On a recent mid-October evening at Old Toccoa Farm, the private residential golf club in Mineral Bluff, Georgia, was buzzing with life as the sun began to set across the Blue Ridge Mountains. Tables were filled with families enjoying sunset meals and indoor/outdoor bars brimmed with energy as college football games aired on big-screen TVs.
For food and beverage manager Addison Moran, it was just another routine weekend for his growing community. And the packed house had nothing to do with the Georgia Apple Festival wrapping up in nearby Ellijay and other fall festivals that annually attract throngs of tourists and second-home owners to the neighboring town of Blue Ridge this time of year.
Indeed, this private club moment was all about rejuvenated Old Toccoa Farm and The Tavern, the club’s newly opened award-winning clubhouse. Of course, the Tavern’s panoramic views of the picturesque mountains contributed to some of the energy emanating from the hilltop clubhouse.
It was a stark contrast from 12 years ago, when the real estate development finally crawled out of foreclosure and the club’s current owners officially opened nine holes at renamed Old Toccoa Farm. When Blue Ridge Golf & River Club was conceived 20-plus years ago as a new upscale residential golf community, developers had ambitious plans to create one of the top new resort-style real estate developments next to the highly popular small-town destination of Blue Ridge.
However, like so many other real estate projects in the mid-2000s, the project fell victim to the 2008 financial crisis, and the unfinished course was abandoned in 2009 and sat fallow for nearly four years. Current co-managing partners Kevin Hermetz and Peter Knutzen purchased the property out of foreclosure and resurrected the project that features 4,000 feet of frontage along the Toccoa River and more than 1 million acres of managed wilderness in the nearby Chattahoochee and Cherokee National Forests.
Now, the club’s estimated 1,500 multi-generational family members have some compelling man-made amenities to enjoy. Highlighting the list are the par-70, 6,850-yard course that earned No. 8 best new course in America by Golf Digest magazine in 2000 and the 5,000-square-foot Tavern, which earned runner-up honors for best new clubhouse by Golf Inc. magazine in late 2023. Meanwhile, Old Toccoa Farm is scheduled to open a new racket facility (6 pickleball courts; 3 tennis courts) before the end of the year and land is already cleared for a yet-to-be determined adjacent spa and/or fitness-type facility, according to Hermetz.
To be sure, The Tavern is the heartbeat of the community, where new lots start in the $185,000-$400,000 range and the average home value is approximately $1.5 million to $2.5 million. Designed by Atlanta-based Kuo Diedrich Chi Architects with thoughtful interior design work by noted Beverly Baribault Design Group, the “Appalachian Craftsman-style” Tavern was simply created to be a “welcoming hot spot for interaction” among members and guests, according to lead designer JC Chi, and positioned to maximize the stunning mountainous vistas of the surrounding Toccoa River Valley.
“The Tavern is meant to be the energy center where everybody can come to enjoy the beautiful setting and just hang out,” Chi added. Hermetz says the Tavern was a “game changer because we have members and residents who are either living in our community or live up there and we just never had a common place to meet.”
“It’s just been a great gathering spot,” Hermetz added. “We’re also open to the public so people that don’t play golf but live in the area see it as a great little restaurant to go out to. They can dine in a nice environment without having to go downtown where the weekends are like an anthill and just crazy.”
An experience that was on full display during a fabulous fall evening last October.
MEMBERS ENJOY ‘COOPED UP’ VIBE AT CC OF SPARTANBURG
In most cases, people prefer not being all cooped up when it comes to experiences. One exception is the membership at Country Club of Spartanburg in South Carolina.
At least that’s one way to describe the clamor at the centennial club’s newest amenity, the Cupola. Located at the newly renovated family-friendly pool area and affectionately called the “Coop” by members, the club’s newest food-and-beverage outlet designed by Kuo Diedrich Chi Architects was a creative transformation of the former junior clubhouse space that was being underutilized.
After being gutted and rebuilt with a galley-style kitchen and double-sided garage doors, this unique leisure destination has become one of the club’s top new gathering spots for kids and adults of all ages.
On one side, the 2,500-square-foot facility’s garage doors open up to a countertop, giving pool visitors a new indoor-outdoor bar space; the other side of the Cupola opens up to a new 1,000-square-foot covered patio where members can relax in a quick casual food and beverage environment, watching golfers come up to the clubhouse or watching their favorite sports and entertainment broadcasts.
“We needed to have a space that could service the pool deck and continue to create a unique environment for members to gather and congregate in that more casual element that most clubs are looking for,” Ben Pasquith, the club’s general manager, says, “and people are really impressed when they walk into the space. It’s fun to see the evolution of the club space. The revenues have been really strong this year, but we’ve seen increased foot traffic because of it too. We’re getting so many calls now from our members asking, ‘hey, is the Coop open today,’ because that’s where they want to go."
DEALMAKERS, CLOSINGS AND GROUNDBREAKINGS
If purchasing a private golf club home and membership is one of the top items on your holiday to-do deal list, it seems to be a good time to start shopping. Especially in golf-heavy sunbelt markets like Florida where property values and waiting lists are trending towards a buyer’s market, according to several industry observers.
In a November 2024 study released by the Club Managers Association of America, there were 5,659 private clubs in America, ranging from golf and country clubs to yacht and racquet clubs. Of course, most of these private facilities are an estimated 3,700 golf and country clubs based on recent data from the National Golf Foundation.
About 47% or 1,800 clubs have wait lists, ranging from a few months to 10-or-more years, according to Club Benchmarking, a leading private club business-intelligence firm. That figure roughly doubled from before COVID, when 25% had wait lists.
Nevertheless, in the company’s annual 2025 outlook issue of “Club Trends,” which gathered data from approximately 300 representative clubs, Club Benchmarking said, “We can see that the membership-growth breakout that occurred in 2021 and 2022 has flattened.”
Florida-based Golf Life Navigator co-founder Jason Becker, whose company acts as an online matchmaker for consumers and golf club communities, is seeing similar softness in his home region of southwest Florida. In late May, Becker was quoted as saying most clubs were full in 2024 and cited golf-rich Naples’ 90 golf clubs as prime example of the downward trend.
“Last year only five had memberships available,” Becker told Golf Digest magazine. “Today, it’s 17. Clubs got too aggressive on the initiation fees, and consumers said, ‘We’re not going to pay it.”
Becker anticipates wait lists could soon get even shorter, primarily because more golf-home inventory is becoming available and prices are returning to more appropriate levels.
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President Donald Trump issued a pardon for British billionaire Joe Lewis on Nov. 13. The news is particularly golf noteworthy in Florida, where the two prominent golf course developers/owners are associated with a few high-profile private golf clubs.
Lewis’ Tavistock Group has been the decades-long owner of Orlando’s prestigious Isleworth and Lake Nona developments where dozens of famous pro golfers, athletes and business leaders have lived over the years. The Tavistock Group later developed ultra-exclusive Albany in the Bahamas, partnering with former Isleworth resident Tiger Woods and Lake Nona resident Ernie Els.
Lewis, who pleaded guilty to securities fraud related to insider trading in January 2024, has long domiciled in the Bahamas. But his family still has ties to their Tavistock properties in Orlando.
According to a Nov. 13 report on CNBC, Lewis, 88, requested his pardon in order to receive medical treatment in the U.S. and visit his grandchildren.