The sale was completed late Tuesday. Avestra also runs Foxfire Country Club.
The buyers, known as CCWP, LLC, have been working with and managing the Country Club of Whispering Pines for several months. Members are already seeing improvements to the golf course, said Club President Paul Hallet.
The fact that the new owners have been willing to put work into the course without having the final deal signed speaks of their commitment to the club and its members, he said.
“Membership is very satisfied,” Hallet said.
Two of the buyers, E.W. Davis and John Skvaria, met Wednesday with attorneys Tom Van Camp and Ryan Oxendine, who helped structure the deal. The owners said the deal worked out “wonderfully” for all parties.
Neither side would reveal the sales price. The Moore County Tax Office values the club at about $7.7 million, but it had some debts.
Members of a different group that made an offer in the neighborhood of $4 million complain that the winning bid was lower than their bid. Hallet said that doing what is best for all involved, including members and employees, was the deciding factor, not just the money.
“There is more to a purchase price than money,” Davis said.
Hallet first informed the village in early 2003 that the member-owned country club was in financial trouble. He said there were two options: Sell to the village or to a private company.
When the mere suggestion that the village purchase the club first surfaced, it touched off a controversy that still haunts the village. It made a number of residents suspicious that the council was trying to buy the club secretly without their approval.
That led the Village Council to enact an ordinance requiring that a referendum be held if the village ever wanted to buy the club.
On Dec. 15, the club members voted overwhelmingly to sell to CCWP, LLC. Davis, who registered the name of CCWP, LLC with the secretary of state’s office, is an owner of Foxfire Resort and Avestra Golf Management.
It took more than 18 months to complete the deal. The club hasn’t had an ownership change since 1985 when the members, who already had a 30 percent interest, purchased the club.
Since that time, environmental regulations and other bureaucratic stumbling blocks have come up. New surveys had to be conducted, and easements had to be revisited. Three hundred pages of legal documents had to be rewritten.
Van Camp said that the members should thank the club’s leadership for working the many hours it took to unwind all that red tape.
“The members of the country club owe a huge debt to Paul Hallet … and the other members of the board who worked so tirelessly for no compensation,” Van Camp said.
Throughout the process, village representatives, particularly Planning and Zoning Director Gene Opdyke, has been very cooperative, the new owners said.
Van Camp said that the last of six meetings with the members was like a party. He got a standing ovation.
That’s because the buyers met the members’ expectations, Hallet said. There are some extra perks, too.
Because the clubs will share ownership now, CCWP members will be able to play at Foxfire for cart fees.
Doing the deal was like “friends getting together and working toward a common goal,” Hallet said.
Davis and Skvaria said that with the support of the membership and the community, the club can be successful. The club is a tuxedo with tennis shoes on, they said.
“We had the tux,” Skvaria said. “We just have to change the shoes.”
The new owners have been running the club since March 1, so the transition will be seamless, they said. Davis admits that the club has had its problems, but the burden of running the club now belongs to professional management.
“The solution lies with the property and the members,” he said. “I’ve been in Pinehurst all my life. These are some of the most pristine properties in the world. All we have to do is enhance and bring back its luster.”
One problem is visibility. Whispering Pines is difficult to find for those that don’t know where it is.
But visibility takes on different forms, Skvaria said. Word of mouth may best suit this property. The golf course has a lot going for it, Davis said. Ellis Maples, a student of Donald Ross, designed it.
