This is a story of obsession, of one man’s quest to go back in time and recreate a special place from his youth. While spreading his mother’s remains on the beach, the author fondly recalls his childhood in the place once known as the Chesapeake Ranch Club – a membership club based on the theme of The Old West. Almost nothing familiar remains except the western street names. All the old buildings that once held the special events and amenities have long since vanished. When the author discovers that the summer home his family built there is also gone, his obsession begins. He starts a desperate search for the hidden story of the Ranch Club’s mysterious demise. His exciting search for the people he knew there almost fifty years earlier succeeds due to a series of unbelievable coincidences. He interviews many locals who remember, and who refer him to others to learn more. He finds rare books, brochures, articles, and old aerial photos when all the roads were still dirt. His search for old lost landmarks reads like a detective story, especially uncovering the history of an old manor house that haunted him his entire life. This fast-paced story is told through the eyes of the people who were there; the members, guests, neighbors, and employees who built, ran, and managed the old Ranch Club. In the end, he disproves the theory that you can never go back. Not only has he gone back, he brought along a small army of fascinating people who made the journey with him.
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Wonderful personal journey Wonderful personal memoir. This author’s search prompted by a memory leads to so many renewed acquaintances and to further family memories. He is persistent in his search, and sometimes it’s like peeling an onion in revealing all that lies under it. Thanks, Jeff! I love it, and keep it displayed prominently in both of my condos!
Few of us have a lost ranch club, and even fewer will write about it so well. This is a great story about an exceptional American family, seen through the eyes of its youngest — and likely most articulate — member. Itâs a saga of how they built a vacation paradise with their own hands, how the author grew disenchanted with it as a teenager, and how decades later he rediscovered its charm and embarked on a quest to find the people and the places that created the good times. A quest it is by any measure, and the last half of the book abounds with diligent detective…
We did not have a House, but we did own a Slice of Heaven on Golden West Way. I spent a lot of time at the Ranch Club and Drum Point. This book is an easy read. As a kid, I did not go to camp, I went to the Ranch Club. If you long for the smell salt air wafting through the pine forest, white gas and Old Bay at the campground, gun powder at the rifle range and finding fossils in the surf along the cliffs, then this book is for you. If you fished for bass in Lake Lariat and used the same gear to fish for Blues in the surf at Driftwood Beach, then this is the book for…