An Amazing Gesture: Living On a Golf Course

[Forrest Richardson]

I got to wondering whether the purists who believe that there can be no decent combination of housing and golf would ever change their thinking? Of course we have the very poorly created versions of golf and homes with either too many homes, too tight of planning or worse — both of these. Those examples are bad, and I agree. But when you really dissect it, the commitment to invest in a home that coexists with a golf course is actually an amazing reinforcement of the power of the game to go beyond the game itself, and actually weave its way into society and every day life.

St. Andrews (the town), Pebble Beach and many other places have shown us how dwellings and golf can dovetail. Some better than others, but in the end...coexisting.

It is certainly pleasant when we can have a "stand-alone" course with a park feel and no housing at all. But it is equally interesting to think of the millions of people who live on course courses and in golf communities — and how those people have made an investment in golf, even in some cases when not ever playing the game. Are we missing an opportunity when we hear that golf is not better served when housing is part of the grand plan?

[Ira Fishman]

Forrest,


As many of you have read before, we are members at Hope Valley in Durham. It is is a very early instance in the US of a golf real estate development. The story has it that the developers would not commit to investing until Ross said it was good land for a course. The houses are well done and not intrusive. I am assuming that many non-golfers are social or tennis members which certainly helps the economics of the club which of course is quite important in the current era.


I have never been a purist about the issue, but HV certainly an example of how it can be done well.


Ira

[Forrest Richardson]

Another place on my growing list to visit    I look forward to more comments and insight.

[Peter Pallotta]

A semi-aside, Forrest, from the perspective of one who took up the game much later in life and so was beginner (and quite bad) as a self conscious adult instead of as a carefree youngster:
It was uncomfortable for me (and therefore not much fun at all) to play a residential course where a particularly egregious slice or duck hook could easily land in a backyard swimming pool or break a living room window or smack an unsuspecting gardener in the head.
It was very uncomfortable indeed, and very little fun.
I understand there are many factors involved in routing a course that has/will have houses on it, but please: for the sake of poor golfers and homeowners alike, leave a lot of room (and then leave some more) between the field of play and the private domains — not so much so as to create a great golf course but so as to design a fun one.

[JMEvensky]

A little off topic but congratulations on your possible re-design in Memphis. Hope it works out.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Forrest,


As you know, I live in large residential development ( now with more than 5000 houses and about another 1000 to come) in the West Valley- Pebble Creek- with 3 courses. The first course opened in the early' 90s and was designed by Arthur Hills with Keith Foster as the project architect. Some very good holes are there but there are some very tight holes compromised by close to fairway housing. As the development grew, the second course opened around 2000 and was designed by Dick Bailey. Much less challenging than the first course, it is ideal for residents. Again some holes are compromised by close to fairway houses. The third course started around 2008 with 9 holes and was paired with the second course to make a 27 hole course. I believe the 9 holes were designed by Tom Schroeder. Much wider fairways, more challenging holes resulted in a very good course with no housing intrusion. The remaining 9 holes opened in late 2018 and is now paired with the original 9 holes. This course is my favorite as there are now 6 holes without housing. This evolution shows that a high volume residential community takes a developer to change their vision with respect to golfers and residents and widen the distance between golf and residential development. You should note the residential golf course lots here  are now approaching 250K premiums and that a recent resale house on a golf course lot  went for slightly more than than 1M.   

[Ira Fishman]

Another place on my growing list to visit    I look forward to more comments and insight.

More than glad to host your visit.


Ira

[Matthew Rose]

My parents have lived on three golf courses. I guess I'm not as "anti-housing" as most people here; there is a part of me that kind of enjoys the intimacy of playing through a neighborhood.... but I'm also not a fan of it on really high end courses.

One of them was more forested than the other two, so the houses were a little more discreet. I think I liked that one the best.... but the one thing that was disappointing about it was that the original design was changed twice to accommodate more housing, removing what would have been three of the best holes on the property. The three that were built (elsewhere on a much flatter, more open paddock) were decidedly more mundane.

This course hosts an LPGA event now and every time I see it on TV and I always wonder what could have been if it had been built to the original plan. I think that when a course design is compromised for the sake of housing is certainly fair game for criticism. I also know that the original developer who made that decision no longer owns it and hasn't for some time.

[Sean_A]

I am not anti-housing on courses either.  In fact, multiple purpose golf land is a great idea if done well. 

