Deeds and Weeds

Results for January 2010 Back to Deeds and Weeds Index

Sea Island Hires Investment Bank

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 Comments
sea_island-_the_cloister-view.jpgFinancially burdened Sea Island Resorts is hiring an investment bank to review its "strategic options," the Atlanta Business Chronicle is reporting.

Presumably those options include a sale of the Georgia-based luxury resort, which spent more than $500 million on a renovation only to see the economy crumble. The article doesn't name the investment bank.

The resort said the announcement will not affect the Cloister or the Sea Island Lodge or its golf courses, which remain open. The Atlanta Business Chronice article, linked above, has a lot of good background on the resort's difficult finances.

-- P.F.


Posted by Peter Finch
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'Our Timing Could Not Have Been Worse'

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 Comments
highcarolinatiger2.pngThe Wall Street Journal takes a look at the high-end golf developments in and around Asheville, N.C., today -- focusing mainly on the Cliffs Communities property where a certain Tiger Woods is designing a course called the Cliffs at High Carolina.

No surprise, the last 18 months have been a lousy period for all concerned. As Cliffs founder Jim Anthony tells the paper, "Our timing could not have been worse."

He seems to be talking about the real estate market, though one could easily assume Anthony (pictured, with that golf course designer guy) meant his decision to hire Woods.

A local real estate broker tells the paper, "I'm sure the Cliffs will probably change their marketing focus now." Or will it? As the Journal notes, Woods remains on advertising billboards for the Cliffs development. He also continues to appear in a video on the Cliffs web site. "With a wife and two kids, your perspective in life changes," he says. "I want to come up here as often as I possibly can."

-- P.F.



Posted by Peter Finch
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Cher's Hualalai Home Sells for $8.7 Million

Saturday, January 23, 2010 Comments
The entertainer Cher sold her house on the golf course of the Hualalai Resort on the Big Island of Hawaii this week, and she didn't do too badly.

The house -- on .75 acres, with 8,800 square feet, six bedrooms and a view of the Jack Nicklaus designed layout (which is hosting this week's Champions Tour event, the Mitsubishi Electric Championship) and the Pacific Ocean -- sold for $8.7 million. Reports had it valued at between $8 and $12 million.

The Honolulu Advertiser has the story here.

-- G.R.
Posted by Geoff Russell
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Golf Houses For $100 Million

Friday, January 22, 2010 Comments
Now this was kind of a fun article, even if it has no basis in reality -- at least not my own. TheStreet.com, using figures provided by the real estate website Zillow.com, has a list of homes in the U.S. for sale for the staggering price of $75 million and up.

Two of them have a golf connection. 

The first is "Tranquility," a 10,000 square-foot on 210 acres near California's Lake Tahoe. Built by Joel Horowitz, "one of the co-founders of Tommy Hilfiger," the house has a staircase modeled after one that was on the Titanic, a cigar lounge inspired by one at New York's St. Regis Hotel and -- outside -- a two-hole golf course. Asking price: $100 million.

The second is Albemarle House in Charlottesville, Va. The house has 45 rooms and more than 25,000 square feet, and it is the centerpiece of a 300-acre property with three ponds, guest cottages and -- ta-da -- an 18-hole golf course designed by Arnold Palmer. The catch is that the course hasn't actually been built yet, which -- in our opinion -- makes the $100 million price tag seem a little steep.

-- G.R.
Posted by Geoff Russell
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Remington Ranch Files Chapter 11

Friday, January 22, 2010 Comments
Central Oregon's Remington Ranch, an ambitious, 2,000-acre golf community that was to include three courses, 800 homes and 400 overnight units, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the Bend Bulletin is reporting.

The club halted construction on its first course, a Tom Doak design known as Wicked Pony, back in 2007. Only nine holes were complete. Its bank withdrew its commitment back then and the developers have been unable to line up new financing.

Project manager Chris Pippin sounds like he's doing his best not to get discouraged. “We still continue to have a lot of faith in the local real estate market and national real estate market,” he told the paper. “I think the problem is more with the credit and capital markets than in the real estate market.”

-- P.F.


Posted by Peter Finch
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Chambers Bay Getting Hotel, Clubhouse?

Thursday, January 21, 2010 Comments
Washington's Chambers Bay is hosting the 2015 U.S. Open (and before that, the 2011 U.S. Amateur), so there is no time like the present to build a proper clubhouse, hotel and other accoutrements the place will need to host a big-time event.

James Burkhouse is a former University Place, Wash., resident, who as a youth played on the beach near the gravel mine that eventually became the site of Chambers Bay. He is now president of Ventur-Hospitality, a hotel and resort development company based in Bruno, Calif., that has the contract to build a clubhouse, a hotel, a retail center and other facilities at Chambers Bay. Burkhouse is still trying to secure financing for the project.

