Northeast Ohio golf course that went to auction was carved into pieces

LAKE TOWNSHIP, Ohio ‒ There will be no mulligans for Seven Hills Country Club.

The 18-hole public golf course — which spent this past season in hibernation — was sold in bits and pieces to nine separate buyers during a simultaneous online and in-person auction at the site Friday afternoon. No one submitted a bid to usurp the individual buyers, all but ensuring the property will not return as a golf course.

About 175 people attended the sale, conducted by Kaufman Realty & Auctions of Sugarcreek, at the former course. In slightly less than an hour, all 159 acres and an adjacent house just east of Hartville were gone.

The final overall sale price was a combined $3.3 million.

Interest, but no offers to buy entire Seven Hills Country Club

The likely future for most of it is as new home sites. The property is zoned for houses already.

“Building sites galore,” auctioneer Jr. Miller had advised the crowd.

A renovated house on more than four acres sold first, for $620,000, plus a 10% buyer’s premium. Then came the course itself. Chunks and slices of between five and 44 acres were offered in packages and separately in per-acre bids until all of it was sold.

“Don’t go home landless,” Miller said during a lull in bidding.

Miller said that a couple potential buyers had expressed pre-sale interest in acquiring the entire site at the auction, so it could be operated as a golf course again.

“But it just didn’t happen,” he said afterward.

The opportunity was there, though.

More: Photographer says adieu to Ohio golf course before auction with radiant photo gallery

At the end, bidders had a chance to step in and buy the entire site for at least 1% more than the combined $3.3 million from individual bids. Miller waited. He waited some more.

He even took a break in case someone needed to make a phone call.

But no one bid on the site as a whole. If someone had, each previous individual bidder would have had one opportunity to up their offers ― the overall buyer would then have to top that.

The former Seven Hills Country Club, which closed at the end of the 2022 season. The 18-hole course just outside Hartville was once considered one of the premier courses in Stark County. (Photo by Michael Criswell)

Golf course was idled for this past season

Miller said he expected the sales to close within 90 days.

Seven Hills was built along William Penn Avenue NE in 1968. The Gran family had owned the site for most of the past half-century. In its heyday, the finely manicured course was often rated one of the premier public layouts in the region.

The Grans sold the course and two houses in 2020 for $2.7 million to a limited liability corporation. The purchasing group was headed by James Gesiotto, a Jackson Township resident and Mount Eaton dentist, and family members, who solicited Kaufman to handle the auction.

The course remained open through most of 2022, but it was closed for this past season.

Another auction was scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday, to sell course maintenance and restaurant equipment.

Reach Tim at 330-580-8333 ortim.botos@cantonrep.com.On Twitter: @tbotosREP