The Riverside Yacht Club, Connecticut is a private, recreational

yacht club A yacht club is a boat club specifically related to yachting. Description Yacht clubs are mostly located by the sea, although there some that have been established at a lake or riverside locations. Yacht or sailing clubs have either a mar ...

located in the Riverside neighborhood of

Greenwich, Connecticut Greenwich ( ) is a New England town, town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it had a population of 63,518. It is the largest town on Gold Coast (Connecticut), Connectic ...

, with access to

Long Island Sound Long Island Sound is a sound (geography), marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York (state), New York to the south. From west to east, ...

. The majority of its members are residents of the surrounding

Greenwich Greenwich ( , , ) is an List of areas of London, area in south-east London, England, within the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London, east-south-east of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime hi ...

neighborhoods of Riverside, Old Greenwich, and Cos Cob. It is the second oldest yacht club in

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

and one of the oldest in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

History

The Riverside Yacht Club was founded in 1888 by George I. Tyson, a prominent and wealthy summer resident of Riverside, CT, and the owner of the yacht ''Nirvana''. Using his own money and waterfront property, Tyson built the original Victorian-style clubhouse in 1889 on the eastern shore of Cos Cob Harbor near the entrance of the

Mianus River The Mianus River is a river in Westchester County, New York, and Fairfield County, Connecticut, in the United States. It begins in the town of North Castle, New York (east of Armonk) in a series of ponds at about altitude. Flowing northeas ...

. Tyson became the first Commodore, a post he held for eight years. The original clubhouse contained a kitchen, ballroom, reading rooms, card rooms, bedrooms, locker rooms, and an expansive wrap-around porch. In 1893, a new addition was constructed, containing a billiard room, shuffleboard area,

bowling Bowling is a Throwing sports#Target sports, target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a bowling ball, ball toward Bowling pin, pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). Most references to ''bowling'' are ...

area, staff housing, and horse sheds. For a short period during the early 1890s, the club met in winter quarters in New York City, and by the late 1920s, the club membership had purchased the property from the Tyson estate. In 1929, construction of the current clubhouse was completed. On September 21, 1938, the

1938 New England hurricane The 1938 New England Hurricane (also referred to as the Great Long Island - New England Hurricane and the Long Island Express) was one of the deadliest and most destructive tropical cyclones to strike the United States. The storm formed near th ...

caused the main and junior clubhouses to flood, with no damage to sailing vessels. Some vessels, but not the clubhouse, were damaged as a result of the 1944 Great Atlantic hurricane. In 1978 and 2013, the clubhouse underwent major renovations.

Cultural references

The Riverside Yacht Club was the subject of ''Low Tide, Riverside Yacht Club'' (1894) by American

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

painter Theodore Robinson.

References

1888 establishments in Connecticut Buildings and structures in Greenwich, Connecticut Clubhouses in Connecticut Sailing in Connecticut Sports clubs and teams established in 1888 Yacht clubs in Connecticut {{Connecticut-sport-team-stub