Real Club de la Puerta de Hierro (), commonly known as Puerta de Hierro, is a private country club based in Madrid, Spain. It owes its name to the nearby iron memorial arch. CincoDías EL PAÍS Well known for being associated with the royal families of Europe and the long-established elite. American president Gerald Ford called it "the club of kings and the king of clubs".
It was established in 1895 as a polo club by a group of prominent noblemen led by the 16th Duke of Alba, with avid support from the then young king of Spain, Alfonso XIII. Along with the Ritz Hotel, it was founded in an effort to overtake the most luxurious venues of London and Paris. Vanity Fair In 1904, Harry Colt and Tom Simpson designed in the club what was to become mainland Spain's first golf course, "el de arriba" (the upper). Ten Golf: El club de golf más antiguo de España cumple 125 años (Puerta de Hierro is the second oldest in Spain, after Real Club de Golf of Las Palmas, founded 1891, but is the oldest in mainland Spain) In 1966, Robert Trent Jones Jr. and John Harris designed the second course, "el de abajo" (the lower), while Kyle Phillips was the architect of a third short nine-hole links. The golf courses at Puerta de Hierro have hosted the Spain Open, Madrid Open, the 1970 Eisenhower Trophy, the 1981 Vagliano Trophy and the 2025 St Andrews Trophy, and are considered "one of the finest and most classic courses in continental Europe". Besides golf, the club has a long-recorded history and sections in the fields of equestrianism, polo, tennis, padel and croquet.
Puerta de Hierro is well known for its strict membership policy. For over half a century, admission has remained closed. Only sons, daughters and spouses of existing members are allowed to join (the latter lose their status as members if they divorce). The club has been subsequently referred to as "the most exclusive and segregated club not only in Spain, but possibly in the world, where one can fraternize with the restrictive high society of Madrid". Groucho Marx's phrase, "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member" has been used to describe the club's highly sought-after membership.Hello! No. 1030 - 22 July 2008 p. 11
History
Early days
In 1876, a 19-year-old Alfonso XII ordered the construction of Madrid's first polo field at the Real Casa de Campo, at the time property of the crown. The main hypothesis behind this impulse points at the then Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), who during a visit to Madrid in late April 1876 mentioned the game to the king for the first time. The Prince of Wales had just returned from Colonial India, where he had witnessed one of the first official matches of polo, between a British garrison and the local Manipurs. Such was the enthusiasm of the future king Edward VII that his relative Alfonso was immediately captivated upon hearing his anecdotes.
The sport of polo was relatively new to Western Europeans; in 1872, the Marquess of Torre Soto founded the "Jerez Polo Club" in Jerez de la Frontera while The Hurlingham Club published the official rules in 1873. The Duke of Tamames, who had been educated in England, was also one of the main pioneers of polo in Spain. Another important factor in the popularisation of the game was the great amount of business that British entrepreneurs were involved with in Spain, mainly transportation, sherry and mining i.e. Río Tinto, Osborne Group or González Byass. This common exposure to the British 'passe-temps' and colonies introduced in Spain not only polo but also golf and tennis.
Young Alfonso XII, who had studied at Sandhurst, commissioned his admired equestrian teacher colonel Hamley to issue him with the newly published rules of Hurlingham. The king played polo up until his premature death in 1885, establishing the sport definitively amongst the upper classes of Spain. With the closure of the pitch at Casa de Campo as a result of the king's death, his close group of friends started playing polo in a large grassland in what is now Moratalaz in 1893. This group of enthusiasts comprised the dukes of Arión and Santoña and the marquesses of Larios, Villamejor and San Felices de Aragón.
With the constantly growing devotion towards the game in Madrid, the idea of founding a club was more plausible than ever. This way, on 5 May 1895, the Duke of Alba established what was then called "Madrid Polo Club". Amongst the first board members were the Duke of Santoña, the Duke of Arión and the Count of Torre Arias, with the Queen Regent as honorary president. During the first board of the club, Spain played its first international polo game between the newly founded society and the Gibraltar Garrison Polo Club, in Granada, the 21st July 1897. The Spanish side included the brothers Leopoldo, José and Ernesto Larios and the Duke of Arión. The components of the English side are unknown, but it is most likely that they were officers of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders, which were posted in Gibraltar during the time.
Around the same time, Alfonso XIII, who had been born king, was not yet 10 years old. Despite his young age, his delicate health had prompted his mother the Queen Regent to ensure he practised many outdoor sports, and so the king had become a prolific horseman. A decade later, in 1908, he played polo in public for the first time, becoming the first monarch of the modern age to do so. The young king had also become a keen golfer in England, and thus decided a 9-hole golf course be built in the Madrid Polo Club. In 1901, the course was inaugurated and became extremely popular, with figures such as Prince Carlos and his brother Prince Raniero being frequent players.
