History
“Tennis in Portland has at last awakened,” proclaimed the Irvington Club’s first brochure over 100 years ago. At that time, one year after it was founded in 1898, the Irvington Club consisted of “one first-class court at the end of the Irvington car line.” But members had big plans: to build “at least two more courts and . . . Clubhouse accommodations with shower and bath and lockers.” The initiation fee had been set “at the very low sum of $2.50 with regular monthly dues of 25 cents per month.”
The Irvington Club has come a long way since those first tennis enthusiasts played on the one clay court, which occupied donated land in the middle of the block between NE Tillamook and Hancock and 19th and 21st, in the heart of the Irvington neighborhood.
Back then, spectators observed the action from the club’s only building — a set of covered bleachers.
From its founding, the Irvington Club has always been member-owned. Soon, members decided to turn their club into the “tennis headquarters for the city.”
Spearheaded by club president Walter Goss, they raised $10,000 in one year through donations and the sale of lifetime memberships, and bought half of a nearby city block at the club’s present location between NE Brazee and Thompson and 21st and 22nd, enough land on which to build six clay courts and a clubhouse. In February 1905, The Oregonian described the club’s location in Irvington — at that time an attractive middle- to upper-middle-class neighborhood — as being “the prettiest spot in the pretty suburb.”
1903 Clubhouse
When the courts opened in July of 1905, the Oregon Journal declared that “the universal verdict was that Irvington has the finest courts in the great Western world.” By September of that year, finishing touches had been put on the one-story clubhouse, which included a roof garden, 20 feet in width and extending the full length of the building — a most advantageous place to observe the courts. The six courts and clubhouse marked the opening of Portland’s first tennis-only club.
Walter Goss
In 1908, the club bought the north end of the block and turned it into a neighborhood playground. Four years later, a two-story addition to the clubhouse, designed by Portland architect Ellis Lawrence, was constructed. Not only was the Irvington Club to be a center for tennis, it would serve the community as a country club as well.
Prospective members were invited to join a club that would “take a prominent part in the civic life of our city. All that pertains to good government, good streets, good citizenship, good morals, good homes, good men, good women, good boys and girls, should be fostered by our Club. This enterprise and all that it means for good is not for today but for all time.” These lofty goals included, of course, fostering good tennis.
In 1899, the Irvington Club sponsored the first Oregon State Tennis Tournament, held on two courts at Multnomah Field. Many of the Pacific Northwest’s best players from 1900 to the late 1970s came out of the Irvington Club, including Phil Neer, who was National Intercollegiate singles champion in 1921, Wayne Sabin and Elwood Cooke, both of whom played on the U.S. Davis Cup team and were ranked in the top ten players in the country in the late 1930s and ’40s, and Carolyn Lumber, ranked number one in the Pacific Northwest in 1975.
Club at Thompson
But when the rains came in the fall, tennis ended, and the social life of the neighborhood moved inside, to Irvington’s clubhouse. Men’s speaking groups, women’s community groups, card parties, pool, ping pong, and dance classes all filled the clubhouse regularly. However, what members loved most were the monthly dinner dances, held in the club’s large ballroom, featuring a beautiful maple dance floor. Members brought their own “bottles” and danced late into the night to the tunes of live dance bands … by Sarah Thomas.
Stella Fording, Oregon State Women’s Singles Champion, 1911; Oregon State Women’s Doubles Champion, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1916
CHRISTMAS DINNER DANCE INVITATION, The Irvington Club’s regular dinner dances continued well into the 1960s
Managers
Mrs. Graham
Wes Hartman (1948-1950)
Hugh Findlay (1952, part-time)
Anne Lagler (1953-1959)
John (Bud) Christenson (1959-?)
Homer & Inez Hein (1963)
Tom Denhardt (1966-1970)
Brian Parrot (1971-1974)
Mary Crislip (1974-1988)
Betty Rankin (1988-1998)
Lauri Taylor (1998-2001)
Barbara Farmer (2001-2023)
Beth Moore (2023-2024)
Jake Zeemin (2025-Present)
Irvington Club Presidents
William K. Scott (1898)
D.D. Oliphant (1899)
Walter Goss (1905-1906)
J.S. Hamilton (1908)
L.J. Wentworth (1909-1910)
W.F. Woodward (1911-1916)
W.J. Hoffman (1917-1918)
Everett A. Johnson (1920-1921)
F.C. Felter (1922)
L.A. Liljequist (1927)
C.C. Hockley (1930)
Walter A. Goss (1931-1935)
Leslie J. Werschkul (1936)
Walter A. Goss (1938)
Henry Cuthbert (1942-1945)
Claude C. Hockley Jr. (1946-1948)
Wesley J. Hartman (1949)
David McLaughlin (1950)
Fred R. Fisher (1953-1954)
Gordon Wayne (1955-1956)
Samuel Lee (1957-1958)
Jay Coffey (1959)
Clyde Knox (1960)
Mcnamara Pope (1961-1962)
Jack Mills (1963)
Larry York (1964)
Philip Jackson (1965)
Brad Schade (1966-1968)
Sam Norby (1969)
Arthur Fish (1970)
Baylor Lowes (1971)
Ross Hughes (1972)
Don Tisdale (1973)
Barbara Thompson (1974)
Mike Kohlhoff (1975)
Roy Tokerud (1976)
Dick Lang (1977)
Bill Yoder (1978)
Joel Krane (1979)
Rob Powell (1980)
Andy Glass (1981-1982)
Henry Cuthbert (1983)
Lee Shelton (1984)
Steve Hall (1985)
John Linde (1987)
Mike Weedall (1988-1989)
Steve Boeh (1990)
Louise Anderson-Dana (1991)
Vic Blumenthal (1992)
El Lawrence (1993)
Chris Thomas (1994)
Frank Halverson (1995)
John Cost (1996)
Jeff Wiles (1997)
Coleen Scissors / Ed Vranizan (1998)
Carol Zosel (1999)
James Taylor (2000)
Jerry Keefe (2001)
Phil Rothrock (2002-2003)
Carolyn Young (2004)
Jim Lang (2005)
Gene Avery (2006)
Tom Scribner (2007)
Dave Hicks (2008)
Bob Williams (2009)
Tony Mendoza (2010)
Dave Reynoldson (2011)
Blythe Knott (2012)
Sarah Chung (2013)
Mark McGinnis (2014)
Terry Folen (2015)
Alysa Rose (2016-2017)
Amy Alpern (2018)
Cathy Zarosinski (2019-2020)
Stephanie Vickers (2021-2022)
Jonathan Steinhoff (2023-2024)
Chris Kayser (2025-Present)
Pros
Kurt Berndt (1930)
Charley Lager
High Findlay
George Lyttleton-Rogers
Ed Leonard
Hedi Jackson
Jose Corona
Brian Parrott (1970-1974)
Warren Farmer
Jack Neer (1974-1979)
Steve Kabota (1979-?)
Doug Rudhom (1982-1983)
Carolyn Lumber (1983-1999)
Mike Tammen (1999-2001)
Adam Gagnon (2001-2008)
Cristobal Valverde (2002-Present)
Walter Seidel (2008-Present)