Arthur Hills to Design Golf Course at Sanctuary
Esteemed course architect Arthur Hills has been selected to design 18 holes here on the tranquil shores of Lake Russell, where the initial development phase of The Sanctuary at Lake Russell — a residential resort community in Abbeville County — is now underway.
Developed by Charlotte-based U.S. Land Investments, The Sanctuary is all about Lake Russell, the most beautiful of three inter-connected lakes located in the Piedmont region of Georgia and South Carolina. Formed by a late 20th century damning of the upper Savannah River, the shores of Lake Russell will soon be home to private homes, a semi-private golf club from the hand of Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates, a marina, and the luxury of Calhoun Falls State Park (with its 25,000 acres of protected public land) right next door.
“The Sanctuary at Lake Russell is a different sort of second-home/retirement opportunity because, while it sits close to the populations centers of Atlanta, Charlotte, Greenville and Augusta, it’s a world away in terms of pace, lifestyle and environment,” said Stephen Rosenburgh, chairman of U.S. Land Investments. “The Lake is truly a wonder: 26,000 acres, 500 miles of shoreline, 176 feet deep, crystal clear and — because it’s a damned river — the water height never fluctuates more than 5 feet. The area all around our community is almost completely undeveloped for miles. We like to say that resident of The Sanctuary will have Calhoun Falls State Park for their backyard, Lake Russell for their swimming pool and neighbors of whitetail deer, eastern wild turkeys and more waterfowl than we have time to name.”
On May 3, the development launched its second sales event; the first sold 34 of 370 available home lots. For sales information, call 800-831-LAKE.
The Sanctuary at Lake Russell is a multi-phase development of considerable scope and ambition. This first phase will include 370 homes, pool club and pavilion, recreation fields and picnic areas, trail systems, marina and fishing piers (Russell renowned as one of the best fishing lakes in the Southeast). Phases II through V will include the semi-private golf course, resort hotel and second marina. The full master plan calls for no more than 2,000 residential real estate units.
“We’ve done a great deal of course design work across the Southeast, but we’ve never seen a piece of property quite like this one,” said Arthur Hills, partner and principal with Toledo, Ohio-based Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associations, designers of more than 200 courses worldwide including the Golf Club of Georgia, famed Palmetto Dunes on Hilton Head Island, and the new Club at Olde Stone, recently named by Golfweek magazine the top course in all of Kentucky.
Hills/Forrest is expert at fashioning golf courses in the context of luxury real estate communities, a priority at The Sanctuary. In 2007, Golf Connoisseur ranked three of the firm’s designs, including Fiddler’s Creek and Bonita Bay in Naples, Fla., among the nation’s top 40 real estate courses in the world. “We see that sort of potential at Lake Russell, which is why we’re involved,” Hills added. “The lake is exquisite, and its creation seemed to have been executed with great golf in mind.”
US Land Investments is the force behinds some of the region’s most successful residential developments; Legend Oaks Plantation in Summerville, S.C.; Starnes Crossing in Waxhaw, N.C.; Stonebridge in Mineral Springs, N.C.; and Grass Meadows in Charlotte, to name just a few. But The Sanctuary at Lake Russell is a departure not just in scope but, in Rosenburgh’s view, setting.
“It’s a unique place, a retreat — in large part because it’s a lake that, until 1984, wasn’t even here,” he says. “You can see and feel these untouched, pristine qualities the moment you stand there on the shore. It’s like living in a national park.
“Fact is, there simply aren’t too many places left like this one. It’s one of the many serendipities surrounding Lake Russell and this project. Here’s another one: The Army Corps of Engineers insisted on a 300-foot setback reserved for public use and recreation. Accordingly, our golf holes will sit in this buffer, lining the lake, and they will be stunning.”
Arthur Hills/Steve Forest and Associates is one of golf’s most active and respected practitioners of golf course design. Today the firm has more than 40 separate original design and renovation and projects underway in Mexico, Canada, the United States and Europe. Course raters can’t stop gushing about two of the firm’s new Swedish designs: iiHBiSand Golf Club, just more than a year old but already ranked by Golf Digest among the world’s Top 100 courses outside the United States (#82), and Hills Golf Club, named by Travel+Leisure Golf magazine among the top 10 courses to open worldwide in 2005. Both are strong candidates for the 2018 Ryder Cup Matches in Sweden. Closer to home, the Wolfdancer Course at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines near Austin, Texas — was named among GOLF Magazine’s “Top 10 New Courses You Can Play” for 2006.
