Welcome back to Property Lines, a column by veteran real estate reporter Alexei Barrionuevo. Each week on Tuesday, Barrionuevo will report on housing trends, real estate deals, and major business moves right here on Curbed.
The Grand Dunes Golf Club in Myrtle Beach is one of 22 courses that recently sold to a Chinese investment in the last two years. Photo via Grand Dunes.
In Escondido, California, the city recently settled a smelly legal tussle with a developer who purchased a private country club, shut it down, and then proposed to replace it with 600 homes. At times, the land-rights dispute got downright gross. Last year, the owner of the former Escondido Country Club, near San Diego, incensed neighbors after he dumped an estimated five tons of chicken manure on several fairways.
Residents thought it was retaliation for their opposition to development plans by the owner, Michael Schlesinger's company Stuck in the Rough. Schlesinger insisted he was just doing some fertilizing. So perhaps it's not surprising that the settlement, reached in October, restored zoning on the club property to residential usebut only after Schlesinger agreed not to be the developer.