In a brief statement issued Wednesday, Calmwater Capital pledged to complete the unfinished hotel.
The Los Angeles-based lender said it has hired crews to complete the 150-room hotel and resort, which will feature three restaurants, a spa and fitness complex, wedding venue, meeting space and banquet facilities for up to 200 people. Calmwater said the resort also will include a resort-style pool and pickleball courts.
In addition to finishing the hotel, Calmwater Capital said the 18-hole, 130-acre Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course will reopen Sept. 30. The course closed in August after a would-be suitor, Westside Capital of Denver, failed to follow through on a $102.1 million purchase of the hotel and golf course.
The Jack Nicklaus-designed Banyan Cay Golf Club, part of a larger development in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Courtesy of Banyan Cay Resort & Club)
Westside’s decision not to close on the purchase left Banyan Cay with no choice but to let the lender’s $96.5 million credit bid stand. The amount reflects the debt extended to the hotel and golf club.
On Aug. 31, U.S. Banktrupcty Court Judge Erik Kimball approved the property’s transfer to a Calmwater Capital affiliate, U.S. Real Estate Holdings III.
The hotel was supposed to open as a Destination by Hyatt property, the company’s only Destination brand in Florida. Now it’s not certain the Hyatt brand will remain. In its statement, Calmwater said the brand and timeline for completion will be announced at a later date.
The ownership change marks the latest twist for the troubled resort and golf club, which is located just east of Interstate 95 off Congress Avenue and north of Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard.
The property previously was the site of the President Country Club, but the club fell into financial trouble and was sold to an investor group for $11 million in 2011. That investor group then flipped the property to Banyan Cay Dev LLC, led by Domenic Gatto Jr., for $26 million in 2015.
Construction of a resort hotel was beset by delays, to the dismay of The Lands of the President community, which overlooks Banyan Cay. In addition, residents in an adjacent new single-family community, the Residences at Banyan Cay by SobelCo, were supposed to be able to use the hotel’s club as part of the purchase of their homes.
Banyan Cay Resort was slated to be completed last fall after years of construction stoppages, a switch in hotel brands and legal woes for its developer, Gatto. In 2022, as Banyan Cay was hoping to finish construction and open in the fall, the project’s lender filed a foreclosure lawsuit.
In a July 16 complaint in Palm Beach County circuit court, U.S. Real Estate Credit Holdings III-A L.P., the Calmwater Capital affiliate, claimed Banyan Cay missed deadlines to open the hotel by April 30.
Calmwater Capital also sought repayment of two loans. One was a $61 million construction loan to build the Banyan Cay hotel. The other was a $24 million loan for construction of nearly two dozen unbuilt villas on the property.
By February, Banyan Cay had lost the lawsuit, and a judge issued two final judgments in favor of Calmwater Capital. The judgments totaled more than $95 million, an amount that includes the loans plus interest.
Banyan Cay filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in March in hopes of finding a buyer willing to pay a premium above the loan amount for the large, rare site.
The Jack Nicklaus-designed Banyan Cay Golf Club, part of a larger development in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Courtesy of Banyan Cay Resort & Club)
Westside was the sole bidder at a bankruptcy auction and was scheduled to close on the West Palm Beach project before July 31. In June, an enthusiastic Westside official said the project needed about $5 million more to finish construction, including completion of exterior amenities such as the pool deck.
But Westside did not close the deal. At the last minute, it left Banyan Cay in the lurch and unable to pay its insurance, maintain the property or pay employees, according to a 130-page court filing submitted Aug. 9 by the lender.
Westside’s failure to complete its $102.1 million acquisition means Banyan Cay lost millions when the property went back to its lender for the loan amount, said Joseph Pack, a Miami attorney representing Banyan Cay. Court documents indicate Banyan Cay believes Westside engaged in fraud and intentional misrepresentations.
Want to play the best public-access golf courses in each state? Keep reading.
Fresh for 2023, we present the Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for the top public-access layouts in each state, as judged by our nationwide network of raters.
The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce all our Golfweek’s Best course rankings.
The courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time – no membership required. (There are a handful of courses on this list that some players might consider to be private, but they do allow non-hosted, non-member guest play in some limited form, normally through a local hotel or similar arrangement.)
