Why is the Oakmont clubhouse green? Here’s what we know

Oakmont Country Club is famous for its greens, putting surfaces as challenging as any in the game. But the club is also notable for its green — the distinctive hue of its historic clubhouse.

The building, which opened in 1904, the same year as the course, is filled with photographs and memorabilia documenting Oakmont’s rich championship past, and no one knows more about those artifacts than David Moore, the club’s curator of collections.

There is one question, though, that Moore can’t answer.

It concerns that color. Why is the clubhouse green?

“If I had to venture a guess, the white and green would kind of blend in to the golf course,” Moore says. “It blends into the surroundings when you’re not right here. But then as you emerge of No. 9 fairway, and the No. 18 fairway, it starts to come back at your and it’s right here.”

What Moore and others can say for certain is that a green clubhouse wasn’t in the original plans. A water color rendering created by prominent Pittsburgh architect Edward Stotz to sell club founder Henry C. Fownes on his vision for the clubhouse, shows a reddish-brown exterior more akin to that of traditional turn-of-the-20th-century Tudor Revival buildings. An article on the club’s opening that appeared at the time in the Pittsburgh Press draws a similar picture. It describes the building as grey and red.

Black-and-white photographs from the era make it difficult to discern exactly when and why Oakmont changed the color of the clubhouse. But painted postcards and portraits provide some insight. A postcard from 1908 shows a grey roof with red shingling below the gables. Another from 1914 depicts a green roof with gray half-timbering on the gables and shingles below. The visual evidence suggests that the color change occurred early in the club’s history. 

For a more comprehensive look at that history, Moore led GOLF.com on an extensive tour of the clubhouse and its trove of artifacts. You can watch the full feature in the video player below or on our YouTube channel.