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.<\/p>\n
For those who grew up in central Westmoreland County in the 1980s and \u201990s, that peaceful, wooded sanctuary was the backdrop of a summer Saturday night at Charlie\u2019s Ballgame in Unity.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s are on a mission to revitalize and restore the beloved business to its former glory.<\/p>\n
Tom and Lisa Bihon, 56 and 58, were reminded in 2021 of their years at Charlie\u2019s \u2014 for Tom, practicing his swing at the batting cages, and for Lisa, playing mini golf with friends.<\/p>\n
While visiting their daughter at her J. Leigh Nails salon in Unity\u2019s Oakley Park plaza, the Bihons took a walk behind the office and retail complex. The quick stroll revealed the couple\u2019s childhood hangout spot \u2014 disguised by brambles, weeds and fallen tree limbs.<\/p>\n
The concrete base of all 36 mini golf holes \u2014 once topped with putting green carpet \u2014 appeared largely unaffected by 17 years\u2019 worth of harsh weather and abandonment, Tom Bihon said, drawing on his background in construction work.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018Well, it\u2019s all still in really good shape. I don\u2019t think it would be a lot to bring this back to life,\u2019 \u201d Lisa Bihon said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
New owners aim
\nto maintain Charlie\u2019s \u2018vibe\u2019<\/p>\n
The idea remained dormant for about four years, popping into the Bihons\u2019 conversations every so often.<\/p>\n
That changed this past winter when the couple decided to revitalize Charlie\u2019s Ballgame. They signed a lease for the property \u2014 owned by Patrick DiCesare \u2014 last month, and Country Farms Garden Center and Landscape Service began the cleanup, Lisa Bihon said.<\/p>\n
Oakley Park shoppers pausing to glance at the property will catch a glimpse of the business\u2019s former life.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cC,\u201d paying homage to the business\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
Moss sits atop the ticket booth\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
The Bihons are still brainstorming what they want the refurbished Charlie\u2019s Ballgame \u2014 which will be renamed Charlie\u2019s Hideout Putt & Hit \u2014 to look like. But it is important to the couple that they maintain the feeling visitors of the 1980s and \u201990s experienced. <\/p>\n
Birthday parties, weekend food trucks, delivery from a local pizza shop and ice cream sandwiches named after the Bihons\u2019 grandchildren \u2014 Maverick, Nash, Lenox and a fourth on the way \u2014 are among the ideas the couple has discussed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019m going to put my own twist on it,\u201d Lisa Bihon said. \u201cI want to keep the same vibe they had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charlie\u2019s \u2018was always packed\u2019<\/p>\n
James Wiley Hartman III, a prominent Westmoreland County entrepreneur who preferred to go by his middle name, opened the first iteration of Charlie\u2019s \u2014 the Tee-Putt-In \u2014 in 1956, according to Hartman\u2019s obituary. At the time, it was an 18-hole mini golf course located where the Oakley Park retail building sits, said Jocelyn Petrosky, Hartman\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s honor.<\/p>\n
The brothers expanded the business to include an additional 18-hole course and seven batting cage slots. It was accompanied by one of Hartman\u2019s other business ventures: the Sorry Charlie restaurant.<\/p>\n
Petrosky, 54, of Unity, began working at Charlie\u2019s Ballgame when she was 14 years old. She spent her summers running children\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like in the \u201980s and \u201990s, it was definitely a place to come and hang out on the weekends,\u201d Petrosky said. \u201cIt was always packed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petrosky took ownership of Charlie\u2019s and the Oakley Park plaza upon her father\u2019s death from congestive heart failure in March 2004 at age 71. She sold the properties 17 years later.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the person who designed the courses, took care of everything,\u201d she said of her father, \u201cand 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opening date unclear<\/p>\n
Petrosky watches the Bihons restore her father\u2019s old business from the Berkshire Hathaway office in Oakley Park, where she sells real estate. The office building formerly housed the Sorry Charlie restaurant.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be nice to have my kids come and possibly play on their grandfather\u2019s course,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Word of the business\u2019s return, announced on the Charlie\u2019s 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\u2019s daughters.<\/p>\n
\u201cBringing (Charlie\u2019s) back is flooding memories for everybody,\u201d said Boe, 30, of Irwin. \u201cThe Facebook page has been blowing up. I knew it would be big, but I didn\u2019t think it would blow up like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is unclear when Charlie\u2019s Hideout will be ready to open to the public, Lisa Bihon said. An opening date will be announced on their social media pages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The crack of baseball bats and tap of miniature golf clubs once formed a symphony with chirping crickets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-768491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}