“I didn’t know playing on grass was so cool; it was a lot of fun,” Brown, 16, said as she packed her rackets. “Once I got used to the lower bounces, it was fine. I kind of liked how it was different, but still tennis. You have to really think about how you play.

“It’s like I was playing at Wimbledon.”

Grass courts are part of the origins of tennis, but they have been surpassed by hardcourts and clay courts in popularity. There are a handful of major grass-court clubs in the United States, like the West Side Tennis Club in Queens, the Orange Lawn Tennis Club in South Orange, N.J., and the Philadelphia Cricket Club, which have been around for more than 120 years. This week, Newport, R.I., is hosting the only top-level grass tournament in the United States, the ATP Tour’s Hall of Fame Tennis Championships.

“I wanted to bring a new experience, something that tennis players normally don’t get: something sensory, tactile, with a visual element,” said Massie, who is an architect-in-residence at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. “Tennis players don’t get the same sensations as golfers do, with nature as a background, being part of the play in a beautiful place.

“Being on grass brings a whole different dimension to tennis, and that’s what I love so much. People are drawn to this being different.”