Pebble Beach Company HistoryPebble Beach Company was founded in 1919 by Samuel Finley Brown Morse, who was a distant cousin of telegraph-inventor Samuel Finley Breese Morse. Morse was a natural leader who had been captain of the national champion 1906 Yale football team and a member of the elite and secretive Skull and Bones for the class of 1907. He was introduced to Pacific Improvement Company through a college classmate who was nephew to William H. Crocker.Del Monte Properties CompanyFive days after the grand opening, Morse formed Del Monte Properties Company and acquired the Del Monte Unit from Pacific Improvement Company. Morse described his purchase to a friend, "The properties include 18, 000 acres of land on the Monterey Peninsula, all of the Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach areas, Del Monte Forest lands ( which are traversed by 17-Mile Drive ), the Los Laureles Rancho ( more commonly called the Del Monte Rancho ), Hotel Del Monte and all improvements, Pebble Beach Lodge and all improvements, and the capital stock of the Monterey County Water Works, which supplies water to the towns of Monterey, Pacific Grove and Carmel." The initial Board of Directors, in addition to Morse, consisted of Herbert Fleishhacker, Jack Beaumont, K. R. Kingsbury, John Barenson, Wellington Gregg, Henry T. Scott, Hugh Goodfellow, Charles W. Clark and G. M. Heckscher.In 1948, Morse appointed his son, John Boit Morse, president of the company to inject some youthful spirit into the operation. The elder Morse continued as chairman of the board. It was during this era that the company sold Hotel Del Monte and constructed offices and a shopping arcade at The Lodge at Pebble Beach.In 1954, Richard Osborne was appointed president. Osborne had married Samuel F. B. Morse's daughter, Mary. Under Osborne, the equestrian lifestyle was revitalized. It was also during the Osborne era that members of the Monterey Peninsula Country Club pooled their resources and bought the club from the company. Osborne also participated in the beginning of the development of Spyglass Hill Golf Course in 1963.In November 1964, Osborne was bumped-up to vice chairman and Aime G. Michaud was added to the board and named president.On May 10, 1969, Samuel F. B. Morse died, ten years after ensuring that easements would preserve hundreds of acres of forest and coastline along the 17-Mile Drive for generations to come, and 50 years after establishing a veritable monument to the power of nature and beauty. Michaud saw getting the U.S. Open as a personal commitment to Morse's goals, and on August 27, 1969, he got the deal done.
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