This is the second and final part of our review of Crystal Springs in Hardyston, NJ.

 

        Everyone I met at or near Crystal Springs, whether it was the father and son I was paired with on the golf course or the bartender at a local restaurant, asked me the same question: “Have you seen the wine cellar?” Actually I had, the morning of my visit, and I can understand why it is on everyone’s mind. The cellar in the resort’s huge lodge holds more than 100,000 bottles, and these are no Chateau Ordinary. Crystal Springs founder Gene Mulvihill, who passed away late last year, had

collected bottles from all over the world, with an emphasis on France, and had a goal to have the finest and largest wine collection in the world.  I know just enough about wine to make me dangerous and was able to recognize such names as Chateau Lafitte Rothschild, Latour, and some of the other major chateaux of Bordeaux. The cellar at Crystal Springs features all the best vintages from Bordeaux and Burgundy since the 1950s, and a number of them that reach back to the 19^th Century, and I recognized as well some Cabernets from California that I had seen valued in Wine Spectator for $1,000 and more per bottle.

If Wild Turkey has a "signature hole," it is #7, a par 3 over a water filled quarry with strong echos of the iconic par 3 9th hole at Yale Golf Club.

 

        Many of the bottles can be ordered by patrons of Latour, Crystal Springs’ intimate (40 seats) and expensive French restaurant that looks out from the back of the Lodge, over the adjacent gardens and toward the golf courses and mountains beyond. The resort has 14 other restaurants offering various types of food and different price points, but all are rarely open at the same time; during my visit, Latour, the Crystal Tavern and two other bistros were available.

        Between the wine, the setting, the gardens adjacent to the lodge and the grand ballrooms, it is not surprising that Crystal Springs hosts 150 weddings each year, sometimes two or three simultaneously.

 

Par 3 stares at you, stone faced

        Although that wine cellar provides the major wow factor at Crystal Springs, golf is no second fiddle. For my first round, I chose the Wild Turkey layout and played the blue tees at 6,555 yards. Roger Rulewich designed the golf course in 2001; it plays along the valley at the foot of the mountains that are in view from most of the community. That puts homeowners in prime position to look down on and across Wild Turkey’s sweeping layout on rolling farmland surrounded by mountains. I wonder if Rulewich was thinking about another iconic par 3 when he laid out the signature 7^th hole; at 180 yards from our blue tees, the hole plays over a water-filled quarry, its stone face guarding the front of the green. It reminded me strongly of the famed Seth Raynor #9 at Yale Golf Club, the major difference being length –- Yale’s version plays 190 yards from comparable tees –- and the size and shape of the greens; Wild Turkey’s is wider than it is long while Yale’s is narrow and a good 50 yards deep, with a deep trench in the middle.

The par 3 10th shows off one of Wild Turkey's strongest features -- the surrounding mountains.

 

        The Wild Turkey layout has a little bit of everything –- a few forced carries, fairway bunkers within range of slightly offline tee shots, a few false fronts on the greens. Although it seems like a contradiction, the course is both challenging and forgiving; that is, the fairways are wide and fairly accommodating for those who spray the ball, but there are enough bunkers at the edges of the fairways to provide some punishment for those offline shots. The greens themselves are well bunkered, but virtually all of them had run-up potential for thinly hit but straight shots.

        The turf on Wild Turkey was in excellent shape, and my ball sat up for virtually every fairway lie. The rough, while no pushover, was springy enough that the ball did not sink to the bottom. The greens were receptive

to well struck irons and about as true as greens can get, with very few reads that took too much concentration; rarely did the ball move off the line I saw. But those nice greens were, for the most part, a canvas for abuse by transient golfers too lazy and uncaring to repair their ball marks. I fixed an average three or four per green and left dozens more. Unsolicited advice to Crystal Springs: Hire a few high school kids or retirees to sit at greenside with a sign that says, “Fix Your Ballmarks, Please.” (If the player refuses, at least the teen or retiree can go fix it before the next group comes through.)

Green complexes at Wild Turkey feature false fronts, moguls and large swales, putting a premium on pinpoint approach shots and mimicking the surrounging mountains.

 

        I have one other suggestion for Crystal Springs: Make one of your golf courses strictly private, the way Reynolds Plantation, for example, has done with its Creek Club layout. Reynolds, with a Ritz Carlton resort hotel on site, provides access to five other golf courses for hotel guests (but not for the public). By restricting access to members only on, say, the Wild Turkey course, Crystal Springs could charge a little more for membership, inspire members to take better care of the greens and rest of the course (sorry, most daily fee players don’t care) and probably increase the number of members. For a golf resort that is also a golf community, having one private golf course adds cache and will support the real estate sales efforts. Six good golf courses are still more than enough for the transient golfers who don’t intend to make Crystal Springs their home.

        For years I had been looking forward to playing Ballyowen, a Scottish links design regarded by golf raters as the best course at Crystal Springs and one of the finest public courses in the east. Sadly, when I arrived at the pro shop, the heavens opened up and the forecast was not good. But nothing the day before -- not the tour of the real estate, my comfortable room at the Lodge or the round at Wild Turkey -- would cause me to think twice about returning. I am looking forward to playing Ballyowen this fall, and to the bagpiper who serenades patrons there in the morning and late afternoon. Maybe I’ll save up as well for dinner in Latour and spring for a modest bottle of wine.

The golf villas at Crystal Springs, like these beside the 10th tee on the Wild Turkey layout, are sited to maximize views of both the golf course and the mountains.  They are among the most attractive we've encountered in any golf resort community.

