Reading the fine print

    Wilmington, NC, has many cultural activities to recommend it.  But a viable concert hall isn't one of them.  That may change if a growing group of Wilmington citizens have their way.

    The group, ARCH, for Alliance for a Regional Concert Hall, has been working for a decade to get the city's fathers to consider building a performing arts center to host shows, concerts and ballet.  The only venue for such cultural events has been UNC Wilmington, the local branch of the state's university system.  Now local government officials are entertaining proposed plans for the expansion of the city's riverfront district, which would have room for a performing arts center as well as marina and residences, most likely condos.  It is exciting stuff for a city that has had a lot easier time attracting movie companies to shoot films in the area than it has attracting industry.  Maybe the performing arts center will help.

    We have a great real estate contact in Wilmington who is knowledgeable about the area's golf course communities and a member of one of its better golf courses.  If you are planning a visit to the area and would like a tour or just some information, let us know and we will be pleased to put you in touch at no cost or obligation whatsoever to you. 

  Porters Neck Plantation is one good option in communities near Wilmington.

Porters Neck Plantation is one of the best choices of golf course communities in the Wilmington area. 

    Every time I see his picture taken with some developer or other, Jack Nicklaus looks tired.  Not to sound too motherly, but he needs a little more sleep, maybe a few more carbs to round out the flesh a little.  

    The Golden Bear could be the busiest man on the planet right now, certainly the most in-demand of all the golf architects.  His 60 projects in process worldwide under the Nicklaus Design name will bring his total to nearly 400.  His reputation as a designer is what it was as a player -- a fussy perfectionist.  Those courses that bear the Nicklaus "Signature" designation get a lot of his attention, as opposed to those under the Nicklaus Design umbrella which are largely administered by the Bear's excellent group of senior designers (but you can bet his hand is on those projects as well).

    Perhaps it is ironic that Nicklaus has now taken on a "sponsor" of sorts, something a wannabe tour player will do early in a career to pay expenses from week to week with the thought, to the investor, of a nice return if the player becomes a consistent winner.  New York billionaire Howard Millstein is paying $145 million for a stake in a new Nicklaus company that encompasses the Bear's design, licensing and golf club activities.  In short, it looks as if Nicklaus has rung the register.  After racking up thousands of miles in his Gulfstream and establishing the most successful golf design company in the world, maybe he has looked in the mirror and counted his days away from his grandchildren and will now slow down a little at age 67. 

    And maybe not.

    One 80 something who never seems to slow down is the icon of corporate takeovers, Carl Icahn.  He has been after the huge Florida developer, WCI Communities, and has put together nearly 15 percent of WCI's shares, the largest holding of any of the company's shareowners.  WCI earlier this week postponed its annual meeting so it could regroup and take other offers, but with the Florida condo market deep in the dumper, and WCI a big player in that arena, company shareowners are restive.  Icahn usually gets what he wants, and it will be interesting to see what a financial acquisition of a major developer will do to community real estate in Florida and across the south.  We will stay tuned.

    Climate is a major criterion for choosing a home on the course.  Except for those lucky individuals with oceanfront property in Florida, the Sunshine State's flat, often boring topography is certainly not an attraction.  Frankly, Arizona provides more diversity of views than does Florida (again, except for those on or near the beach).  Real estate agents in the Carolinas report more and more people from Florida are buying property in the Blue Ridge mountains, and their chief complaint about Florida is the heat in the summer (and the traffic and, for those at the coast, the bump up in insurance premiums).  These "bounce backs," who moved originally from north to south, are now content to generate their own winter warmth with a sweater or jacket.

    If you are planning to live in just one place in retirement, it makes good sense to spend a few experimental weeks in your preferred location during the dog days of summer.  Play golf at all times of the day as an experiment to see if you can stand the heat.  Determine if your intended course opens for play early enough in the morning so that you can complete your round by 11.  The nice thing about taking the temperature of the lifestyle in a hot weather climate in summer is that rentals are abundant and cheap.