There’s one course of particular note this year. Of the dozens of courses new to this list, only Landmand Golf Club in Homer, Nebraska, debuts in the No. 1 spot in its state. Designed by Tad King and Rob Collins, Landmand opened in 2022.
KEY: (m) modern, built in 1960 or after; (c) classic, built before 1960. For courses with a number preceding the (m) or (c), that is where the course ranks on Golfweek’s Best lists for top 200 modern and classic courses in the U.S.
* indicates new or returning to the rankings
Editor’s note: The Golfweek’s Best 2023 rankings of top private courses in each state will be published Monday, June 12. More lists, such as the top 200 Modern and top 200 Classic Courses lists for 2023, will be published in the following weeks.
In the United States, three of the four states with the most lakes are in the Midwest. As such, the lake vacation is a longstanding tradition for many Midwestern families.
What makes a perfect lake resort? You should be able to walk out your door in flip-flops and a swimsuit, then stroll right down to a swimming beach. There should be activities that interest everyone in the family, from little kids to sulky teens to stressed parents to lake-loving seniors. Plus, comfortable rooms and tasty things to eat. Find it all at these six Midwest lake resorts. It’s time to plan a family trip.
Some say the word “spa” is an acronym for the Latin phrase Sanus Per Aquam, meaning “healing through water.” Others say it came from the springs of Spa, Belgium, around which a famous health resort grew. Or could it be from the Walloon (a French dialect spoken in parts of Belgium) word for “fountain?”
Whatever. We love the feeling of mineral-rich hot springs water in outdoor pools, especially after a day of hiking. The combo of calcium, magnesium, sodium, iron, and other dissolved minerals has soothed many an aching muscle–and, some folks claim, provided miraculous cures. The western US is rich in hot springs, ranging from humble holes out in the woods to water channeled into manmade pools at luxe resorts. Here are some of the loveliest springs where you can stay overnight in comfort while taking the healing waters. Or ask about a day pass.
LaBar’s other work has included renovations at Muirfield Village, and Rochester’s Oak Hill, the site of this year’s PGA Championship.
DETROIT — Expansive gardens, Romanesque architecture and the old-world chapel at Saint John’s Resort in Plymouth Township have attracted visitors for years. But Kevin Doyle promises the newly transformed property will be a unique combination of modern luxury, history and natural beauty as it undergoes a $50 million renovation to lure bigger conventions, weddings and charitable events.
Construction on the 200-acre former seminary is scheduled for completion in spring 2024.
“We are investing in this historic property with the aim to protect its authentic history, while taking it to a new level as a destination resort that’s rooted in a philanthropic mission,” said Doyle, chief operating officer for the nonprofit Pulte Family Charitable Foundation.
The William J. Pulte Estate purchased the site in July 2021 and transferred it to the foundation, which began renovating immediately. The initial budget was $40 million, but construction costs have increased, Doyle said.
“The authentic heritage and tradition of Saint John’s, and its ability to serve a higher purpose, has inspired us,” Doyle said.
The Pulte foundation was created by William “Bill” Pulte, a Michigan boy who built his first house at age 18 and went on to create Pulte Homes, according to his obituary in 2018. He was a quiet philanthropist who created the Angel Fund, an organization that provided shelter, heat and light for those in need in Detroit, family members have noted proudly over the years.
Pulte had a close relationship with the Archdiocese of Detroit, and when it decided to sell the Plymouth Township property, the church sold it to the family, Doyle said.
The foundation dedicates 100% of the net profits from Saint John’s to help fund programs for those in need. The Pulte foundation offers grants for foster programs, mental health, shelters for battered women and services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Bridge Housing Center at the Pope Francis Center in Detroit is one of many charities to receive funding, according to the Pope Francis Center’s 2020 annual report.
The Pulte foundation donated $6.6 million in grants in 2022 and $143 million to date, according to its annual report.
But make no mistake, Saint John’s is a business venture that involves ambitious plans that began with changing the name from the Inn at St. John’s to Saint John’s Resort. In 2006, the site evolved from what was designed for Catholic priest seminary training and a retreat center to include a restaurant and hotel. The conference center and golf course had been built years earlier.
