amazed that we’ve done with the place.”
Members were invited to see the reconstructed Clubhouse at an opening party, and the project put a shine on parts new and old.
“So many people said, ‘I love that new chandelier you put in,'” Verderese said. “But it’s the same one.”
A Long History
The Oakley Country Club holds a special place in the history of American golf. Back in 1899 the club hired a man who became known as the father of American golf architecture.
Originally known as the Cambridge Golf Club, the club was founded in 1895. The first course had 9 holes and was located on the other side of Mt. Auburn Street. The club moved to the current location in 1898.
Willie Campbell laid out the first 18 hole golf course in Massachusetts at Oakley in 1898. The following year the club convinced Donald Ross to move from Scotland — where he was an apprentice at the Royal Dornoch Golf Club — to Oakley.
“He was going to be our golf pro, our club maker, which you needed back then, because you didn’t go to a sporting goods store to buy clubs. You had them made by your club maker,” Verderese said. “The club was going to go through a redesign of a course, and our original architect, Willie Campbell — who also did The Country Club in Brookline — passed away. So, we gave the job to Donald Ross.”
Oakley was the first of more than 400 golf courses designed by Ross.
“We like to think of Donald Ross as Oakley’s gift to American golf,” Verderese said. “If not for us, he wouldn’t be here and that would have changed a lot of U.S. golf history.”
Ross went on to design some courses that host major PGA and USGA events. The list includes Pinehurst in North Carolina; Oak Hill in Rochester, New York; Oakland Hills in Michigan; and Seminole in Florida. In the area around Watertown, Ross designed the courses at Belmont Country Club; Fresh Pond in Cambridge; Brae Burn Country Club and Charles River Country Club, Woodland Golf Club, and Newton Commonwealth in Newton; Sandy Burr Country Club in Wayland; and Leo J. Martin Memorial Golf Course in Weston.
Oakley’s course still follows the layout created by Ross, which is not always the case. On a wall inside the Clubhouse hangs a glassed case with golf bag tags from courses designed by Ross. Members who visit other courses add to the collection, Verderese said.
The clubhouse is not the original one. The first one was located in the former Otis mansion.
“The original building here was designed by (Charles) Bullfinch, the famous architect who did the Capitol and the State House,” Verderese said. “That burned down, so we’ve had — as many country clubs have — a history of some fires here.”
A fire hit the original clubhouse in 1913, and it was rebuilt including the addition of a third floor, according to the book “The History of the Oakley Country Club: 1895-2023,” by William L. Healy and Daniel Owen Mee. The Otis Mansion clubhouse burned down in 1962. The current clubhouse and a pro shop were built the next year.
The pro shop and maintenance facility burned down in 1983, and a new one was constructed the same year. The Club is looking into building a new pro shop, Verderese said.
Coming Together to Rebuild
Verderese credited the staff and the members for their loyalty and patience.
“We’re kind of a family here, and as I kept telling the members from the first time I spoke to them at our annual meeting. As I kept stressing, this shows that a club is not the building,” Verderese said. “The club is its members and its membership and its staff, so I think we kind of proved that. A club can get through something like this and still keep its vibrancy.”
The Club only lost a few members, and Verderese said the number was about the same as the typical attrition.
“The golf was there, so nobody’s going to leave because they don’t have a building. They’re primarily here to play golf,” Verderese said. “The pool remained open, so that was a big thing for us. That gave us outdoor space. We have our tennis courts and pickleball courts, so, even though we didn’t have a clubhouse, we had a lot of amenities for the members.”
Verderese thanked the City for helping to keep the project on track.
“The Watertown Fire Department, despite the fact that they got a lot of water in this place, they saved our building,” he said. “And the town building inspectors — plumbing, electrical — they were very responsive to us, so when we needed an inspection they were here, so they helped our construction timeline.”
Other country clubs in the area, such as Belmont, Winchester or Brae Burn also lent a hand. The clubs offered reciprocal dining to Oakley members, and also hosted events scheduled at Oakley, such as weddings and showers, while the Clubhouse was being reconstructed.
Even during the shutdown, Oakley was able to host the annual charitable golf tournaments for local groups.
“The club is generally closed on Mondays, so we were still able to host some of the outings,” Verderese said. “Outside groups come into play, different organizations. We are very proud of the fact that we’re still able to host, we host every year the Watertown Boys and Girls Club and the Watertown Police and Fire department outings here. We give both of those groups a very nice, generous deal.”
While there are no golf membership openings, Oakley has some social memberships available, Verderese said. The club’s dining areas can be rented by outside groups. See more information at oakleycountryclub.org