Grass Court Trails · Massachusetts to Pennsylvania
America’s Gilded Age Grass
The founding clubs of American lawn tennis, from Boston to Philadelphia, and the one grass court in the circuit open to the public
- Clubs
- 7
- Allow
- 5 to 7 days
- Route
- 486 km (302 miles)
- Best time
- June to September; Newport's grass is open from mid May to mid October, and the professional grass event there is in early July
Lawn tennis arrived in the United States in the 1870s and took root in the cricket clubs and summer colonies of the north-east. Every stop on this trail played a part in that story: the first United States Championships at the Newport Casino in 1881, the first United States women's championship at the Philadelphia Cricket Club in 1887, the first Davis Cup tie at Longwood in 1900, and sixty editions of the national championships at Forest Hills. Three of the stops, Newport, Seabright and Germantown, are National Historic Landmarks.
Most of these clubs still play on grass, and they guard it. They are private members' clubs with all-white dress codes, member-only booking and guest rules, and several publish nothing about visitors at all. That is the honest character of grass tennis in America: a living tradition kept up by a small number of private clubs, with the season running from late spring to early autumn.
The exception is Newport. The Hall of Fame Tennis Club at the International Tennis Hall of Fame opens its grass courts to the public by telephone booking from May to October, and the museum and grounds are open daily. For a visiting player, Newport is the one place on the trail where a game on historic grass can be arranged without a member. Longwood offers a second route: its USTA national grass court championships are open to USTA members who enter.
Treat the rest of the trail as a heritage tour. Visitors can see clubhouses from the street, follow the history and watch the professional event at Newport in July, but play at Longwood, the Meadow Club, West Side, Seabright, Germantown and the Philadelphia Cricket Club is for members and their invited guests. If you belong to a club with reciprocal arrangements, ask your own club secretary to write ahead.
Distances are straight lines between clubs, as a guide to the shape of the trip; road distances are longer.
The stops
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Longwood Cricket Club
Longwood added its first lawn tennis court in 1878 and hosted the first Davis Cup tie in 1900. It now has 25 grass and 19 clay courts and still hosts five USTA national grass court championships each year.
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94 km (59 miles) from the previous stop
Newport, International Tennis Hall of Fame
The Newport Casino, commissioned in 1879, was the original home of the United States National Championships from 1881 to 1914 and has housed the Hall of Fame since 1954. It has 13 grass courts and hosts the Hall of Fame Open, a combined ATP Challenger and WTA 125 event, which in 2026 ran from 5 to 12 July.
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114 km (71 miles) from the previous stop
The Meadow Club of Southampton
Founded in 1887, the Meadow Club staged the Meadow Club Invitation on grass from 1888 until 1973. It is reported to have 36 grass courts, among the largest grass layouts in the country.
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123 km (76 miles) from the previous stop
The West Side Tennis Club
West Side hosted the United States Championships at Forest Hills from 1915 to 1920 and 1924 to 1977, and its 1923 horseshoe stadium still stands. The club has 38 courts across four surfaces, including eight grass courts resurfaced in 2021.
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41 km (25 miles) from the previous stop
Seabright Lawn Tennis and Cricket Club
Founded in 1877 and on its present Rumson ground since 1887, Seabright has 16 lawn courts cut to the same height as Wimbledon's Centre Court. Its clubhouse was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992, and it hosts the Prentice Cup between Harvard and Yale and Oxford and Cambridge in alternate years.
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108 km (67 miles) from the previous stop
Germantown Cricket Club
Founded in 1854 and on its Manheim Street ground since 1890, Germantown hosted the United States National Championships on its lawn courts from 1921 to 1923. The club is a National Historic Landmark and still keeps ryegrass tennis courts.
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5.5 km (3.4 miles) from the previous stop
Philadelphia Cricket Club
The club staged the first United States women's lawn tennis championship in 1887, the first women's national doubles in 1889 and the first national mixed doubles in 1892. Its St. Martins ground in Chestnut Hill has 21 grass courts and nine Har-Tru courts.
More trails
- The London Circuit London
- Surrey to the South Coast Surrey and the south coast, England
- The East Anglian Coast East Anglia, England
- The Continental Grass Season Germany and Switzerland
- Perth’s Grass Belt Perth, Western Australia
- Adelaide’s Grass Courts Adelaide, South Australia
- The Murray River Grass Trail Victoria and the Murray River
