Belmont Hills Country Club

Belmont Hills Country Club was designed by Devereaux Emmet and opened in 1924 along the National Road corridor in eastern Ohio. The 18-hole bent-grass layout at 6,276 yards is accompanied by dining, swimming, and tennis facilities.

Belmont Hills Country Club was organized on September 11, 1924, by a group of prominent civic leaders and businessmen from the Ohio Valley area of eastern Ohio, including Otto Giffin, Harry Michener, A.T. Selby, Clyde Anderson, and R.L. Bowman. Within months of that founding meeting, prospective members were informed that a name had been chosen and that the club had purchased a 220-acre farm owned by Otto Rottmeier along what is now National Road West in St. Clairsville, Ohio, the seat of Belmont County. For the design of the golf course, the founding members engaged Devereux Emmet of St. James, New York, one of the leading golf course architects of the early twentieth century. Emmet had established a national reputation for designing courses that blended with natural terrain while providing genuine strategic challenge. His portfolio included courses that hosted U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, and PGA Championship competitions, and bringing his design expertise to Belmont Hills placed the new club in distinguished company. Emmet's design at Belmont Hills utilized the rolling, hilly terrain of eastern Ohio to create a course with natural elevation changes, two-tiered greens, and a layout that demanded accuracy and course management from its players.

The development of the property took three years of planning and construction before the club was ready to receive members in its full capacity. The completed facility included a four-and-a-half-acre lake, tennis courts, and a clubhouse designed to accommodate 400 guests—a substantial investment that reflected the ambitions of the founding membership. The lake became one of the defining features of the property, providing both visual appeal and strategic interest for the golf holes that played near its edges. Belmont County occupies a distinctive section of eastern Ohio, positioned in the hill country that approaches the Ohio River and borders West Virginia to the east. The terrain in this part of the state is more pronounced than in the flatter regions of northwestern Ohio, and Emmet's design at Belmont Hills took full advantage of the natural topography. The rolling hills characteristic of the Belmont County landscape give the course its visual identity and provide the variety in elevation that makes each nine a different physical experience from the other.

The club celebrated its centennial in 2024, marking a hundred years of continuous operation at the original National Road West property. In the decades since its founding, Belmont Hills has served as the primary private golf and social club for St. Clairsville and the surrounding communities of eastern Belmont County. The membership has historically drawn from the business, professional, and civic leadership of the region, and the club has hosted generations of member competitions, social events, and junior golf programs. Devereux Emmet's work at Belmont Hills remains the foundation of the golf experience, and the course's rolling terrain and classic design elements reflect the sensibilities of the early 1920s Golden Age of American golf course architecture. The combination of Emmet's design pedigree, the dramatic natural setting of eastern Ohio's hill country, and the club's century of community history makes Belmont Hills Country Club one of the more historically significant private clubs in the eastern part of the state.