Eric,
I worked in Wilmington while HN was being built (same time as your neighbor, Stonewall, by the way) and there was a series of articles in the News-Journal (Wilmington's paper) about HN during the building process. One contained an interview with Sezna quoting the $30 green fees. I re-read it later while in a local golf shop, where they had the article posted on the wall.
Every couple of months, I'd go on a long, uh, lunch break, to go and drive around HN during the process to see the course being built. The nasty winter of '93-'94 contributed to delaying opening by a year and by then, I had left the area for NC. I played HN on a northeast golf trip in '97 in conjunction with a VT football game at Rutgers.
Interesting note about that trip was Bethpage (Black) was to be the highlight round of the trip, but when I called about tee times, I found out the course was closed 5 years ahead of the 2002 Open for Rees' renovation to be done! Big time bummer on that, luckily I got to play the Black 3 years later on a work conference trip.