The former Daufuskie Island Resort, and one of its two well-regarded golf courses, The Melrose Golf Club, has been sold to a Utah-based investment group and will operate as the Melrose at the Beach resort.  The Bloody Point Golf Club, a pool and the Breathe Spa were split off from the former resort and are now family-owned and operated.

        The report that Pelorus Group of Salt Lake City had purchased the resort and its Melrose Golf Club comes as good news to homeowners on the former resort's grounds, as well as to those residents of Haig Point, the private golf community on the other side of the island that features 29 holes of Rees Jones golf. (No typo; Jones designed two extra holes.)  For much of three years, the Daufuskie resort’s only sign of life was the fine Jack Nicklaus designed Melrose course, which had remained open through the persistence and passion of its golf pro and superintendent. Sadly, erosion of the seawall has collapsed the dramatically sited 18th green; we will keep an eye on how the new owners handle renovations.

        The nearby Tom Weiskopf Bloody Point layout had become overgrown, but a new owner, Brian McCarthy, stepped in last year, hired Davis Love's design firm to renovate the golf course, and is expected to re-open Bloody Point before the end of the year.  A restaurant in Bloody Point's clubhouse has been open for the last year, and the McCarthy family is converting the former Breathe Spa into a seven bedroom cottage.

Plenty of marshland and live oak trees encroach on the Rees Jones layout at Haig Point, but the impressive homes are well back from the field of play.

 

        Haig Point operates its own private ferry service from Hilton Head Island.  (The Haig Point service is owned and managed by the community’s homeowner’s association.)  A Bloody Point spokersperson told us they hope to establish their own separate ferry service from Savannah by the end of the year.

        The resort’s tentative status over the last few years had depressed real estate prices across the island. Prices at Haig Point are considerably lower than comparable real estate on the mainland, and golf membership in the private club typically transfers with sale of property in the community (a $65,000 value, according to club officials). Total carrying costs for club dues and homeowner fees, which includes the cost of the private ferry service, are slightly higher than at comparably upscale golf communities on the mainland.  Yet Daufuskie -- Haig Point, Melrose at the Beach, and Bloody Point -- is an undeniably beautiful place, and you cannot put too high a price tag on an island with no cars, no noise (other than that of Mother Nature), no pollution and a walk-up-and-play aspect to its three excellent nine hole layouts (plus those two extra holes out on the marsh).

        For a sample of current golf homes for sale at Haig Point, please click here.

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        This article has been revised with additional and clarifying information.  We thank Julianna McCarthy, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Bloody Point Golf Club and Resort, for her assistance.

        Large, remotely located golf communities have had an especially tough time during the recession. Too big to pay for the front-loaded amenities they used to lure buyers during the good times, and too far from embedded populations to draw customers with relatively inexpensive locally targeted marketing, not even the lustre of a Tiger Woods was enough to skate through the last five years unscathed.

        The Cliffs Communities in the mountains of the Carolinas and Reynolds Plantation in northern Georgia are two of the more spectacular examples of communities that were too big and too remote to succeed during the recession. Both are now recovering from bankruptcies with an infusion of capital and new developers, and their residents and club

members are optimistic of significant comebacks. But it remains to be seen how much retooling The Cliffs will undergo to sustain it lush roster of amenities that include six beautiful golf courses each -– and a seventh on the way next year, the Gary Player layout at the Mountain Park community.  (The Cliffs has already cut its vaunted multi-club membership initiation fees by two-thirds from its historic highs.)

        These big golf communities are also managing against social trends that could affect their marketing and pricing. We see a shift in attitudes in our customers about their choices of geography for their first and second homes, and a lot of it has to do with children and grandchildren. We are half a decade removed from the beginning of the recession, and in that time, baby boomers have reevaluated their lifestyles, perhaps as a consequence of having stared into the financial abyss. We sense a desire to be closer to family, friends and community –- call it a “huddled masses” thing –- and that may be why, as the remote communities suffered a significant falloff in sales from 2007, near-urban communities like The Landings (20 minutes to downtown Savannah) and Brunswick Forest (10 minutes from Wilmington, NC), did just fine (in Brunswick Forest’s case, much better than “fine,” selling and building 900 homes since 2007). Even a few remote golf communities –- The Reserve at Lake Keowee comes to mind -– have succeeded during the tough times by enhancing their appeal to families, especially those in the Atlanta area three hours away, by opening full membership privileges for all family members for no additional membership fees (a “Legacy” membership, they call it).

The Cliffs at Glassy Mountain, less than an hour from Greenville, SC, can feel as if it is even farther away.  The nearby small town of Landrum -- population 2,400 -- provides enough in the way of services to satisfy the current residents of Glassy.  But large, remote communities like The Cliffs may have to retool their marketing efforts to persuade baby boomers that the closest city really isn't that far away.

 

        A few years ago, a developer told me that buyers in his remote North Carolina lake community were running away from their former lifestyles (i.e. hectic and stressed) and running toward the lifestyle his development embodied (laid back) without the worries of traffic, crime or, ostensibly, modern conveniences outside the gates. I was skeptical then –- baby boomers tend to want what they want, not what they didn’t want –- but even if he was partially right then, he is certainly wrong today. What a difference five years makes.

        In the next edition of our free monthly newsletter, Home On The Course,, we contemplate the future for these behemoth golf communities in a way that may help those considering remote versus exurban. The October issue is due early next week, so subscribe today [click here] to receive your copy this month and into the future.