The Cradle Of Tennis Was Meant To Be Rocky

Then a fourth-generation Newport cottager, James H. Van Alen, came to the fore. A wealthy, indefatigable worker for a variety of causes, whose activities included captaining the 1924 tennis team at Cambridge University, England, Van Alen was elected the Casino's president in 1952, and rescue operations began. In 1954 he obtained the USLTA's sanction to establish the Tennis Hall of Fame at the Casino. He had it in business by the next year, and nearly every year since he has seen that appropriate people are named to its roster—with accompanying publicity for the Casino. He has also established a solid financial base for both the Hall and the Casino. From his office as president of the Hall of Fame's corporation, a title he assumed in 1957, Van Alen has been able to induce many of the Casino's shareholders to donate their Casino holdings to the Hall of Fame. By 1960 the Hall of Fame thus controlled more than 51% of the shares and by March of 1968 it owned 75% of them.

Van Alen has had all the Casino buildings and grounds spruced up, has leased out the theater-ballroom—a longtime white elephant—to a community group fostering the performing arts, and has improved the tennis setup from a spectator's viewpoint. He also has moved to give the place a more democratic mien, though not too much so. In 1965 he put on a tournament for professional players at the Casino, in addition to the regular amateur invitational.

Not all the Van Alen innovations have been totally accepted by the cottagers but none can deny that he has made the Casino once more a going concern, and that is what the crusty Bennett, a businessman before everything else, wanted most of all.

As for Captain Candy, the man responsible, he seems to have ridden straight off to oblivion.