ABOUT US
Since its modern-day invention by Major Walter Wingfield in 1873, tennis has become one of the most popular sports in the world—its players, rules and equipment changing with the times.
HAR-TRU surfaces are part of that history. During the 1950s, an engineer named Robert Lee began applying his expertise in building materials to the needs of American tennis. The result was a product that standardized and improved clay courts throughout the United States.
Robert Lee was more than an engineer. He was a champion of the philosophy that all tennis players should have an opportunity to enjoy the rewards and benefits of playing on clay courts, not just the elite. So along with building clay courts, Lee built a foundation of knowledge to help make owning and maintaining a clay court easy and affordable.
Originally, the HAR-TRU brand used a natural green stone mined in Pennsylvania. When Lee found a second source in Virginia, it encouraged him to start his own surfacing business—just in time for the tennis boom of the 1970s. By adding products like sweepers, rollers and drag brushes, LEE Tennis quickly became a one-stop shop for surfacing materials, maintenance equipment, court accessories and court development advice.
When Robert Lee retired in 1997, LEE Tennis was purchased by Luck Stone, a longtime partner and the Virginia-based supplier of stone materials. Luck Stone then acquired the manufacturing assets of the original HAR-TRU material provider and, finally, bought the HAR-TRU brand, a surface associated with some of the finest courts in the world.
|