“This property has a long mission-oriented history that aligns really well with our foundation and its values,” Doyle said. “Bill Pulte was a close friend and confidante of Cardinal (Adam) Maida, and Saint John’s was near and dear to his heart. He worked with the cardinal to transform the property into a conference center, a 118-room hotel, Five steakhouses (formerly 5ive), a 27-hole golf course and driving range.”
So, when the archdiocese decided to sell the property, the family foundation saw the acquisition as an opportunity to fund and continue the Pulte legacy while at the same time using the profits to reinvest in metro Detroit. Doyle declined to disclose the purchase price.
“We’re right outside Detroit but you feel isolated, like you’re transported to another world,” Doyle said about the campus located at Five Mile and Sheldon in Plymouth Township.
A rendering of the planned Monarch courtyard. The 200-foot glass wall will open to a courtyard with casual seating and fire pits. (Photo provided by the Saint John’s Resort)
In 2022, the site hosted 260 weddings and 520 meetings ranging in size from 20 to 700 attendees each, Doyle said.
The cost of staying a night at the resort now ranges from $200 to $1,600 a night with the presidential suite being a two-level, 1,600-square-foot suite with a kitchen, wet bar and dining room that seats up to eight people.
It has an indoor pool with a resistance swim area for freestyle swimming, plus a high-temperature jacuzzi and a low-temperature bubble lounger.
Saint John’s is 26 miles west of downtown Detroit, 21 miles north of Detroit Metro Airport and 19 miles east of Ann Arbor, according to Google Maps.
While some work has been completed, other projects are ongoing.
This is what’s being added:
The old golf course has been renovated into an elite 18-hole golf course called The Cardinal at Saint John’s.
A par 3 course modeled after famous greens from the United Kingdom and Ireland for relaxed, shorter golf games.
A 2-acre natural bent grass putting course, modeled after the Himalayas course at St. Andrews in Scotland.
Wedding and reception venues called the Garden Pavilion and the Monarch Ballroom to accommodate bigger parties and non-Catholic ceremonies. The 17,000-square-foot Monarch ballroom with glass skylights and a 200-foot glass wall will open to a courtyard with casual seating and fire pits. It can accommodate up to a 700-person reception or up to 1,500 seated event attendees for activities including a concert, conference or speech. The 6,200-square-foot glass-walled pavilion, called the Garden Pavilion, is scheduled to open in June.
A day spa.
A pub where the pro golf shop once sat.
A wine bar in the basement grotto of the conference center, opening this spring or summer.
Renovated bathrooms throughout the 118-room hotel that create a brighter and more modern space.
The Saints Mary and Joseph Chapel remains a Catholic chapel that the Pulte foundation leases to the Archdiocese of Detroit. Catholic marriage ceremonies conducted in compliance with church law may be celebrated in the chapel.
A rendering of the 17,000-square-foot Monarch ballroom with glass skylights and a 200-foot glass wall that will open to a courtyard with casual seating and fire pits. It can accommodate up to a 700-person reception or up to 1,500 seated attendees for activities including a concert, conference or speech. (Photo provided by the Saint John’s Resort)
Until now, golfers had to devote a whole day to the sport. Par 3 and putting courses create options for families and golfers who are looking for a shorter golf day and/or a more casual and fun experience, Doyle said.
During the summer, the site has hosted four wedding receptions every Saturday and could do a fifth wedding reception if space existed. Saint John’s is booked for weddings this year for existing spaces and many dates in 2024 already, Doyle said.
The golf courses are scheduled to open in spring 2024; this year will be spent growing in 140 acres of grass.
The two, three-story seminary buildings that date to the 1940s and overlook the golf course will be restored and expanded to frame the Monarch Ballroom and support larger events with a big kitchen, additional breakout meeting rooms and bridal suites for wedding preparation. One floor in a seminary building will be turned into efficiency apartments to provide 10 units for employees next year, Doyle said.
Who visits
A lot of visitors come from Chicago, as well as Germany and Japan, Doyle said. Corporate events, trade shows, manufacturers meetings and charity fundraisers dominate the calendar. In January, Saint John’s hosted an event for the Kevin’s Song Foundation benefiting suicide prevention awareness.
Hotel lobby at the Saint John’s Resort in Plymouth on Jan. 28, 2023.
