The crack of baseball bats and tap of miniature golf clubs once formed a symphony with chirping crickets and a trickling creek, offering a quiet escape from busy Route 30.
For those who grew up in central Westmoreland County in the 1980s and ’90s, that peaceful, wooded sanctuary was the backdrop of a summer Saturday night at Charlie’s Ballgame in Unity.
The two 18-hole miniature golf courses and seven batting cage slots closed in 2004 after a 20-year run. Now, a New Alexandria couple who forged fond childhood memories at Charlie’s are on a mission to revitalize and restore the beloved business to its former glory.
Tom and Lisa Bihon, 56 and 58, were reminded in 2021 of their years at Charlie’s — for Tom, practicing his swing at the batting cages, and for Lisa, playing mini golf with friends.
While visiting their daughter at her J. Leigh Nails salon in Unity’s Oakley Park plaza, the Bihons took a walk behind the office and retail complex. The quick stroll revealed the couple’s childhood hangout spot — disguised by brambles, weeds and fallen tree limbs.
The concrete base of all 36 mini golf holes — once topped with putting green carpet — appeared largely unaffected by 17 years’ worth of harsh weather and abandonment, Tom Bihon said, drawing on his background in construction work.
“He said, ‘Well, it’s all still in really good shape. I don’t think it would be a lot to bring this back to life,’ ” Lisa Bihon said.
New owners aim
to maintain Charlie’s ‘vibe’
The idea remained dormant for about four years, popping into the Bihons’ conversations every so often.
That changed this past winter when the couple decided to revitalize Charlie’s Ballgame. They signed a lease for the property — owned by Patrick DiCesare — last month, and Country Farms Garden Center and Landscape Service began the cleanup, Lisa Bihon said.
Oakley Park shoppers pausing to glance at the property will catch a glimpse of the business’s former life.
A poster of a boy holding a golf club and leaning on the end of a baseball bat still hangs on the side of the ticket booth. He dons a red jersey marked only by a white “C,” paying homage to the business’s name.
Moss sits atop the ticket booth’s roof, and the occasional pile of tree debris dots the beds of smooth, gray stones that surround the mini golf holes. Nets and ball return equipment are absent from the batting cages. Seven home plate designs imprinted in the concrete floor mark the spaces where each batter would stand.
The Bihons are still brainstorming what they want the refurbished Charlie’s Ballgame — which will be renamed Charlie’s Hideout Putt & Hit — to look like. But it is important to the couple that they maintain the feeling visitors of the 1980s and ’90s experienced.
Birthday parties, weekend food trucks, delivery from a local pizza shop and ice cream sandwiches named after the Bihons’ grandchildren — Maverick, Nash, Lenox and a fourth on the way — are among the ideas the couple has discussed.
“I think I’m going to put my own twist on it,” Lisa Bihon said. “I want to keep the same vibe they had.”
Charlie’s ‘was always packed’
James Wiley Hartman III, a prominent Westmoreland County entrepreneur who preferred to go by his middle name, opened the first iteration of Charlie’s — the Tee-Putt-In — in 1956, according to Hartman’s obituary. At the time, it was an 18-hole mini golf course located where the Oakley Park retail building sits, said Jocelyn Petrosky, Hartman’s daughter.
In the 1980s, Hartman and his brother, Tom, shifted the course to its present-day location and developed the Oakley Park plaza. The road filtering drivers to the plaza from Route 30 was named Hartman Road in Wiley’s honor.
The brothers expanded the business to include an additional 18-hole course and seven batting cage slots. It was accompanied by one of Hartman’s other business ventures: the Sorry Charlie restaurant.
Petrosky, 54, of Unity, began working at Charlie’s Ballgame when she was 14 years old. She spent her summers running children’s birthday parties and maintaining the courses from noon to 5:30 p.m. Sunday through Saturday. Her sister came in and relieved her for the closing shift.
“I feel like in the ’80s and ’90s, it was definitely a place to come and hang out on the weekends,” Petrosky said. “It was always packed.”
Petrosky took ownership of Charlie’s and the Oakley Park plaza upon her father’s death from congestive heart failure in March 2004 at age 71. She sold the properties 17 years later.
“He was the person who designed the courses, took care of everything,” she said of her father, “and you needed to be mechanical. You needed to understand how to repair all that kind of jazz. We had no knowledge of that. It had a good run and we just decided to close it when he died.”
Opening date unclear
Petrosky watches the Bihons restore her father’s old business from the Berkshire Hathaway office in Oakley Park, where she sells real estate. The office building formerly housed the Sorry Charlie restaurant.
“It’ll be nice to have my kids come and possibly play on their grandfather’s course,” she said.
Word of the business’s return, announced on the Charlie’s Hideout social media pages, has garnered thousands of views and nostalgia-fueled comments from former visitors and workers, said Kylee Boe, one of the Bihon’s daughters.
“Bringing (Charlie’s) back is flooding memories for everybody,” said Boe, 30, of Irwin. “The Facebook page has been blowing up. I knew it would be big, but I didn’t think it would blow up like this.”
It is unclear when Charlie’s Hideout will be ready to open to the public, Lisa Bihon said. An opening date will be announced on their social media pages.