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Tennis in Highlands
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: September - 2022
Tennis was certainly more formal and perhaps a bit freer in Highlands’ early days.
Tennis was certainly more formal and perhaps a bit freer in Highlands’ early days.“The rage might be Pickleball today, but in the early1900s just about everybody in Highlands had a tenniscourt in their own yard.”Isabel ChambersTravel back to the late Victorian Era. Playing tennis was apopular pastime. Ladies wore long dresses and wide-brimmedhats to protect porcelain skin. They were accompanied bymustachioed gentlemen in shirts, vests, and ties, their headstopped in straw hats, and legs decked out in knickers. Allplayers carried unwieldy wooden racquets. They politely tappedthe clunky ancestor of today’s tennis ball on a painfully slow,uneven clay court. But that’s what made it fun.In the summer, Highlands residents planned their days aroundan early morning tennis game, a leisurely lunch, an afternoontea social or cocktail party, and an evening dinner party.Tennis devotees didn’t play at the golf or tennis club. Thereweren’t any then. Eateries were practically non-existent, sodining rotated house-to-house.Isabel Chambers recalls playing on her grandparent’s court. “Inthe late 1800s my grandparents owned the Hall House between5th, Chestnut, and 6th – a whole square block. There was anInn where many spent summers. My grandmother cooked andlooked after summer residents, organizing picnics, parties, anddances. In that block was a lake, dance pavilion, skeet shooting,a tennis court and more. Years later, on Sunday afternoons mycousins, aunts, and uncles from Atlanta would spend weekendssitting by the courts and playing tennis all afternoon. They’dpause for watermelon, and I’d chase balls.”Maintaining clay courts was a challenge. Court owners had a barrel-roller containing heavy sand or water to flatten thecourt. Isabel says, “Someone had a small steam roller. Iwould drive it and flatten a court so friends and I could play.”To mark court lines, cloth tapes were fastened down.Players tripped or accidentally rearranged them.People often removed them and drew lines with a stick.Tall poles topped with chicken wire served as errantlob-stoppers.Tennis shifted from private courts to a town court inthe 50s when Tony Chambers, Isabel’s husband, becamethe first director of the rec park at the Old HighlandsSchool. He hung a net on the basketball court and voila!the locals had a place to play. Isabel chuckled and said,“What was good enough for basketball was good enoughfor tennis!”
by Donna Rhodes