Reviews on TripAdvisor since Pulte bought the site are left by people from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire, Mississippi and California. People from every corner of Michigan left guest reviews, too.
One five-star review from the Netherlands came from Alyeska13, who attended a wedding at Saint John’s in September 2022. She wrote, “A perfect gathering place for all of us.”
Bridal dreams
Lyndsay Heck, 29, a hairdresser who owns a salon in downtown Plymouth, married Nick Perez, 28, an airplane mechanic at Detroit Metro Airport, in the chapel at Saint John’s Resort in January. They liked that Saint John’s was a “one-stop-shop” with a hotel for guests, wedding venue and reception.
“Once you get there, you don’t have to leave,” Heck said, which made everything easier.
Their reception was in the original atrium, which is scheduled for refurbishment in coming months. It’s hard to schedule updates because the room is so popular, Doyle said.
“Everything was almost too good to be true,” Heck told the Free Press.
Elyse Haboush, 26, of Troy, decided to have her wedding at Saint John’s in April.
“I’d like to say picking a wedding venue is like visiting college campuses. When you find the one, you know,” she told the Free Press. “I actually was proposed to at Saint John’s. We were supposed to go to dinner with his parents at Five steakhouse on Dec. 1, 2021. Both our families were there.”
Haboush works in finance, her fiancé, Thomas Orlich, 27, of Livonia, works in purchasing. They felt warmth from the staff, who suggested laying out rose petals and tea lights, she said. “They were all onboard, so excited and just really sweet.”
A rendering of the 6,200-square-foot glass-walled pavilion, called the Garden Pavilion, is scheduled to open in June. (Photo provided by the Saint John’s Resort)
A little like Bloomfield Hills and Oakland Hills
Sometimes making things better means acknowledging reality. This is true at Saint John’s, too.
“The golf course wasn’t very good. It was like an average public golf course,” Rich LaBar, a golf course contractor hired from Bernardsville, New Jersey, to build the course, told the Free Press while discussing his upcoming changes.
LaBar’s other work has included renovations at Muirfield Village Golf Club, the site of the PGA Tour’s Memorial, and Rochester’s Oak Hill, the site of this year’s PGA Championship.
He told the Free Press he worked at Oakland Hills and Bloomfield Hills country clubs, also through Pulte family connections. And the vision presented for Saint John’s was, frankly, “pretty exciting,” LaBar said.
As an altar boy until freshman year of high school who went on to marry a Catholic Midwesterner, LaBar said the project just felt right. His wife, Bridget Farley LaBar, is a cousin to Ford CEO Jim Farley. LaBar talks of visiting family in Grosse Pointe, Grand Rapids and Muskegon.
“I’m drawn to working in Michigan,” he said.
LaBar is working with golf course designer Ray Hearn, whose company is based in Holland, Michigan.
Every step approved
Kurt Heise, born and raised in Dearborn, moved to the Plymouth area 17 years ago and has attended weddings, banquets and fundraisers at Saint John’s over the years. Now he’s seeing reinvestment, including the purchase of a van by the Pulte foundation for the local senior transportation program in Plymouth Township.
This is a big project for the community and they’ve been very meticulous and supportive, Doyle said.
This rendering of the Monarch Courtyard at Saint John’s Resort is one of many improvements made possible by a $50 million investment.
There may be a lot of changes at Saint John’s, but Heise, a former state representative and now Plymouth Township supervisor, noted that each detail of the project has involved discussion, careful review and approval from local authorities.
“We are monitoring every aspect,” he told the Free Press. “Saint John’s Resort is going to be one of the crown jewels of Michigan tourism — for weddings, golf, banquet facilities. I think it will be on par with the Grand Hotel and Oakland Hills golf course and other historic venues we already enjoy around the state.”
Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid
In a wide-ranging Q&A, the CEO of KemperSports discusses the sale and the possibility of a fourth course.
Streamsong Resort in Florida opened in 2012, and aside from its original two golf courses and the addition of a lodge and a third course, a major talking point has always been its owner, Mosaic Company.