Campground Cookoff Thanks
by Allen Stancil, Senior Ranger
Calhoun Falls State Recreation Area
Thanks to all that came to our Spring RV Show at Calhoun Falls State Recreation Area this past weekend. The weather could have been better, but we still had a great time. Jody's RV of Greenwood came and had RV's for people to tour. Jody also donated prizes for our campfire raffle. Thank you and your staff. I would like to thank the CF Market for donating the hotdogs and s'mores for our campfire. Everyone enjoyed them. Also, I'd like to thank the Sportsman for providing biscuits, hotdogs, and BBQ sandwiches. People are still talking about how good the food was. And a special that thanks to all the employees of the park that helped to make this event a success.
"Severe" Drought Continues
A severe drought continues for Calhoun Falls and many other South Carolina areas, according to the State Department of Natural Resources. The counties that remain in the severe category are Abbeville, Anderson, Chester, Cherokee, Greenville, Lancaster, Laurens, Oconee, Pickens, Spartanburg, Union, and York. The counties downgraded to moderate drought include Aiken, Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Colleton, Edgefield, Fairfield, Greenwood, Hampton, Kershaw, McCormick, Newberry, Orangeburg, and Saluda. Twenty other counties throughout the state were lowered to incipient drought status.
Campground Cookoff to be at CF State Park
Competitors from around the Southeast are invited to gather around the campfire for the first annual South Carolina Old 96 District Campground Cookoff to be held Sept. 19-21, 2008 at the Calhoun Falls State Recreation Area on Lake Russell.
The Old 96 District Tourism Commission, which markets the South Carolina counties of Abbeville, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens and McCormick, has developed the event with support from the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.
The winners will be crowned by three nationally known celebrity judges – Rick Browne from “Barbecue America” on PBS; Dotty Griffith, the former dining and food editor for 30 years at the Dallas Morning News, and Charles Mattocks, “The Poor Chef” seen on NBC affiliates and purveyor of spices in Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart stores.
Interested amateurs can enter one of three categories: appetizer, entrée or dessert. Each dish must be prepared from scratch and cooked over a campfire of charcoal or wood. Cash prizes of $500, $300 and $200 and other in-kind donations from companies such as Camping World and Dodge Manufacturing will be awarded for first- through third-place winners. Applications are available online at www.campgroundcookoff.com and must be received by Aug. 15, 2008.
A minimum two-night stay at the Calhoun Falls State Recreation Area campsite is required for the entrants, and there will be many activities for the entrants, family and friends to attend, including a “ring of fire,” complimentary barbecue for the contestants, bluegrass band, displays from sponsors, and cooking demonstrations by the celebrity judges. Contestants must be 18 years of age or older and there can no more than three members to a cookoff team.
The award-winning recipes will be compiled into a cookbook available after the Campground Cookoff at the Calhoun Falls State Recreation Area and through the Old 96 District Tourism Commission Web site at www.sctravelold96.com.
To enter and view general rules visit www.campgroundcookoff.com or call toll-free at 1-866-354-0003. Reservations at Calhoun Falls State Recreation Area can be made by calling (864) 447-8267.
Elbert County Asks for Hearing Over South Carolina Dock Plan
By Gary Jones
The Elberton Star
Saying an application to construct floating docks on Lake Richard B. Russell “violates the original intent of pristine conditions” on the lake, Elbert County Administrator Bob Thomas has written a letter to the South Carolina Department of Commerce (SCDOC) asking for a public hearing in Elbert County or in Abbeville County, S.C., because of objections by property owners on the lake.
The application calls for floating docks “strategically placed in front of private property and as such will become private docks for the residents and homeowners of the development company,” Thomas wrote in a letter dated March 7 to the SCDOC.
The letter was sent prior to a March 10 deadline established by the Charleston (S.C.) District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for comment on the Lake Russell project in which the SCDOC has submitted the application to build floating boat docks in the Blue Hole Recreation Area.
The proposed docks are strategically located just off the shoreline on the South Carolina side next to a private gated-community development project.
The letter by three days precedes a March 10 letter to the Corps of Engineers from Hunton & Williams law firm in Atlanta, which is representing 14 businesses around the lake who “have interests along the shores of Lake Russell, in the form of businesses, real and personal property, and recreational use and enjoyment of the lake.”
According to documents submitted to the Corps of Engineers by the law firm, a company known as The Sanctuary (out of Charlotte, N.C.) is advertising that the 125 boat slips proposed in Lake Russell would be for the development’s “private exclusive use.”
This violates the Corps of Engineers intent for the lake to the body of water in a pristine state for recreational use, say the homeowners.
The interested parties in the Hunton & Williams law firm are Evergreen Resources, Beaverdam Marina, Vandiver Family Investment LP, Beaverdam Estates Homeowners Association, Savannah Bluff Homeowners Association, Allen Creek Homeowners Association, Horseshoe Pointe Homeowners Association, Wilson Creek Homeowners Association, Pickens Creek Homeowners Association, Newton’s Pointe Homeowners Association. Newton’s Landing Homeowners Association, Craft Ferry Homeowners Association, Patriots Pointe Homeowners Association and Coldwater Creek Homeowners Association.
