Balsam Foreclosure Looming?

I posted an item a couple of months about Balsam Mountain Preserve, a high-end community in western North Carolina with an Arnold Palmer-designed golf course. At the time, local homeowners were scrambling to raise money to buy out their biggest lender, which is owed $20 million. The Smoky Mountain News suggests the effort isn't going so well. As its headline puts it, "Foreclosure barrels down on Balsam Mountain Preserve."

A court order last week allows its lender, Greenwich, Conn.-based Trilyn, to move ahead with foreclosure, the paper is reporting. The property, a development of the firm Chaffin/Light (the folks behind Chechessee Creek and Spring Island in South Carolina, among others), is to be sold on the steps of the Jackson County Justice Center in late January or early February.

Two-thirds of the 354 lots in Balsam Mountain Preserve have been sold already, the Smoky Mountain News reports. There are 120 lots left. The golf course, now closed, may eventually be opened for public play.

-- P.F.