The Tacoma News-Tribune has a story about Burkhouse and the Chambers Bay project here.

-- G.R.
Posted by Geoff Russell
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Golf Vs. The $16,000 Lunch

Thursday, January 21, 2010 Comments
clubhouse05.jpgThe Wall Street Journal's John Paul Newport has a nice piece on modest-sized clubhouses (as opposed to the overstuffed kind that have been a huge financial drag on so many clubs lately).

He quotes Joe Webster, who developed and manages the Dye Preserve in Jupiter, Fla., as saying: "Most clubs that are open for dinner at night are losing seven figures on their food and beverage operations."

Dye Preserve is one of four newish high-end clubs cited by Newport for their "understated" clubhouses. The others are Whisper Rock in Arizona, Chechessee Creek Club in South Carolina (pictured) and Dallas National.

Webster runs some thought-provoking numbers for Newport. Quoting from his article:

"Mr. Webster said that a typical golf club with 300 members might spend $1.5 million a year on course maintenance, or $5,000 per member. 'Everything you pay in dues above that is basically so you can have lunch,' he said. Lunch is his shorthand for the cost of supporting a kitchen, other services such as the locker rooms, and clubhouse staff -- essentially, all the non-golf amenities that a club offers.


"Dues at Dye Preserve, which has a 15,000 square-foot clubhouse (and is not open for dinner), are $9,000 a year. 'So that's $4,000 for lunch,' he said. A nearby club in Jupiter, with a 50,000-square-foot clubhouse plus a pool and tennis, charges $21,000 in dues. 'So those members are paying $16,000 to eat and for the other stuff,' he said. Yet another club in the area, built in the go-go 1990s as a real-estate play, has a 100,000-square-foot clubhouse and is operating under bankruptcy protection."

-- P.F.

 

Posted by Peter Finch
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$30 Million Investment Selling For $3 Million

Thursday, January 21, 2010 Comments
spring creek ranch.jpgFinancier R. Allen Stanford's half interest in Spring Creek Ranch Golf Club, a Jack Nicklaus design near Memphis, may be sold for $3 million, Bloomberg reports. Stanford had invested $30 million in the project. The sale was requested by a court-appointed receiver in charge of recovering money for Stanford investors.

The buyer would be the Meyer family, which already owns the other half of the club and which agreed to cover Stanford's share of its operating deficit. (Last year the operating deficit amounted to $1.4 million.)

The article quotes an adviser from real estate firm CB Ellis as saying "most golf courses have lost 30 percent to 50 percent of their value since 2007."

Stanford has been accused of defrauding investors of $7 billion through the sale of bogus certificates of deposit, charges he denies. Bloomberg says Stanford has fought the sale of his assets before his trial, which is set to begin in January 2011.

-- P.F.


Posted by Peter Finch
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A $60 Charge For What?!

Thursday, January 14, 2010 Comments
clubhouse-nathan.jpgHere's an unusual one: Homeowners in the Legends Ranch community outside Houston have been paying $5 a month  to maintain a golf club that many of them never use -- chiefly because it's 41 miles away. Now, one of them is mad enough about it he' s suing.

David Manchester, a non-golfer, tells KHOU TV that the community's developer added the $60 annual charge to benefit Houston National Golf Club, a 27-hole facility operated by the same developer, Land Tejas. (That's the clubhouse, at right.)

“There are some areas of the budget that just don’t pass the smell test,” Manchester told the TV station. “This money is supposed to be used for maintenance and upkeep of the community.” An attorney for the homeowners association said he hadn't seen the complaint and couldn't comment.

-- P.F.


Posted by Peter Finch
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Byron Nelson Championship Site Faces Foreclosure

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 Comments
The Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas -- better known to this audience as the home of the PGA Tour's HP Byron Nelson Championship -- was the subject of a foreclosure filing today in Dallas.

According to reports, the facility's creditor, U.S. Bank NA, "is seeking repayment of a $183 million loan on the property" from the resort's owner, Los Angeles-based BentleyForbes, "and has scheduled a forced sale on Feb. 2."

The Dallas Morning News called the foreclosure filing "the largest in North Texas in more than 20 years." The newspaper's story on the filing is here. The Dallas Business Journal's report is here.

Of course -- as in many foreclosure and bankruptcy proceedings -- three words are being used to describe the activity at the facility in question: business as usual.

"We do not expect any change in our day-to-day operations or services," Las Colinas Four Seasons general manager Michael Newcombe told the Dallas Morning News. "We are proud of the nearly $60 million in improvements that our owners have made to our property over the past two years."

-- G.R.
Posted by Geoff Russell
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