Note: If you would like an introduction to a real estate agent at Crystal Springs Resort who can show you the many options in real estate there, please contact us. We can say with confidence you’ll get a tour of the wine cellar as well.

        Children change everything. For a couple whose working lives were pointed eventually toward a year-round home on a golf course in a warm weather climate, their mindset can change when their children have children of their own. For golfing grandparents in the population dense areas of the northeast, there are some fine options, especially for those who both ski and play golf, to live at least part of the year near family and friends. Consider some of the major ski areas of Vermont, like Stowe, Killington, and Sugarbush, all with golf courses of their own to fill their ski lodges in summertime. But there are viable options even closer to New York City and Philadelphia, for example, one not much more than an hour away from the Big Apple. We recently visited that golf community, the Crystal Springs Resort in northwestern New Jersey, where golf and -– Attention Oenophiles! –- wine share the spotlight.

        Crystal Springs is just 47 miles from New York City, which makes it within a fairly easy drive from not only the suburbs ringing the city but also from Philadelphia and Boston. Real estate in the resort community struck me as reasonably priced, probably because property taxes are relatively high, about $2,200 per $100,000 of valuation. Golf club members share the seven layouts and most of the other facilities with vacationers, although a part of the main clubhouse is carved out for members only. For those who choose to live at Crystal Springs year round and enjoy winter sports, a ski area is a few minutes from most homes and included in one of the club’s various membership packages.

Most of the homes at Crystal Springs have golf course and/or mountain views.

 

The builder is the developer

        Crystal Springs is huge if you total up all the parcels of land owned by Crystal Springs Builders, which purchased the land and facilities after the original owners suffered financial difficulties in the 90s. Over time, Crystal Springs Builders added many more surrounding acres; today, the resort’s property extends about six miles at its longest part.

        Since Crystal Springs Builders is, as the name suggests, primarily a homebuilder, they do all the single-family house construction on the property from 13 pre-drawn designs, a practice that keeps building costs down but adds enough diversity of architecture to give each neighborhood a custom look. The condos and villa neighborhoods are similarly diverse, with some buildings comprising just a couple of units and others rising to mid-size in order to maximize mountain and golf course views. (Note: The vast majority of built homes of all types have at least some views of the golf courses at Crystal Springs.)

        I’m always a little confused about the differences between a town home, villa and condominium. At least the town homes at Crystal Springs are clearly defined as “single-family attached” units where the owners of these attractive spaces overlooking the Cascades golf course have just one contiguous neighbor. The developer is currently building 22 of these units at prices between $309,000 and $449,000, depending on size -– they range from 1,600 square feet to 2,500 square feet. The best views at Crystal Springs, which means mountains and/or golf course, command slightly higher prices. Single-family homes on roughly 1/3-acre lots at Crystal Springs are priced in the high $300s to over $600,000. Few of the homes in the community are well back from the edges of the golf courses; most ringing the Wild Turkey golf course I played sit on high ridges and look straight down on the fairways (and a few ponds).

Some of the balconies at the Lodge at Crystal Springs look down on a series of practice putting greens.

 

Living lodge

        I stayed for one night in the Grand Cascades Lodge, the center point of the community and viewable from many points on the golf courses. The one-bedroom apartment -- it included a full kitchen, living room, and large bathroom with whirlpool tub and stall shower -- featured a balcony that hung above a series of five small, beautifully manicured putting greens of varying shapes, well-utilized, I noticed, by those guests who had rented rooms in the Lodge. These apartments in the Lodge sell for between $225,000 (one bedroom) and $350,000 (two bedrooms) and can be rented out by the developer in behalf of their owners. The management fee is pretty stiff –- 50% of the rental income –- but the developer takes care of all maintenance, marketing and preparation for guests, and Crystal Springs has two high seasons for both golf and skiing. Although Crystal Springs won’t divulge the average number of weeks most units are rented out, they will say they maintain an average 60% occupancy year-round in the Lodge. Only March and November are considered slow months at the Resort –- and the joint was jumping when I was there midweek in late July.

        One especially nice feature is that every home in Crystal Springs includes exterior maintenance; you can be out on the links or on the ski slopes while someone else is mowing your lawn or plowing the snow from your driveway. This is of special benefit to homeowners who live at Crystal Springs part-time; they never need to worry about whether the grounds are being tended. Homeowner association fees run generally between $200 and $300 per month, depending on what type of home you own. (The lack of a guarded gate at Crystal Springs, which would hardly seem necessary in such a remote part of New Jersey, helps keep the fees down.) For a condo in the Ferndown section of the resort and overlooking the Cascades golf course, monthly maintenance is $222. For single-family homes in the community, the fees are just $275 per month.

 

Ideal second-home potential

        Couples looking for a laid-back lifestyle in a golf community may find Crystal Springs a little too active, typical of resort communities with activities like golf and skiing that cover almost the entire calendar year. The crowd of tourists staying in the gargantuan main lodge while I was at Crystal Springs was a rather eclectic group that included buddy golfers, honeymooning couples, families with young children and corporate managers attending meetings and retreats (work in the morning in one of the lodge’s many meeting rooms, play in the afternoon on one of the courses, and some cheerful camaraderie in the lodge’s tavern in the evening). Crystal Springs would make an ideal second-home location for couples whose primary homes are behind the gates of a private southern golf community but want to spend selected months near children and grandchildren who live in the North. They could also score major points with the grandkids who come to visit since Crystal Springs offers the number of diversions to keep even the most active child engaged.

Next: World-class golf, world-renowned wines

The Lodge at Crystal Springs dominates the scene, including behind the 18th green on the Wild Turkey golf course.