Late last year Wake Forest Golf & Country Club owner Joel Young’s options to keep and develop his property ran out.
In early November the North Carolina Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal from a unanimous decision by the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Young was attempting to require the Wake Forest Board of Commissioners to hear his request to modify the 1999 planned unit development agreement which designated 147 acres of the golf course as open space. He hoped the town would allow him to keep 40 acres as open space and free up the 100-plus acres for residential development.
Because Young’s indebtedness to Branch Bank and Trust Company (BB&T) was “overdue and unpaid,” in the words of the deeds, BB&T foreclosed on the golf course property and sold it in an auction on Dec. 12. BB&T’s Collateral Service Corporation was the high bidder at $1.3 million, and the bank subsequently assigned the bid to Atlas NC II Spe LLC, its holding company whose function is to receive and sell real property. The deeds for these transactions were filed with the Wake County Register of Deeds on Dec. 23.
The bank is planning to market the property.
Along with a new owner, the property has a new address. It is no longer at 13239 Capital Boulevard; the new address is 1200 Club Villas Drive.
Young purchased the country club property, about 200-plus acres at the time, in 1974 for $1.2 million. Since then Young has carved off land for two subdivisions, Country Club Downs on Purnell Road and Riverstone on Jenkins Road, selling them as country club properties.
In 1999 he asked for annexation and was approved for a planned unit development (PUD) in order to sell some land for two townhouse developments, Fairway Villas and Clubhouse Villas. The remaining land, 147 acres, was reserved as open space for the golf course.
Fairways Villas was built, but the owner of the 10 lots for Clubhouse Villas, Bart Buie of Raleigh, had to declare bankruptcy. In 2006, a month after Buie purchased the lots, Young announced he was selling the golf course to Centex Homes. That deal fell through because of outcries from golf course neighbors and because of environmental concerns: the land is in the Falls Lake watershed and Horse Creek, which runs through the back of the property, has wide protective buffers. Buie was unable to build and sell more than two of the single-family homes because of uncertainty about the golf course’s future.
In October of 2007 Young sent a letter to golf club members, saying he would close the course in November. At that time Raleigh realtor Tommy Fonville was said to be interested in buying the property.
Many of those neighbors had formed a group, Concerned Citizens for the Preservation of Wake Forest Golf Course, after Young’s announcement about the Centex sale. In November of 2007 they filed suit, seeking to prevent Young from selling the land for development or changing the use. The suit was later withdrawn.
While that suit was still in court, Young offered the course to the Town of Wake Forest for $2.9 million, considerably less than the $3.8 million he had it listed for sale. The commissioners turned down the offer after a lengthy closed meeting in February of 2008.
Fonville then held meetings with neighbors in the spring of 2008, trying to persuade them his plan for a residential development – a sketchy plan – was a good idea, telling them to try to convince the town to agree to a change in the PUD.
They remained opposed to any development and became furious in early 2009 when the organizers of the North Carolina Renaissance Faire announced the fair would be held that spring on the golf course. The fair’s activities, including parking on the 17th fairway after heavy rains, were a further source of anger.
Meanwhile the fairways and greens were becoming a wildlife preserve. The value of the course declined rapidly. In 2008 its tax value was listed at $7 million by the Wake County Revenue Department. Young appealed that appraisal in 2009 and by 2010 the value was listed as $76,975.92 with a tax bill of $16,186.18.
Young approached the town about changing the PUD in 2009, and late that year the commissioners, acting on town attorney Eric Vernon’s advice, refused to consider the request. Their decision was based on a case in the 1980s involving the City of Raleigh and a development group called the River Birth Associates. Young filed suit in Wake County Superior Court, asking that the town be ordered to consider his request. In July a Superior Court judge found for the town and granted its motion for a summary judgment, which the town’s attorneys wrote. Young’s motions were dismissed with prejudice, but he still appealed to the state Court of Appeals, which unanimously upheld the Superior Court ruling. Still, without standing, Young continued his case, asking for the Supreme Court review.
Another saga played out in Wake Forest last year when Jim McGuire arrived from Connecticut, and in July announced he had a lease with an option to purchase and planned to bring the property back to life as a golf course. At the time he said the putting green, driving range and clubhouse would be operational in 90 days. He and his family had the fairways and greens mowed, cleaned the bushes and vines from around the empty swimming pool, cleaned out the clubhouse and painted the exterior – but the tavern, pro shop and restaurant never materialized.
By November, McGuire was ready to leave town. Although many neighbors and other area residents wished him well and some families gave a down payment of $1,000 or more for a future membership, he never received enough of that backing to satisfy BB&T that he could make the golf club a paying proposition. He repaid all the backers before he left town for, reportedly, another golf course in the Pocono Mountains.
The golf course began as the Wake Forest Country Club in 1967, organized by former New York Yankees pitcher and former Wake Forest mayor Tommy Byrne, Ray Faircloth, Ellis Nassif and Jayne Keeter. The well-regarded course was designed by Gene Hamm.