‘We can’t keep this open out of the goodness of our heart’: This Florida golf course is losing money; will need to be closed

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — Lone Pine Golf Course, long an inexpensive haven for weekend players and beginners near Palm Beach, will need to be closed to stem financial losses, one of its owners said.

“We’re going to have to close the course,” said Joe Gerlach, who owns the course with four of his siblings. “We’re not going to be in a situation where we lose money. We can’t keep this open out of the goodness of our heart.”

The Gerlachs have an offer from homebuilder D.R. Horton for the 63.6-acre site.

That offer, the details of which Gerlach said he can’t disclose, is contingent upon Riviera Beach granting land-use and zoning changes that would allow D.R. Horton to build 286 housing units on the site.

On June 9, Riviera Beach’s Planning and Zoning Board rejected requests for those land-use and zoning changes at a meeting with 25 to 30 residents who live near the golf course and pleaded for Lone Pine to remain a golf course.

The Planning and Zoning Board serves as an advisory panel for the City Council, whose members will have the final say on what becomes of Lone Pine. A spokeswoman for Riviera Beach said City Council members could take up the issue as soon as August.

Nearby residents don’t want Lone Pine to close

Already, the fate of the course has riled nearby residents, who say they bought their homes with the understanding that they would be living in a golf-course community. And the course poses something of a quandary for Riviera Beach officials, who must consider several competing factors:

• A desire for additional housing and the tax base boost that could generate.
• A desire to preserve open space and recreational opportunities.
• A desire not to antagonize local residents who want to continue living in a golf-course community.

Riviera Beach, like other cities in Palm Beach County, has sought to encourage developers to build affordable housing. Builders get tax and other benefits if they agree to include units at below-market rates so they are affordable to teachers, civil service employees and others in middle-income brackets.

D.R. Horton’s plan calls for “market rate” housing, according to Hope Calhoun, a land-use attorney who represented the developer at the June 9 Planning and Zoning Board meeting. None of the units would be subsidized or rentals.

Calhoun said the least expensive housing units would start in the $350,000 range if the developer were offering them today.

Lone Pine Golf Club co-owner Richard Gerlach accepts payment from customer Norman Greene, 82, for a basket of driving range golf balls at Lone Pine Golf Club in Riviera Beach, Florida, on Thursday, June 23, 2022. Photo by Andres Leiva, The Palm Beach Post

The Palm Beach Post reached out to each of Riviera Beach’s five City Council members for comment on Lone Pine and D.R. Horton’s plan to buy it. Only one, KaShamba Miller-Anderson, responded. And she kept her powder dry.

“D.R. Horton and the Lone Pine Community will be coming before us in one of our future meetings as a hearing,” she said. “I would like to reserve my comments until that time. I’m certainly open to hearing from all sides of the issue.”

If the June 9 meeting is any guide, council members can expect an impassioned plea from homeowners who live near the course. Wearing white-and-green T-shirts that read, “Keep It Green, Say NO to Rezoning,” they urged Planning and Zoning Board members to reject D.R. Horton’s request for changes.

“The golf course has been a major absorption area of rainfall for the last 40 some-odd years, and we still have flooding,” said Francis Scott. “I see a potential problem.”

Another area resident, Linda Brown, said: “My major concern, among many, is traffic. At peak hours, traffic is stalled on Military Trail.”

Brown, like other residents, questioned the accuracy of a traffic study conducted on D.R. Horton’s behalf because it was done during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when closings and stay-at-home orders reduced traffic.

But Yoan Machado, a planner who represented D.R. Horton, said the study was done in a way that accounted for typical traffic flows.

What would the new development plan look like?

Calhoun said plans for the Lone Pine site have been in the works since before 2020, when the zoning application was first submitted.

Through groans and objections from area residents, Machado and Calhoun talked up the merits of the development plan, including the installation of 10-inch wide water pipes, which, once joined with smaller ones in use in the community now, would increase water pressure, long a source of frustration for area residents.

The development plan, which calls for the building of 124 single-family homes and 162 townhomes, would also include an 11.4-acre lake, which, according to Calhoun and Machado, would help with drainage.

D.R. Horton’s presenters noted that their development plan would, under the city’s rules, be required to leave 35 percent of the site as open space. The developer is proposing to go further than that, leaving 41 percent as open space.

None of that swayed area residents, however. Some said they feel deceived.

When he considered buying near Lone Pine in 1984, “it was marketed to us as a golfing community,” James Elder said. Homes with a view of the golf course cost $10,000 more, Elder said.

But Gerlach noted that homeowners at Lone Pine don’t have some of their homeowner association fees directed to support the course, as is common in communities with a golf course. Nor are there mandatory memberships, another tactic common in golf course communities.

Lone Pine owner: Golf courses are expensive to maintain

“Golf courses have to be re-grassed periodically,” he said. “Our course hasn’t been re-grassed since 1992. We can’t charge what we need to charge. We’re not making any money here.”

Lone Pine’s comparatively low costs and relaxed atmosphere is a part of its appeal even as those attributes contribute to financial losses.

Golf has long sought to expand its reach to minorities, and Lone Pine’s location in Riviera Beach, where a majority of residents are Black, has helped in that regard. It is not uncommon for Black players to be seen teeing up on Lone Pine.

Some of the residents who opposed the sale and rezoning of Lone Pine said they’d like to see the city of Riviera Beach commit resources to improving the course.

“With Riviera Beach’s commitment to reimagining this community, just think about it,” said Julian Jackson. “Just consider the next Tiger Woods coming from this community as opposed to some other community.”

Gerlach said he and his siblings would love to see Lone Pine continue as a golf course. He said it would take a “$3.5 million investment to be viable for the next 25 years.”

Would the city of Riviera Beach be interested in taking over Lone Pine?

The idea of having Riviera Beach own the course has been explored, too, he said.

“We’ve offered the golf course multiple times to Riviera Beach,” he said. “They have no interest. It’s going to cost them money every year.”

There hasn’t been interest from private parties who want to keep Lone Pine open as a golf course.

“Do you know how many people have offered to buy it and keep it a golf course?” Gerlach asked. “Not one.”

The bottom line, Gerlach said, is that, if the D.R. Horton deal falls through, he and his sibling will look to sell to another buyer who might fence the site and wait for demands that something be done with it.

“This will not remain a golf course,” Gerlach said. “What other option do we have? What else are we going to do? This is our inheritance.”

His late father, Charles Gerlach, used losses from the course as a tax deduction against gains in his other businesses.

But Gerlach said the course doesn’t serve the same purpose for him and his siblings.

“We’d love to keep it a golf course in the family, but it doesn’t make any money,” he said. “Other courses are newer and less expensive. It’s difficult for us to compete.”

wwashington@pbpost.com