At Green Valley, many happy returns

The novelist Joe Samuel Starnes forsook Philadelphia's Fishtown so he could live closer to Westmont's Green Valley Tennis Club.

"I live about a mile from here," Starnes, 48, says. "I'm very fortunate to have found this place. I've made the best group of friends here, on and off the court."

His third commercially published work of fiction is set in rural Georgia; it's not a roman a clef about Green Valley. But as I quickly learn during the private club's open house Saturday, Green Valley has stories to tell, too.

"Frank, may he rest in peace, was an absolutely wonderful man," says Jerry Ehrlich, recalling Frank J. Verdi, the Haddonfield dental surgeon who founded Green Valley.

The club opened on former farmland just off busy Crystal Lake Avenue in 1977, offering a sylvan setting and Har-Tru courts.

Also known as green clay, Har-Tru is easier on the knees (and other joints) and radiates far less heat than more common playing surfaces. Older players in particular love its user-friendliness.

"The first time I played here, it was so great, I joined right away," says Ehrlich, 80, a retired Cherry Hill pediatrician.

"The club had almost 200 members right away," says Vernon Oberholtzer, 76, a Haddonfield resident who works in corporate finance.

When Green Valley opened, these two elder statesmen note, tennis was booming and other South Jersey clubs were not accepting new members. For several years in the 1980s, Green Valley also had to turn people away.

Verdi died in 1992 (the clubhouse is named for him) and membership now stands at 130. The club is eager to attract new players; hence the open house.

"We have a gold mine - a clay-court club in a beautiful setting," vice president Marie Kimmel says.

"I'm the rush chairman," quips Don Newby, a construction manager from Gibbsboro who frequently recruits newcomers.

"Har-Tru is the attraction, because of these," he says, pointing to his knees. "I've been playing for probably 30 years, four or five times a week."

The atmosphere is competitive, but convivial, say members.

"There's a bond. It's like a family," says Diane Bonnano, a Florence Township resident and member for 13 years.

"I've made a lot of good friends here," adds the retired Trenton public school art teacher, who is on hand for the open house despite a broken ankle.

The injury was not tennis-related; Bonnano hopes to be back on the courts in August.

Most of the folks I talk to say they play several times a week and also compete in U.S. Tennis Association amateur leagues.

"Players are a bit higher-caliber here than at other clubs," says Dan Flamini, a housing executive and Haddon Heights resident. He was 12 when he began to play tennis; now he's 54.

"This club is where I refined my game," Cherry Hill businesswoman Anita Schultz, 76, says. She's at the club several times a week and also walks three miles a day.

"I try to stay as active as I can," she adds.

Emily Reynolds, an office manager from Marlton, explains the appeal of the game this way:

"You come here and kind of forget about everything for a while."

Not that the club is a spa, mind you; the thwunk of tennis balls is constant, and players are in motion on all nine courts.

Starnes, meanwhile, sits at a table under a tree, autographing and selling copies of his latest book, Red Dirt - A Tennis Novel (Breakaway Books, 2015).

"I love this place," he says. "It's like a real good community of friends."

Voorhees resident Paul Buckman, 68, a semiretired courier, loves it too.

He's played tennis more than 40 years and has no plans to stop.

But when that happens, he quips, "I want them to spread my ashes around Green Valley Tennis Club."