One of the best planned golf/estate courses I have seen is Barton Hills...a lovely Ross course.  The plan did leave a great chunk of land for the course and the premier spot in the estate for the house.  Its a terrible pity now that trees have been allowed to block the views so painstakingly set aside for the clubhouse. 

St Georges Hill is even better then Barton Hills, though the BH site is much cooler looking over the river. 

Yeamans ain't bad either.  I am seeing a pattern here....wealthy, private clubs have a better chance of mingling houses with golf in a fairly dicreet or so filthy rich manner that it doesn't make much difference. 

I haven't seen publics mix housing very well, but I have seen public land courses do a great job in mixing other uses such as walking trails, grazing, horse riding etc.  To be honest, this excites me far more than housing. 

Ciao 

[Donnie Beck]

I always thought it was cool Mackenzie lived in a house on the 6th hole at Pasatiempo.

[Bill Gayne]

Played Pinehurst 2 today and ample housing on the perimeter of the course. Housing on the perimeter of courses doesn't bother me in the least.

[Bill Gayne]

I always thought it was cool Mackenzie lived in a house on the 6th hole at Pasatiempo.

Saw the Donald Ross house today by the third green. Caddie told me Gil Hanse lived in it while doing the work on 4.

[Greg Smith]

Forrest,


As many of you have read before, we are members at Hope Valley in Durham. It is is a very early instance in the US of a golf real estate development. The story has it that the developers would not commit to investing until Ross said it was good land for a course. The houses are well done and not intrusive. I am assuming that many non-golfers are social or tennis members which certainly helps the economics of the club which of course is quite important in the current era.


I have never been a purist about the issue, but HV certainly an example of how it can be done well.


Ira

I live in Hagerstown, MD.  The one piece of Golden Age work we have in Western Maryland is Fountain Head CC in Hagerstown, dating from 1924.  It's also by Ross.  The way the plan/routing is, I think he must have laid it out with housing development in mind.  But as Ira says about Hope Valley, the housing is beautifully done and actually adds a lot to the property.  One batch of housing is definitely from the 1920s, early days of the club.  The later batch is from the 1940s-1950s.


If we're thinking about golf architecture and building architecture co-existing, the building architecture has got to be to a high standard.  Mindless spec construction just won't do, any more than it would for the clubhouse itself.

[Sven Nilsen]

Not many early architects were involved with the designs of the entire plot for residential courses.   A land planner like the Olmsted firm or E. S Draper would have been involved with not only determining what land would be used for which purpose, but the overall look of the project, often down to the most minute details.  The golf architect would be consulted with respect to the location of the course and clubhouse, but in many instances those decisions were made prior to an architect being hired.


There's a pretty good conversation sitting here as to why most of the examples brought up so far are of older courses. 




Sven

[Tommy Williamsen]

I belonged to two courses that seemed to blend housing and course well.
The CC at Woodmore outside DC was the new location for the NLE Prince George's CC. It has housing on the perimeter of the course. In fact, with only a few exceptions you wouldn't know you were in a community, especially on the back nine.



Sedgefield CC, where they are playing this week's TOUR event is an older course. There definitely are houses but for the most part are set so far back from the course that they do not intrude on the visuals. It doesn't hurt that they generally are good looking homes.



It looks like these are not sized to fit the post so you have to move them left and right to see the entire picture.

[archie_struthers]

 


Ira , played Hope Valley once with a friend of mine who's a little older and played in the PGA there way back when. Don't you have one hole that's really really uphill, a shortish par 4?

[Ira Fishman]

Ira , played Hope Valley once with a friend of mine who's a little older and played in the PGA there way back when. Don't you have one hole that's really really uphill, a shortish par 4?

Archie, you may be thinking of Number 7 which is around 300 yards and plays to an elevated, semi-blind green protected left and front by bunkers. A tricky second shot even with a short club because difficult to get distance right. Hope Valley has quite a few uphill holes including several with interesting green sitings where the greens are at awkward angles.


Ira

[Tom_Doak]

The story of Yeamans Hall is especially germane to this discussion.


Originally, the property was planned for 27 holes [I think; it could have been 36] plus a much bigger real estate development.  They had only sold about 25 homes when the Depression hit and they couldn't sell any more.  The developer failed, but the golf members persevered and kept the course alive.


After World War Two, when the club was finally on sound footing, the members and homeowners agreed that the golf would be much more appealing without any further homes, so it still has just the 25.




