Peak of Luxury: Planned resort leads to enthusiasm, worry
Tuesday, February 28th, 2006
By Chris Fitzsimon
By Monte Mitchell JOURNAL REPORTER
BOONE - Though there are many luxury home communities in the mountains of Northwest North Carolina, none are as big or as pricey as a 6,000-acre resort under way now. The gated community, Laurelmor, will be bigger than the towns of Blowing Rock and Boone combined. County planners expect lot prices to start at $750,000.
It has created a lot of enthusiasm among county officials, who hope it will increase the local tax base and generate jobs. But it has also created worry among environmental groups who think that it could harm water quality and spoil views from the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The developer, Ginn Clubs & Resorts, has communities in Florida, South Carolina and the Caribbean, and it creates a buzz wherever it goes. Some follow the company to new places to buy third and fourth homes.
A master plan for Laurelmor, which will be built in phases, calls for about 1,500 homes, 1,000 condominium units or hotel rooms, two 18-hole golf courses, 50 miles of roads, a spa, water park, equestrian center, observatory and other amenities. It’s mainly timberland now, but developers have been cutting roads over the past year.
The first round of home sites could be sold in hours, if the company’s past history is an indication. It has set sales records in Florida, where an offering last April attracted a crowd of more than 3,000 prospective buyers for 403 available home sites at the Bella Collina resort in Monteverde. In under three hours, the company had sold them all for $320 million.
More than 80 of the home sites sold for more than $1.5 million. The most expensive one sold for more than $2.1 million.
The previous record for one-day sales in Florida had been $174 million, set a year earlier when Ginn had sold the first 400 home sites at Bella Collina in four hours.
Laurelmor even comes with its own quirky local history. People near Boone know it as the big resort planned beside Heavenly Mountain on land that used to be connected to a famous maharishi and his Transcendental Meditation movement. (more…)
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