Thomas said his letter is an effort to “level the playing field” for development at Lake Russell.
According to Thomas, if a private development is allowed to provide homeowners on the South Carolina side “exclusive private access” to those docks, then that precedent would create an environment in which all development would move to the South Carolina side.
“If that kind of development is going to be allowed then Georgia needs the same kind of development access,” said Thomas, who said he was asking the Corps of Engineers to enforce the same rules for both sides of Lake Russell.
Although a congressional mandate for a land swap through federal legislation made possible by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) put the development on a fast track, the legislation didn’t allow the developers a pass on Corps of Engineers restrictions on the lake, according to the law firm’s letters.
Russell Dam in President's Budget
President George Bush's fiscal year 2009 Civil Works budget, released February 4, 2008, contains $61,021,000 for projects, studies and operations and maintenance in the Savannah District. The Richard B. Russell Dam and Lake project was included in the budget request for an additional $1.45 million for the continuation of environmental monitoring and the oversight of one remaining hydropower contract for the installation of the static start system to operate the pump back units inside the dam.
'Severe' Drought Status Maintained
The S.C. Drought Response Committee met Jan. 23 in Columbia and decided to maintain the drought status at "severe" for all South Carolina counties except Jasper and Beaufort, which will remain at moderate. While the committee recognized that precipitation has been above normal for the past 30 days, it has not been enough to return streamflows, ground water, and reservoirs to the moderate drought status. The Committee was also concerned because forecasters expect a return to below normal rainfall for February through April 2008.
Lake Russell Surviving Drought
While the lingering drought has dropped Hartwell and Thurmond lakes 10 feet or more, and closed many boat ramps, Lake Russell remains near full pool and all boats ramp remain open. According to the U.S. Corps of Engineers website, "Because Russell Lake has only five feet of conservation storage, it cannot be drawn down equally with the other lakes beyond 3 or 4 feet (this is why Russell Lake may appear fuller than Hartwell and Thurmond Lakes during a drought)." Drought Plan
Third District Designated USDA ‘Natural Disaster’
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has designated 33 South Carolina counties as a primary natural disaster area due to drought and excessive heat. Congressman Gresham Barrett (SC, 03) sent a letter to the Acting Secretary of Agriculture encouraging him to grant a disaster declaration requested by Gov. Mark Sanford.
“A drought of this magnitude not only brings damage to the soil but can make or break family livelihoods for the next few generations,” said Congressman Barrett. “I am pleased that the drought designation will allow farmers in these areas to apply for much needed emergency loans so that, hopefully, this season’s loss will not affect next year’s productions.”
After reviewing the Damage Assessment Reports, the USDA determined the counties were a disaster area as there was “sufficient production losses in all 33 counties.” Included in the natural disaster designation are all 10 counties of Congressman Barrett’s Third Congressional District. These counties are Abbeville, Aiken, Anderson, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, Oconee, Pickens and Saluda.
This Secretarial disaster designation allows eligible farmers to be considered for low-interest emergency loans from the Farm Service Agency (FSA) as long as eligibility requirements are met.FSA will consider each application on its own merit by taking into account the extent of losses, security available and repayment ability.
Nearby Recreation Areas Closed
MT. CARMEL, SC - The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers Thurmond Project Office recently announced the closing or partial closing of many recreation areas around Thurmond Lake.
The South Carolina campgrounds that closed in September 2007 include Hawe Creek and Mt. Carmel. Modoc campground remains open until November 30. Leroy’s Ferry campground remains open year round.
The Georgia campground closings in September included Broad River, Hester’s Ferry, Winfield and Ridge Road. The Georgia campgrounds that will remain open until October 31 include Big Hart and Raysville. Bussey Point, Clay Hill (sites 1-4 only) and Petersburg (sites 1-27) will remain open year round.
Day use area closings in September included Parksville in South Carolina. Clarks Hill Park, also located in South Carolina, will remain open throughout the winter. In Georgia, Gill Point, Cherokee, Amity, and Big Hart day use areas closed in September. Also in Georgia, only the Deer Run loop of Lakes Springs remains open, and only the small loop adjacent to the entrance of West Dam is open.
In all the closed or partially closed day use areas, boat ramps remain available to the public unless current low lake levels have made their use unsafe. For the latest information on boat ramp access, visit the Thurmond Lake website at www.sas.usace.army.mil/lakes/thurmond or call 1-800-533-3478 for current information on facilities and ramp closures.