Developer Yells, ‘Fore’!

By Valerie Cotsalas
September 24, 2006

GOLF courses in the Town of Huntington are in limbo after a moratorium on building on the fairways was extended recently. But one developer says he will push ahead with his plans to buy a private course, in hopes of building condominiums on the site once the moratorium ends.

Last December, three of the eight golf courses in the Town of Huntington in Suffolk County were for sale or had been sold to developers planning to build homes on them.

When civic groups alerted officials in Huntington to the listings and sales, the town council quickly enacted a six-month moratorium on all golf course development.

The ban was intended to give the town time to study how to manage development of the privately owned courses — bastions of a dwindling commodity known as open space — which, under current regulations, allow building homes on half- or one-acre lots.

But six months passed and the town did not create a new zoning code for golf courses, as officials had planned. “I haven’t seen any recommendations yet” from the town planning board, Stuart Besen, a town councilman, said recently.

To buy more time, Mr. Besen sponsored a measure in June, which was approved by the town council, to extend the moratorium until February 2007.

Golf course preservation looms large in Huntington and most towns in Suffolk County, where the courses are plentiful, but costly to maintain.

“The clubs aren’t making money, and land prices are increasing incredibly over the last few years,” Mr. Besen, the town councilman, said. “Clubs are saying ‘Why don’t we sell the land?’ ”

Local residents are concerned that more homes will crowd their open views and add traffic to their communities.

“We need to do something to make sure that we don’t lose the golf courses,” Mr. Besen said. “I would like to see a couple of recommendations and then make a final decision.”

Gary Melius, president of Cold Spring Hills Development LLC, said he still planned to buy a private course, the Cold Spring Country Club in Huntington, for around $90 million on the chance that he would be able to build condominiums on and around the club’s 18-hole golf course once the town decided how it would address the zoning issue.

Mr. Melius confirmed that the club’s board recently approved having members vote on the offer. The country club management declined to comment.

“We all take chances,” Mr. Melius said recently of his plans, though he would have an opportunity to back out of the deal if he did not like the outcome of the moratorium, he said.

Another developer, Shawn Hakimian of the Hakimian Organization in Manhattan, had bought the Hollow Hills Golf Course and applied for permits to build 30 single-family luxury homes on one-acre lots when the moratorium stalled his plans.

New zoning might further restrict the number of homes allowed on or near golf courses, affecting developers’ profits.

Mr. Hakimian has filed a lawsuit seeking to be excluded from the moratorium, said his lawyer, Bram Weber. Mr. Hakimian evicted the golf club from the 41-acre parcel in September 2005, Mr. Weber said, adding, “We weren’t a golf course for months before the moratorium was enacted” in February.

Initially, local groups opposed any development on the Cold Spring course. But Mr. Melius’s plan gained support after a private presentation for the groups in April.

The plan is still in its preliminary stages, but Mr. Melius said he would put about 250 condominiums on part of the country club property, but preserve the 18-hole golf course. The condos would be in several buildings, Mr. Melius said, adding that it was too early to say how many.

Next to the Cold Spring Country Club is the Oheka Castle, a 126-room French Chateau-style mansion built in 1921 by Otto Hermann Kahn, the financier, on his 443-acre estate. (The castle name is a string of the letters of his first, middle and last names.)

Mr. Melius owns 22 acres of the estate, including the mansion, which he has spent millions to restore since 1984 and now operates as a banquet hall, hotel and spa. “I have a 22-year relationship with this community,” he said.

The condo development would not be visible from existing roads and there would be an underground parking garage, Mr. Melius said.

The development would appear “like a little French village surrounding a castle with cobblestone streets and such,” Mr. Melius said. “Very, very European.”

He would give up development rights to the 18-hole golf course as part of the deal, and while “nothing is set up yet,” local residents might be allowed to use the course.

“He’s probably taking a calculated risk that he thinks he can get the zoning for the property in view of the fact that he’s preserving the golf course,” said Mark Cuthbertson, a town councilman who sponsored the first development moratorium.

An existing 306-home community of mostly high-end colonials, ranches and high ranches surrounding the castle was built in the 1950’s and 60’s on 256 acres of Kahn’s estate. His private 18-hole golf course, three cottages and a stable are now part of the 168-acre Cold Spring Country Club.

The entrance to the community is on Jericho Turnpike, a major shopping and business corridor that runs the length of the island’s north shore, in an area where many high-end gated communities have sprung up in the last 20 years.

The Cold Spring Hills Civic Association expressed support for Mr. Melius’s plan on their Web site after the developer’s presentation.

“We do not want to see the club sold,” the civic association stated. “However, if it is sold and developed, we prefer Gary to be the developer.”

In the 1980’s, a zoning exception was made especially for Mr. Melius’s Oheka Castle Hotel and Estate, according to Robert Hughes, the Huntington historian. The community “wanted him to succeed so that he would fix up the mansion and preserve it,” Mr. Hughes said.

The location of Mr. Melius’s condos, so close to the Nassau border, would be a selling point, according to Shawn Elliott, owner of Shawn Elliott Luxury Homes and Estates, with offices including neighboring Woodbury and Syosset in Nassau and Dix Hills in Suffolk.

“This is so far west in Suffolk that it’s 100 feet away from the Nassau borderline,” Mr. Elliott said. “What do you have in golf course communities in Nassau? I can’t think of any.”

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