Francis Ouimet’s boyhood home ignites a burning passion to restore

By Jim McCabe

“In the 18-hole playoff the following day, pandemonium ruled. More than 20,000 American working men, and a few women, freed from their jobs in factories, shops and offices on Saturday, seethed over the soggy course at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. Francis Ouimet awoke, had a light breakfast and then he walked across the street . . .” – Rhonda Glenn, writing for the U.S. Golf Association on the centennial of the historic 1913 U.S. Open

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Of all the brilliant words written about America’s first golf hero, Francis Ouimet, these are the ones that capture the essence of why his story resonates more than 100 years later.

He walked across the street.

Inspiring as it still would have been had Ouimet won the 1913 U.S. Open at the National Golf Links of America – which is where things were headed till officials at The Country Club reversed themselves and agreed to host that year’s national championship – it likely would not have aged as beautifully as it has without the presence of a 1,550-square-foot, three-bedroom home at 246 Clyde Street in Brookline, Mass.

From his second-floor bedroom of this modest six-room home that looked out on Clyde Street, Francis Ouimet could see through trees and catch a glimpse of the 17th hole at The Country Club.

So enchanted was he with the magical golf course that Ouimet found a shortcut across a section of it to the Putterham School, a route that afforded him the opportunity to find golf balls.

The Country Club is where Ouimet caddied. It is where he played his first round of golf with a member named Thomas Hastings. And it is where in 1913, at the age of 20, he authored arguably the greatest American sports story by winning the U.S. Open.

Iconic, this man Ouimet. A treasure, his slice of history. Mystical, how all of it was set in motion with a simple walk across the street.

Such a thought used to consume Tommy Hynes on those walks with his dog past 246 Clyde Street. “If you ever wanted to sell, I’m your buyer,” Hynes would remind the owners, Jerome and Dedie Wieler.

A rather dynamic piece of Boston history himself, Hynes, who has a home further down on Clyde Street, said he “would chuckle and keep walking.”

But the Wielers – who weren’t golfers but appreciated the Ouimet story – knew Hynes was serious. They discovered in 2021 he was true to his word, too, because when they approached with an offer to sell, Tommy Hynes shook hands and made the transaction official in the time you could say, “Francis Ouimet and Eddie Lowery.”

Hynes, a legend in Boston commercial real estate circles, has brokered some of the most important and extravagant deals in Boston history. But this purchase of 246 Clyde Street is blanketed in pure benevolence.

“I didn’t want to see this home go away. It needs to be returned to golf,” said Hynes, who is cut from the same sort of cloth as his late uncle, John B. Hynes, Boston’s three-term Mayor in the 1950s who counted among his major accomplishments the modernization of the city and the birth of the Freedom Trail.

Now landmarks along the Freedom Trail go back further in time than 246 Clyde Street. Tommy Hynes, however, fosters the notion that it is good for the soul to treat history with reverence, that there is a time for new and a time to restore.

Francis Ouimet’s boyhood home fits into the latter category. “Maybe it’s a crazy idea, (but with the 2022 U.S. Open coming to The Country Club in three months), I think the time is right to bring this house back to its 1913 style,” said Hynes.

He doesn’t yet know what plans are for the house. “We’ll figure that out later. Right now, we’re deep into the restoration.”

He is not alone, either. Forty people believed in the project and joined Hynes’ LLC. “That began the journey,” he said. “We want this house to look like it did when Francis lived in it.”

To hold history as preciously as does Hynes is a big part of the equation. But equally important is to find a true craftsman who will take on the smallest of details, who won’t cut corners on a project like the mantle over the fireplace in the Ouimet living room.

Willer Krautz, for instance.

“He is patient, he is very, very good,” said Hynes, who hand-picked the Brazilian-born Krautz for this job. It requires painstaking care and Krautz has been pouring loving care into the mantle and the stairs leading to the second floor and attic. The scraping, the slow and methodical effort to get down to the original look . . . it is a work of art.

“There was stain, there was paint, there was linoleum,” said Krautz. “Maybe four or five layers. But it will look like what it did when he lived here.”

For the bedroom where Francis Ouimet practiced his putting and stared longingly out the window to watch golfers at TCC, the decision was made to strip down to the original floor, then have that wood sent to a shop where it will be refinished to what it looked like more than 100 years ago.

Oh, in a perfect world, Hynes and friends could restore the three-hole course in the backyard that Francis and his older brother, Wilfred, built. But that course long ago gave way to other homes. The neighborhood doesn’t look at all like it did in those years when Arthur and Mary Ellen lived in the house with the four children – Wilfred, Francis, Louise and Raymond. There is a time for change. But the quaint and cozy home at 246 Clyde Street looking very much as it did in 1913? Tommy Hynes believes there is a time to restore.

In addition to his brilliance as a golfer, Francis Ouimet was also undoubtedly one of America’s original golf nuts. And the efforts to restore his childhood home are the right and honorable thing to do.

The Head Nut

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