In 1907, the golf course had been so successful that the 391 members of the time acquired a larger estate known as "las Cuarenta Fanegas", making reference to the 40 fanegas of land that the Duke of Ahumada had granted for the construction of a garrison of the Guardia Civil in the mid 19th century. It was located near present-day Santiago Bernabéu Stadium. With the considerable growth of golf within the club, it began to take the name of "Madrid Polo-Golf Club". For the design of the new course (the first 18-hole in the country), the board elected John Henry Taylor as architect. Not much is known today about this primitive course, other than its deep bunkers and the ring-like greens baptised then as bullrings, a uniqueness that the "American Golfer" magazine portrayed in one of its issues in April 1914. The clubhouse resembled a British-Indian bungalow.
With the addition of lawn-tennis (on the lines of the Real Sociedad de Tenis de la Magdalena) in 1912, the club searched for larger terrains to cater for the new sport and the rapidly growing memberships. King Alfonso XIII offered some land in Monte del Pardo belonging to Heritage of the Crown for the symbolic price of 1,000 annual pesetas for a period of 20 years. The new terrain was situated near Puerta de Hierro, a triumphal arch built by Ferdinand VI in 1753. The transfer of all the facilities and members to the new location proved difficult. Back then, very few people had cars, the road to Puerta de Hierro was muddy and out of reach for those living in the city, which represented the great majority of members. Allegedly, the king had to speak to several influential members so that they would convince the rest to move out to the new terrains, claiming "it is an act of patriotism, since Madrid needs a country club that the best of those existing abroad would not surpass at all". Once there was consensus, the members planned the funding of the construction of new facilities, which was wholly out of members' donations. The most significant contributions were made by the Queen Mother, who gave 8,160 pesetas (according to the archives of the Royal Palace of Madrid), and eight unnamed members who provided more than 500,000 pesetas altogether. The Duke of Alba, who was the president at the time, managed to return half of what was lent by 1931, year in which he resigned.
The club subsequently took the name of the monument when the lease of grounds was signed on 8 July 1912, and added the prefix real (royal) along with the Royal Crown on bestowal of king Alfonso XIII, thus becoming "Real Club de la Puerta de Hierro".
Rapid growth
After the contract was signed, works on the club began rather quickly. In almost two years, the construction of an eighteen-hole golf course, el de arriba (the upper), as well as a full size polo pitch and several tennis courts were finalised. The course was designed by Harry Colt taking advantage of the naturally occurring geographical accidents, featuring few bunkers and slightly shorter hole distances brought about by the firmness of the ground which maintained the ball rolling for longer. The architect stated that "it would be hard to find a space with more natural inclinations for marvelous greens to be built than this place".
The club started to grow "with splendour" despite the severe effects of the Spanish–American War, followed by brief economic prosperity resulting from Spain's neutrality during World War I. In 1919, Alba wrote a letter to Colt expressing the unprecedented expansion that the club was going through. The three hundred members of 1913 had more than doubled. Reforms had to be made to increase the club house in size and the entry fee for new members raised. Puerta de Hierro introduced a "pay for use" policy whereby members had an extra fee for each sport they desired to play; 180 pesetas for those wishing to use the golf and tennis facilities and 350 for polo. Foreigners paid 50 pesetas monthly, but were exempt from any entry fee.
The Roaring Twenties also left their imprint on the club. Although the socio-political situation was starting to shake with the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, Puerta de Hierro continued celebrating all sorts of flamboyant dinners and parties. From 1917, dancing events until dawn were relatively common to the extent that many of them were organized at the Ritz Hotel. Social sporting events and gymkhanas also continued to take place, with the regular attendance of members of the royal families of Europe. The club had positioned itself as one of the common stops for foreign diplomacy and reigning monarchs as they visited Madrid. Ambassadors were automatically given temporary memberships, many of them using the club to take their respective heads of state for lunch or sport. Even today, most ambassadors are still granted memberships during their time in office.
During the 1920s and 1930s, several prominent figures were frequent guests at Puerta de Hierro, most notably the kings of Sweden and Greece and the princes of Piedmont, Ligne and Wales (this last one being a usual member). Douglas Fairbanks visited the club on two occasions: in October 1933, when he had lunch with the then president, Portago, and a second in March 1936 with his new wife, Sylvia Ashley.
King Gustaf V of Sweden, who played tennis in Cannes with several club members, used to visit Puerta de Hierro during his stays in Madrid. On 27 April 1927, the ambassador of Spain to Sweden, the Count of San Esteban de Cañongo, organized a lunch in his honour in the main hall. In the afternoon, the king played a doubles tennis match.
War years