    Be mindful that it is not just about the heat but rather the combination of heat and humidity, or the Temperature Humidity Index (THI).  Residents of the desert southwest are fond of saying, "Yeah, it's hot, but it's a dry heat."  Residents of Florida can make no such claim but, on the other hand, you can almost set your clock by the afternoon summer thunderstorms that cool down temperatures, at least for a while. 

    Weather.com has a decent function to compare high and low temperatures between two cities on a month by month basis (although when we tried it earlier, it did not work).  We have yet to find a site with a good comparison of THI, but we'll keep looking and hope if one of our faithful readers knows of one, they will leave a comment here.

    Sometimes developers bite off more than they can chew.  Six hundred acres and a golf course at a small price per acre probably seem like a good idea at the height of the market.  But then the folks from New York and D.C. stop looking and you go over budget for the golf course, the community infrastructure and the nicely appointed clubhouse and, before you know it, things go all soft and squishy and reality sets in.
    The Highlands in Franklin, West Virginia, 600 acres and an 18-hole golf course, will be auctioned off on July 19th.  Background details are a little sketchy, but there is an odor of desperation about the sale.  Last year the owners put a reserve price on the property and the highest bid didn't meet it.  This time around it will be an "absolute auction," which means the community and course will go to the low bidder, no matter how low.   The road that runs alongside the golf course is called Troublesome Valley.  Someone either had great prognostication powers or a gallows sense of humor.
    The Highlands Golf Club opened in May 2006 and was designed by Bill Ward, a West Virginia architect who has completed 17 other projects in the region.  He carved the Highlands from a pine tree forest in the Potomac Highlands, and his design appears to follow the contours of the land; from photos I looked at, he didn't move a lot of earth.  
    Ward has an inclination to add one unforgettable hole on each of his courses; at Meadows Farms in Virginia, for example, he built the Guinness Book of Records' longest par 6 in America, an 841-yard monster.  At The Highlands, he built his excess around the greens on two successive holes on the back side.  The approach shot to number 10, a par 4 and arguably Highlands' signature hole (and its #1 handicap hole), is played to a small island green set in the middle of a small lake and reached by an iron bridge.  The pro shop estimates the green's dimensions at 30 yards deep by 20 yards wide. 

    The 11th, another par 4, presents a similarly sized green totally surrounded by sand.  Holes 13 through 16 are significant doglegs, with the approach to number 13 requiring a long drive down the right side to afford a view of the green snuggled behind the trees at a 90-degree left angle to the fairway.  To add an element of intimidation, out of bounds stakes run down the right side of the hole.
    Championship tees play to 6,800 yards with the men's tees a more reasonable 6,250 and the ladies tees just 4,680.  The senior tees play to less than 5,700 yards.  The course rating from the back tees is 73.7 with a slope of 144.  Comparables from the men's tees are 71.0 and 138.  This is not by any means an easy course, but it charges reasonable daily fees as low as $35.
    In its first abbreviated year of operation - the course opened in May 2006 - The Highlands hosted 15,000 rounds of golf, and based on rounds played so far this year, the run rate appears to be about 30,000 rounds, not bad for an April to October season.  The pro shop says most of its traffic is from the I-81 corridor of Virginia and the towns of Harrisonburg and Staunton, about 45 minutes away, but some folks from Washington, D.C., about three hours away, will make a long weekend of it in the area.
    Franklin, WVA sits in the valley between two large national forests west of Interstate 81 - the Washington and Jefferson and the Monongahela Forests.  Together they comprise about a million acres of public land.  From my research, and drives through the area in the past, it must be the kind of property that can make a man dream large.
    I am still waiting for a call back from Albert Burney, the auction house, handling the sale.  If more details become available, I will provide an update here.  The golf course has a nice web site with course layout and descriptions at HighlandsGolfWV.com.