NORTHFIELD — For 60 years, the pool now owned by the Northfield Golf Club was an amenity for local residents and, for some years, an attraction for travelers at the Northfield Inn. But now, after four years of operating it at a financial loss, the Northfield Golf Club owners have closed the pool for good and filled it in, turning the space on Hotel Road into a public picnic area.
The Snow family of Leyden bought the Northfield Golf Club in 2014. In a letter posted on the Golf Club’s website in April, Shelby Snow wrote that the family had planned to give themselves four years to make the pool financially viable. They lowered membership fees and improved the concession stand, but, she said, the costs of repeatedly repairing the 60-year-old pool and keeping it up to date with modern legal codes kept it from breaking even.
“At the end of each season we went over what worked,” Snow said, “and at the end of the last season (2017) we realized it just wasn’t going to be a longterm thing. … It just seemed like a more responsible decision to realize that it is what it is.”
The pool was filled in last month and is now accessible to the public as a picnic area. The concession stand is still open. Snow said it will also be used as an event space.
The pool was built in 1957, when the land was part of the Northfield Inn’s property. It was primarily intended for guests of the inn, but residents could buy weekly and season passes, said Ed Finch, who was the inn’s manager from 1957 until it was closed and torn down in 1976. Weekly passes were $100, and season passes were $500.
“Most of the people in town couldn’t afford it,” Finch said.
The property that is now the Northfield Golf Club was consolidated in 1930 under the ownership of the Northfield School for Girls, founded by Dwight L. Moody. The inn had been built in 1888 to accommodate Moody’s popular religious retreats. The adjacent property was owned by Francis Robert Schell, who built his “Northfield Chateau” there. Schell’s property was bought by the school in 1930.
The pool was preceded by Schell Pond, which Schell had created for his Chateau by damming Mill Brook. The pool was built as a replacement for the pond after the dam broke.
In the heyday of the Northfield Inn, Finch said, dinner was brought to the pool buffet-style, and there were entertainment programs on Saturday nights, often a comedy skit or a performance by the Pioneer Valley Regional School band.
“That was quite popular,” Finch said.