Feature: Living on the Links
July 2, 2004
There was a time, believe it or not, when golf course communities did not exist.
Golf courses were attached to their respective country clubs, which were built,
as the name implies, in the countryside—far from the madding crowd. A few
cottages occasionally popped up adjacent to a course, but these small clusters
of homes were not part of a master-planned community. They were random
occurrences, like wildflowers scattered by the wind.
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The 3rd hole at the 7,200-yard, Tom Weiskopf–designed course at
Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Mont., with the Gallatin Mountains as a
backdrop. (Photo by Jeanine Hennebry, click to enlarge)Pebble Beach, the
renowned golf course and tony community built on California’s Monterey Peninsula
in 1919, may have been the nation’s first planned golf community, officially
kicking off the golden age of golf course design. With great foresight, project
manager Samuel F.B. Morse plotted the course on the stunning property
overlooking Stillwater Cove and the beaches of Carmel-by-the-Sea. In 1951,
Thunderbird Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif., sold its first lots
overlooking the golf course. In 1959, developer Charles Fraser carved Hilton
Head Island’s Sea Pines Plantation out of the surrounding savannas and marshes
in South Carolina, and the concept of the residential golf community took off.
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The Snead at the Greenbrier in West Virginia, a private 18-hole course
by Tom Fazio, was named for the long-time golf pro. (Photo by Mike Wyatt, click to enlarge)Developers across the country followed suit. By the late 1970s and early
1980s, golf-centric resort communities sprang up from New York to Utah, and
everywhere in between. The building craze raged through the 1990s and is still
on fire, with more than 3,000 golf course communities blanketing the nation.
Just type “golf course communities” into an Internet search engine and more than
half a million web site links pop up.
From mega golf communities with
multiple courses dreamed up by brand-name designers to more-intimate luxury
developments anchored by private courses and country clubs, the 21st century is
a return to the golden age of golf course—and golf course community—design. But
that celebration of golf now comes with more than a caddie and a cocktail served
on the 18th hole. Every luxury golf course community boasts an amazing array of
high-end amenities that are, to potential home buyers, just as important as the
golf course and the surrounding estate-size lots: multimillion-dollar clubhouses
with lavish locker rooms, five-star restaurants with white-glove service,
equestrian stables and full-time summer camps for kids. Some golf course
developments have been known to hire fly-fishing pros to give lessons and hold
clinics. Here are our picks of the best.
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