Innovation, Imagination
Drive Designer George’s Style
From cars to courses, architect Lester George brings passion and panache to his projects
by ARTHUR UTLEY, Photography by SCOTT K. BROWN
FOR RICHMOND-BASED
GOLF COURSE ARCHITECT
LESTER GEORGE, every project
has its own unique story.
Each project is a personal endeavor.
There are highs and lows; sweet spots and
disappointments.
And there’s the mantra: an architect’s best
course is his next course.
Lester George thought he wanted to be an
orthopedic surgeon, but he was so interested
in golf history, “I thought I ought to figure out
a way to be an architect.”
George formed Colonial Golf Design Inc.
in 1991 after spending four years working
with another designer, Algie Pulley Jr. Over
time, Colonial Golf Design has evolved into
George Golf Design.
“I started my business to do renovation
and restoration because I just couldn’t foresee
at the time that anybody would come to
me and say, ‘Master plan me a 7,000-acre
”
community,’ George says. “I didn’t have
the experience and probably wasn’t the right
candidate for that. However, I have done
10,000-acre projects since.”
SERVICE PLANTS SEEDS
Born in Wiesbaden, Germany, and brought
up in a military family, George received a
bachelor of science degree from the University
of Richmond in 1977. While at UR in the
ROTC program, he became adept at reading
maps. He was assigned to field artillery school
where he could demonstrate that skill.
With field artillery, “You’ve got to look at a
big piece of property … I could read terrain,”
George says. “I’m very comfortable with it. I’ve
always been able to see it before it was built,
assimilate and draw it the way I want it built.”
George served four years as an Army
artillery officer, earned a master’s degree from
the U.S. Army Command and General Staff
College in 1998 and retired from the Army
Reserves as a lieutenant colonel in 2003.
“I think my military background got me
in those first doors [as an architect]. I had
that package of the engineering side. A lot of
designers do it differently. They go out and
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Lester George owns a rare Riviera Gran Sport.
look at it, feel it and touch it until they can
move it around and get what they want.”
APPRECIATION FOR EFFICIENCY,
INFRASTRUCTURE AND CLIENT’S NEEDS
All of George’s projects begin with
topographical maps.
“I feel it, but I like to draw it,” George
says. “I can walk property all day every day,
but until I get that 10,000-foot view and see
the whole picture, drainage from offsite, how
things are affected by coming in or going off
the property, I’m never going to have the
total picture.”
Tom Paul, a golf architecture historian
based in Philadelphia, Pa., and a member
of the U.S. Golf Association’s Architecture
Archive committee, says the difference
between George and most other designers
is “he has the sort of intuitive macro vision of
what is going on not only on the golf course
but the whole site.”
Paul says George and Tom Doak are the
two architects “who can look at a topographical
survey map of a site he’s never seen before and
when he gets there, nothing surprises him.
That is a real talent.”
One of George’s current projects is
Vestavia Country Club in Birmingham, Ala.
It’s a George Cobb layout that will undergo
extensive renovations. George was among 12
architects contacted. Five were interviewed,
and the club chose George.
“There were two things I thought he did
better than everyone else,” says Alan Coshatt,
chairman of the club’s long-range planning
committee and a former Auburn University
teammate of Jason Dufner. “Lester was the
only one that saw the whole picture. Not only
redesigning the golf course, but creating areas
where we could use the club better.
“Probably most importantly was that
we have 1,000 members at our club and at
some point I knew we had to have somebody
who could stand in front of a room and take
poisonous darts from the members for why
we’re changing our golf course. To me the
things that other people maybe find a little
prickly about Lester, I think are probably some
of his greatest assets.
George’s willingness to work with members
and incorporate his own ideas was important.
“We’ve struck a really good cord. We’ve
been going through the process for three
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5/8/15 11:38 AM