It started way back in 1963. A man named Bryant Skinner thought that he could sell fancy homes, if a golf course was attached and a big fence surrounded it.
He named it Deerwood and yes, it worked. Right away.
Today, Skinner is still around, overseeing his kids running his now-gaint company, and the golf course community business has boomed far outside Deerwood’s gates (which, by the way, had to be moved because of the congestion.)
Here at Bailey Publishing, we have a sister publication to the one you’re holding. It’s called Golf News and we distribute it to every golf course and golf specialty shop within 75 miles or so. It’s something that golfers have supported and, we think, they look forward to the new stack arriving at their club each month.
When Golf News — then called the North Florida Golf Journal — started more than 16 years ago, our Directory page listed exactly 13 golf communities. Today? Check the Golf Community Directory on page 33: there are 38.
More are coming. Palencia’s golf course opens Memorial Day. Nocatee is surviving the permit battles, and it will have at least one course. There will be 27 holes at Panther Creek on Jacksonville’s far westside, and that should feed off the Cecil Field developments. The corridor between I-95 and A1A — Yulee! — has one big development, North Hampton, and at least two more are planned.
It seems to be a recession-proof industry. It has become, at least in this area, a way of life.
There are two types of communities, of course. One is the Deerwood model, a gated, fenced place which includes amenities. The other is the more open arrangement: no gate and, often, the golf course and the developer are separate entities. Julington Creek and its Champions Club, for one.
There is a pecking order among the communities, too. You can start with an apartment, buy a home at an open community, then move up to fancier digs as your means increase. From Baymeadows, ideally, to Harbor Island at Marsh Landing.
What this means for real estate agents is an ongoing selection of attractive homes and homesites, and what seems to be a never-ending supply. As soon as one development is full, another opens. And, given the mobility of today’s home buyer, one isn’t restricted to a farm: a real estate office in my part of town lists a golf course home 30 miles away.
And another point: golf course communities no longer are only for golfers.
They once were; you wouldn’t live in one, unless you played, because you wouldn’t want to put up with gang mowers in the adjacent fairway at 6 a.m. or the mole crickets escaping to your yard from the nearby green.
Technologies have changed that. Mowing is no longer an early-morning occasion, and mole cricket bait today stops ‘em — literally —in their six-legged tracks.
Golf courses are a prestige item, whether you play or not, and being on a course today lifts the value of the home as much as any item short of being on the ocean or the intracoastal.
The section you’re holding contains stories about golf course communities, thepeople who make them and the people who sell them. Our company is proud of its connection with the sport, and we’re proud of our connection with the real estate community. So, it’s a natural that we put the two together.
We’ll do this again soon, and I hope you’ll suggest stories for our next effort. For us, it’s a labor of love. Golf may be an unconquerable game, but it’s certainly fun to write about. I’ll bet it’s fun to sell, too.
— Fred Seely is the editorial director
of Bailey Publishing & Communications
Inc. He may be reached at