Another way of saying that would be, that the decision to have a cool place was made by the members, once the profit motive of the developer was out of the equation.  Most "golf course developments" are started by developers with the primary objective of making money, and the quality of the golf is secondary to the developer's interest . . . it exists only to the extent he believes that a better golf course will make the lots sell for more money, and there aren't a lot of examples to back up that case.


When I did my podcast with Erik Anders Lang last month, I mentioned that development-for-profit was the primary difference between the courses of the Golden Age and those of the modern era.  He had never thought of that, but realized right away that it explains a lot.




So, there are some places where you can have houses on a golf course and it doesn't affect the quality of the golf course, but such places are fairly rare.  Crystal Downs is one:  it worked so well because the view toward the lake is much more valuable than the view of the course.

[MCirba]

Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleek were some of the first who blended golf course design with real estate land community planning.

[Forrest Richardson]

Peter — I'll get right up to Pasatiempo and start clearing those pesky homes! Years ago I hit one with a bad drive...maybe two. I do agree, of course, some terrible decisions have been made on residential design and golf. As Tom D. explains, profit as a primary focus became the way many golf courses were created beginning after the 1940s. I have been involved in more than one of these (c. 1980s), and wish we could have a do-over in a few instances.

Desmond Muirhead deserves mention here. I can nearly hear him saying (and agreeing) that "The focus should be on making sure the housing architecture is as good as the golf..." You can take whatever side you want on Muirhead's golf design, but I would defend what he managed in the 1970s-80s against anything else being done during that time. It was not only spectacular, but very thoughtful in terms of balancing the "greed" of the developer with the fun and interest of the game. Muirfield Village remains a pleasant course and golf experience, even with its hundreds of homes. That was not by accident — it was by Muirhead and his routing and land plan. Nothing since has really improved upon the basic anatomy of what he accomplished there.

[Sven Nilsen]

Peter — I'll get right up to Pasatiempo and start clearing those pesky homes! Years ago I hit one with a bad drive...maybe two. I do agree, of course, some terrible decisions have been made on residential design and golf. As Tom D. explains, profit as a primary focus became the way many golf courses were created beginning after the 1940s. I have been involved in more than one of these (c. 1980s), and wish we could have a do-over in a few instances.

The idea of a golf course as a tent pole attraction of a residential development didn't begin in the 1940's, and even predates the Golden Age by a bit.  Nearly all of the projects already mentioned in this thread had the goal of making money on the real estate side.  Throw in the number of courses built in connection with hotels as a means to attract guests and you get an even greater number of courses built for profit, just not necessarily profit from the course itself.


I'm not quite sure what Tom meant in his statement regarding the difference between Golden Age and Modern projects.  Be helpful to get him to expound on that one a bit.


Sven

[Tom_Doak]

The idea of a golf course as a tent pole attraction of a residential development didn't begin in the 1940's, and even predates the Golden Age by a bit.  Nearly all of the projects already mentioned in this thread had the goal of making money on the real estate side.  Throw in the number of courses built in connection with hotels as a means to attract guests and you get an even greater number of courses built for profit, just not necessarily profit from the course itself.

I'm not quite sure what Tom meant in his statement regarding the difference between Golden Age and Modern projects.  Be helpful to get him to expound on that one a bit.

Sven:  I know, golf developments go as far back as Huntercombe.  But there is a difference between "making money on the real estate side" vs. "trying to make as much money as possible".  A few examples:


All of the famous old links were built by guys who wanted to play them, in an era before housing and golf were combined.  St. Andrews and North Berwick are lined with houses, but they were just built by adjacent property owners.


Pine Valley has houses.  I'm not sure if they were an afterthought, or part of George Crump's plan, but clearly the routing of the golf course took precedence.


Pinehurst No. 2 has houses, on one side of the first few holes.  Perhaps the house sales were there to help pay for the land or pay for the construction of the course, but more as a break-even than as the driving force of the project. 


Cypress Point could be characterized similarly; The Pebble Beach Company was a massive real estate play, but the land for Cypress Point was deeded to the club with a minimum of housing, and only after someone had done a routing.


Pasatiempo was a real estate development; but Marion Hollins was a keen golfer first, and she'd made her fortune by other means, so she wasn't trying to extract maximum value from the housing lots around her course.


In the end, it all comes back to intent and priorities.  The impetus for building these courses was not to make money.  Bandon Dunes is a commercial project, but it was not really developed to make a big profit, either; it just worked out that way.  Indeed, in my experience, some of the most profitable projects were ones that were not really seeking it, and wound up with a course that makes money because they put the golf first.

