I hope I'm not repeating an earlier post. I found this at the Indystar.com. As a former member of The Bridgewater Club, I'd bet this new venture might improve on the concept...
June 10, 2006
Group has top-level golf club in works
Pete Dye-designed course would anchor the resort facility in Morgan County
By Phil Richards
phil.richards@indystar.com
Golf course architect Pete Dye has built courses all over America, but he's positively bullish on The Stonebridge Club, to be located alongside Ind. 37 between Indianapolis and Martinsville. It's a dramatic state-park-style setting, where the par-5 17th hole will tumble 160 feet from tee to green.
Not bad for right across town.
"The topo is unbelievable," said Dye, who lives in Carmel. "It's a different world down there with all the different vegetation and the variety of trees and the creeks flowing through it. People will think they're in West Virginia."
Dye's project is to be the centerpiece of an elite-level private golf club unlike any other in the area south of Indianapolis. In addition to the championship 18-hole course featuring 200 feet of elevation changes, there will be a nine-hole "short" course, expansive practice facilities and a 50,000-square-foot clubhouse with dining facilities, fitness center, tennis center and indoor-outdoor pool.
The resort plans are equally impressive: 1,300 acres with about 1,150 houses ranging in value from $350,000 to $2 million, and town homes in the $200,000-$350,000 range. The gated community would incorporate 8 to 10 miles of walking trails, a 75- to 80-acre equestrian center and a 55-acre village center with a bank, pharmacy, shops and restaurants.
"It would be like a resort community that would appeal mainly to empty-nesters," said Steve Henke of Throgmartin-Henke Development LLP, which developed a similar project on the northside, The Bridgewater Club in Westfield. "People could take their golf cart to the clubhouse for dinner or to hit balls, go to the village to do their banking or go to the ice cream shop."
Stonebridge currently rests in the hands of the Morgan County Planning Commission. Henke hopes to have zoning approval within the next couple of months and to begin golf course construction this winter.
The site is located about 25 minutes south of Downtown and about 15 minutes north of Martinsville.
The concept is larger but very much like Bridgewater, a 750-acre development with a Dye-designed golf course that opened in 2003. Bridgewater has more than 300 golf members and a 30-family waiting list, said Doc O'Neal, president of both Bridgewater and Stonebridge. All but three of Bridgewater's 300 single-family lots have been sold.
No fee structure has been set for Stonebridge, but the initiation fee at Bridgewater is $45,000 in a northside environment flush with upscale private clubs.
The only private golf clubs in Indianapolis' southern suburbs are Royal Oak Country Club in Greenwood and Hillview Country Club in Franklin. A family can join either club for no initiation fee.
"They're conservative kind of people on this end of town," said Ron West, who has owned and operated Royal Oak since 1987. "If they think for a minute they're going to get 300 or 400 people at that ($45,000) level, it's just not going to happen, I don't think."
Henke has heard the naysayers. He said he has looked at the demographics and consulted the homebuilders.
"It's located on the south side, but it's not a south-side development. It's an Indianapolis development," Henke said. "Bridgewater attracted people from all over Indianapolis, not just the north side. (Stonebridge) is a place people from all over the city will want to live. It's a destination development."