Mountain Lake

Mountain Lake sits within one of Florida's first planned winter communities, established around 1915 by real-estate developer Frederick Ruth in Lake Wales. To design the golf course, Ruth and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. hired Seth Raynor, and the result became one of Raynor's earliest solo commissions. The course opened in two stages: today's holes 1-6 and 16-18 came into play on January 1, 1917, with Raynor returning around 1920 to build the middle holes, 7-15, which opened in 1921. True to his craft, Raynor routed his signature template holes into the property, including a Punchbowl, a Sahara, a Redan, and a Road hole, alongside original designs, across roughly 6,600 yards of firm, subtly contoured Bermuda greens. More than a century on, Mountain Lake remains a quietly revered example of early American strategic architecture and has undergone careful restoration to protect Raynor's original intent.