The Westwood Country Club or “The Westwood” is a country club located in Williamsville, New York. The Westwood was founded in 1945 by 200 members who paid an initiation fee of two hundred dollars, The certificate of incorporation for “The Westwood” was signed by the nine “Directors” on March 14, 1945 and stated that the purpose of the club was to “organize, equip, operate and manage a Country Club for the pleasure and recreation of its members, and in connection therewith to maintain a club house, golf course, tennis courts, swimming pool and any and all means of recreation which its’ Directors may consider advisable.”


While the Westwood Country Club began in the 1940s, its roots lie in two predecessor Jewish Country Clubs at the same geographic site: Willowdale Country Club and the Wilmont Town and Country Club. The Willowdale Country Club was organized in 1919 and began operation two years later in 1921 with a nine-hole golf course in a lot on Sheridan Drive near North Forest in what was then a pastoral setting in Williamsville. It was established in a wider period of country club building and boom in Buffalo during the 1920s and was also initiated in response to the difficulties Jewish applicants had in gaining entry into other established Country Clubs in Greater Buffalo. Within a decade, Willowdale had raised enough money to build a formal mock Tudor style clubhouse that opened in 1928, and remains in use by the current Westwood Country Club (with building additions). The Wall Street Crash and subsequent Great Depression saw revenues plummet dramatically as many members relinquished memberships due to financial hardship. In an effort to save both the Willowdale and the Montefiore Club (a Jewish Men’s City Club based in Buffalo), the two combined to create the Wilmont Town and Country Club, a name formed out of a combination of their distinct entities. This action was not enough for Willowdale however, and for a few years the Country Club ceased to operate while the Montefiore Club resumed its independence.


During the early 1930s the site was opened as the Blossom Heath Country Club, with ownership based in Chicago, Illinois. After WWII, the club revived and emerged as the Westwood Country Club (WCC), working in cooperation with the Forest Road Corporation (FRC) that owns the land and leases it to the WCC for a nominal fee. In 1995, “The Westwood” celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a Presidential Ball.