One of the world’s largest phosphate producers, Mosaic had for decades mined the remote Central Florida site where Streamsong was constructed, about an hour’s drive southeast of Tampa and 90 minutes southwest of Orlando. Those past mining activities defined the land, leaving huge piles of sand that over time had turned into surreal dunes. The landscape makes the three courses at Streamsong very different than just about anything else in Florida.
But Mosaic was still first and foremost a mining company. It hired golf management company KemperSports of Illinois to operate the golf courses from the start, and two years ago KemperSports took over management of the entire resort, including hospitality. For several years there was speculation that Mosaic would sell the resort at some time.
That time has come, as Mosaic has sold Streamsong Resort to its longtime management partner, KemperSports. As first reported by the Fire Pit Collective, the sale price was $160 million, confirmed by Mosaic in a news release Friday. The acquisition included three golf courses, two clubhouses, the Streamsong Lodge and other amenities, all on 7,000 acres as part of the deal. Just over 2,000 of those acres are in use now as part of the resort.
The Lodge at Streamsong in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong)
Each of Streamsong’s three courses – the Red by designers Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, the Blue by Tom Doak and the Black by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner – ranks in the top 60 on Golfweek’s Best list of top modern courses in the United States. The Red ranks No. 2 on Golfweek’s Best list of public-access layouts in Florida, with the Black No. 3 and the Blue No. 4 on that list. Streamsong is one of just a handful of resorts to have so many highly ranked courses.
“We’re very excited,” Steve Skinner, the CEO of KemperSports, told Golfweek on Friday. “As you know, we’ve been involved with this property since almost Day 1, for over 10 years. It’s such a special project and such a special property, we’re just really excited. It’s a rare place in golf and just really iconic.”
Skinner – a trained lawyer who has worked at KemperSports since 1998 – described the acquisition as having been competitive with several other potential buyers looking to take advantage of golf’s resurgent popularity since the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020. He said there aren’t many properties like Streamsong with its three courses, and interest was high.
KemperSports has 140 properties in its management stable, Skinner said, including 15 courses it owns and another dozen it leases. Those properties under management include both private clubs and public-access layouts, and the company also operates a division focused on youth and recreational sports venues. KemperSports was founded in 1978 by Steve Lesnick, who still serves as its chairman, and in 2022 the company took on several new investors who provided capital for expansion, including the Streamsong acquisition.
Having managed Streamsong’s golf for a decade and the entire resort in recent years, there isn’t a tremendous learning curve for KemperSports as it takes over the resort. KemperSports doesn’t plan any changes to the staff, and Skinner said he has faith in the people working at the resort to keep a focus on customers and continuous improvements. Skinner spoke to Golfweek of several plans for the resort, both in the short and long-term.
The biggest change coming soon will be the development of The Chain, a non-traditional, short, 18-hole course by the team of Coore and Crenshaw to be built directly across from the resort’s 228-room hotel. Streamsong announced the plans to build The Chain a year ago.
Is even more golf on the horizon for Streamsong? Read on for that and more from Skinner. This discussion has been edited for length.
Ranking the top public golf courses you can play in every state, as judged by Golfweek’s nationwide group of experts.
Not a member somewhere? Not a problem.
With this list of Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play, we present the best public-access courses in each state, as judged by our nationwide network of raters.
The members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged together to produce a final rating for each course. Each course is then ranked against other courses in its state to produce the final rankings.
All the courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time.
KEY: (m) modern, built in 1960 or after; (c) classic, built before 1960. (For courses with a number preceding the (m) or (c), that is where the course ranks on Golfweek’s Best lists for top 200 modern and classic courses in the U.S.). * indicates new or returning to the rankings.
(Pictured atop this story is Sweetens Cove in Tennessee.)
Golfweek’s Best 2021: Top 200 Resort Golf Courses in the U.S.
Welcome to Golfweek’s Best 2021 list of top resort golf courses in the United States, first published in the print issue of Golfweek’s Ultimate Guide.
(Pictured above: Bandon Dunes Golf Resort’s new Sheep Ranch, which breaks into this Resort list at No. 8.)
The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final, cumulative rating. Then each course is ranked against other courses in the region.
We hope you enjoy poring over these rankings, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts .
Each course is listed with its 2020 ranking, its location, architect(s), the year it opened and an average ranking from all the Golfweek Raters who reviewed it.