[Kalen Braley]

Seems the trend in housing on golf courses matches the general trends in housing otherwise.

More and more the decision comes down to how far you can push the boundaries to fit more units on a fixed property size to maximize profits, especially in higher density areas.  I don't know if there is a fundamental philosophical difference in residential courses 100 years ago vs now, except for how spaced out, (or not) the housing is from the course.

P.S.  I recall a number of years ago, there was controversy over a new project that was zoned for single unit dwellings, and the builder wanted to build MDUs.  So they chopped the parcels small and built the houses so close together you could easily go rooftop to rooftop and barely fit your car on the driveway they were so short... 

[Forrest Richardson]

Sven — Housing and golf took root after WWII. The examples prior to WWII are outliers.

Interesting distinction...In some examples, St. Andrews as one, "housing" came along both during and after. The golf was an attraction ultimately, and the reason today that the edges of St. Andrews' courses are so densely populated by dwellings AND hotels. The examples of "housing by design" mixed with golf, took off in the 1950s.

[Sven Nilsen]

The idea of a golf course as a tent pole attraction of a residential development didn't begin in the 1940's, and even predates the Golden Age by a bit.  Nearly all of the projects already mentioned in this thread had the goal of making money on the real estate side.  Throw in the number of courses built in connection with hotels as a means to attract guests and you get an even greater number of courses built for profit, just not necessarily profit from the course itself.

I'm not quite sure what Tom meant in his statement regarding the difference between Golden Age and Modern projects.  Be helpful to get him to expound on that one a bit.

Sven:  I know, golf developments go as far back as Huntercombe.  But there is a difference between "making money on the real estate side" vs. "trying to make as much money as possible".  A few examples:


All of the famous old links were built by guys who wanted to play them, in an era before housing and golf were combined.  St. Andrews and North Berwick are lined with houses, but they were just built by adjacent property owners.


Pine Valley has houses.  I'm not sure if they were an afterthought, or part of George Crump's plan, but clearly the routing of the golf course took precedence.


Pinehurst No. 2 has houses, on one side of the first few holes.  Perhaps the house sales were there to help pay for the land or pay for the construction of the course, but more as a break-even than as the driving force of the project. 


Cypress Point could be characterized similarly; The Pebble Beach Company was a massive real estate play, but the land for Cypress Point was deeded to the club with a minimum of housing, and only after someone had done a routing.


Pasatiempo was a real estate development; but Marion Hollins was a keen golfer first, and she'd made her fortune by other means, so she wasn't trying to extract maximum value from the housing lots around her course.


In the end, it all comes back to intent and priorities.  The impetus for building these courses was not to make money.  Bandon Dunes is a commercial project, but it was not really developed to make a big profit, either; it just worked out that way.  Indeed, in my experience, some of the most profitable projects were ones that were not really seeking it, and wound up with a course that makes money because they put the golf first.

Tom:


You've cherry picked a very nice short list of projects to try to make your point.  For every Pasatiempo there's a Capuchino.  For every Pine Valley there's a Gibson Island.  For every Cypress there's an MPCC.


The idea was around prior to WWII (that is all I was saying in my last post).  Go look at the Olmsted archives and tell me it wasn't.  In the 1920's California alone was replete with RE driven projects, and if you want to start discussing Florida the point gets driven home even more.  Throw in what was happening in New York as the city expanded out onto Long Island and you get more of the picture.  The newspapers (and this is undebatable no matter what your thoughts are on their reliability) were full of ads for real estate developments that noted the golf course being built in connection therewith.


Many of these projects had golf as the central focus and were driven by golf-minded people.  But many of them were driven by the real estate concern, who knew that hiring the right golf architect could go a long way to selling plots.


Your Cypress example highlights the point I was alluding to earlier.  The housing and the course were built in tandem at Cypress.  I don't think anyone would say that they didn't do it right.  They used the best land for the golf course, and fit the housing plots in a very unobtrusive manner. 


What I was suggesting above is that figuring out how we went from the type of planning that seemingly "worked" to the more slapstick manner you find in the post-War developments would be an interesting avenue of discussion.  Its really an investigation of how the ideals of Americans changed from the Roaring '20's to the more frugal and efficient yet modern approach of the 1950's. 


Its no surprise that things were different after a great depression and a world war. 


Sven


PS - Marion Hollins made the bulk of her money working for Samuel Morse developing and selling, you guessed it, real estate.