Tucked behind Simmons Plaza in the Barclay Heights section of Saugerties, the Saugerties Bowlers Club is easy to miss.
Inside, the alley feels like a 1960s time capsule: worn maple lanes, molded fiberglass chairs, checkered lockers, old machinery, an open-air snack bar, and a storied bar where live honky-tonk bands sometimes play. Since 1968, when the Houtman family moved its bowling business there from the village, the alley has served as a gathering place for leagues, families, high school bowlers, and longtime regulars.
“I thought when I got into this, that I would retire early because bowling would never stop being popular and someone would be begging to take it over,” said Rob Houtman, the Saugerties-born owner, who also tends the front desk, hands out rental shoes, fixes the lanes, greets bowlers, works with leagues, and shows up on snow days to change the answering machine message.
“I’ve done it for 50 years. It’s still a job,” Houtman said.
Keeping the retro lanes alive has become harder as alleys have shuttered across the region. Houtman said he hopes to retire, though he still takes pride in the fun he has witnessed since his father ran an eight-lane alley in the village of Saugerties in 1965.
Vintage photos, stacks of papers, old equipment, and decades of memories fill Houtman’s office. On the alley’s wall, 6-foot-tall hand-painted Millwood Lanes signs remain from when “Pretty Little Liars” was filmed there.
It is the bowlers of all ages, though, donning colorful bowling shirts in every style, whose sense of community and camaraderie make Saugerties Bowlers Club so special, Houtman said.
“Bowling brings people together. Everyone is part of the venue,” he said.
Bowling has ancient roots, with versions of the sport traced to Egypt, Polynesia, and 16th-century Germany. In the United States, the game became a fixture of civic life in the 1960s and 1970s, fueled by industrialization, union leagues, and alley-building incentives from companies including Brunswick and American Machine and Foundry, where Houtman’s father, Herbert, worked as an installer before buying Riccardi’s alley on Partition Street.
A 1958 report from the American Society of Planning Officials called the bowling alley one of the most important local centers of participant sport and recreation, describing it as “the poor man’s country club.”
“I remember when bowling was the hot topic for people to talk about with their neighbors and at their jobs and I remember when we used to do phone banking to get people to come for free lessons. They would come and get hooked,” Houtman said.
That golden era, when the alley had two leagues in one night, is gone, he said.
Bowling remains relatively affordable compared with many sports, and league bowlers said the social connection is hard to match. Still, since the 1970s, rising land values, changing social habits, cable television, fewer factory jobs, more women in the workforce, and declining league participation have contributed to a steady loss of bowling alleys nationwide.
Bowler’s Journal has reported that 67 million Americans bowl at least once a year at more than 5,000 tenpin bowling centers. At the same time, the number of United States Bowling Congress members in leagues has fallen roughly 90% from about 9.8 million at the end of the 1970s to 1.09 million in 2022-23.
Strikes, Spares, and Social Circles
“It’s a lot like a family here,” said Fred Carey, 38, who has been coming to the lanes since he was 12 and whose son now bowls for Saugerties High School’s team. “You come in not knowing anyone and then they’ve become family.”
Carey bowls in the Thursday night men’s league, when the parking lot fills with pickup trucks, rock music carries through the lanes, and bowlers cheer during the money shot, a weekly challenge that puts one bowler on the spot to see if he can bowl a strike. If he does, he wins a pot of money that grows each week until there is a winner.
Willie Weiss, 62, who has been bowling for 35 years, won the pot this year the first time he was called up.
“It’s the only sport I’m good at. I bowl four nights a week and everyone on my Pocket Pounders team is my best friend so I split the money with the whole team,” he said.
“Make your spares,” said Brandon Brocco, 42. “It’s the key to successful bowling.”
Brocco, a Saugerties resident who owns 12 bowling balls, began in the alley’s junior league and has been bowling for 25 years. This year, he bowled his first three 300 games.
The alley hosts mixed leagues on Monday and Tuesday nights, men’s leagues on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights, junior league on Saturdays, and women’s bowling on Wednesday mornings. Saturday night is the only current time set aside for open bowling.
Houtman said the community is what makes it hard to leave.
“There’s no cockiness. No negativity. All of that is left at the door. It’s all good people. There’s never a fight and Rob’s positive energy is part of the draw,” said Chris Alberts, 50, a Saugerties resident who has been bowling at the lanes for 40 years and now brings his 7-year-old to bowl four or five days a week. “It’s one of these sports you can do for your whole life. It feels the same as it did 40 years ago. Every other sport has changed dramatically.”
Paula Genthner, 78, retired in April after 30 years as secretary and treasurer of the Early Birds league, a women’s league with 16 teams named for birds. Its members range from their 40s to their 90s. Many went to high school together and remember when the lanes first opened.
“When our league started, we had a babysitter in what is now the arcade room, so everyone could come. The only reason people leave is because they’ve moved away, passed away or their health gets in the way. It’s hard to get substitutes because they always want to stay on full-time,” Genthner said.
Lynn Tynan, 78, remembered bowling in the Houtmans’ first alley on Partition Street and said the connection among bowlers has endured.
“We announce birthdays, send cards if someone’s sick or in the hospital and really care about each other like family,” Tynan said.
The group holds an annual Christmas party with a cookie exchange and a grab-bag gift for each strike bowled.
Pat Praetorius, 73, an active leader in the league, was looking forward to April’s end-of-season banquet, where Genthner was honored for her years of leadership. The league’s 23-week season is split in two.
“That way we can have two sets of championship winners,” she said.
The leagues’ reach extends beyond the lanes. Several raise money for local charities through tournaments.
“We have a special bowling day to raise funds for the Komen Center. We get matching donations and all wear pink. Many of our members have had breast cancer,” Genthner said.
The alley also hosts an annual benefit for the Boys & Girls Club, whose building stands where the original Partition Street bowling alley first drew Saugerties residents into the sport.
An Uncertain Future for the Neighborhood Alley
Houtman said he is encouraged by the activity at Saugerties Bowlers Club and by the Saugerties High School bowling team. He believes the sport is seeing renewed interest. Still, the alley has no clear succession plan.
His son, a schoolteacher, is on a different path.
“I’ve been saying I’m near my end for 10 years now. I thought I’d be out by age 50 or 60 but I don’t want to see it close so while I’m still able and can do it, I am. But I’m running out of time,” he said.
Houtman, who lives in a home on Houtman Road that has belonged to his family since 1920, stopped bowling about 20 years ago after being shot. He remains devoted to the alley, but said he looks forward to joining his wife in retirement and spending more time on other interests, including birds and boating.
Regulars hope the lanes survive him.
“I truly hope that whoever eventually buys it one day, that they will keep it as a bowling alley. This town needs it,” Alberts said.
“And they better keep it nostalgic,” Carey said. “If we had the money, we would just get it.”
“Ideally, if I had a pile of money, I would put in string machines that don’t require the same level of maintenance and do some other upgrades and someone else would run it,” Houtman said.
For now, Saugerties Bowlers Club remains easy to miss from the road and hard to replace for those who know where to find it. Behind Simmons Plaza, the old lanes still hold what Houtman and the regulars fear could disappear with them: a place where teenagers, retirees, league bowlers, families, honky-tonk bands, charity tournaments, birthday cards, and friendships continue to gather, one frame at a time.
Chana Widawski is a contributing reporter for The Overlook. Send correspondence to reporting@theoverlooknews.com.