The Pine Lakes Condos

Pine Lakes Golf Club has been a warrior.  It has survived multiple economic ups and downs, ownership changes, and an attempt in the late 1970s to turn the quiet, serene 160+ acres into a bustling residential community patterned after Rome.  This is that story.

Pine Lakes was originally built by Charles Alt in 1963 as a nine-hole course. It opened on Memorial Day of that year as a public course. A few years later, a second nine-hole was added, and the course was changed to a country club requiring membership status to play.

The course was enjoying success in this format, but Alt, who was not a golfer, found the success of these changes, with over 350 members, to be overwhelming, so in 1970, he sold the course contract-for-deed to a company called Executive Centers of America (ECA).  Initially, the ECA planned no changes to the course membership and talked of plans of expansion, including a pool, tennis courts, banquet centers, and a new pro shop.

During the winter of 1974-75, the ECA announced to Pine Lakes members that the course would allow public play in 1975. This move was possibly a reaction to the city of Morton discussing the idea of building a public course at that time, but also possibly for cash-flow reasons, as the ECA had something bigger up its sleeve that it wasn’t yet revealing.

The club members were not happy with this decision. Instead of bringing a windfall of profits, the change to a public course led to defections from core members who felt betrayed.

In 1976, the ECA was finally ready to reveal its big plan.  The company unveiled a $20 million venture detailing the construction of 250 condominiums throughout the course, up to 5 swimming pools constructed on the property, nature trails throughout the area, replicas of world-famous statutes, and street names within the property patterned after ancient Rome, all while leaving the 18-hole course undisturbed.  It sounded beautiful.

When you get beyond the concept stage, however, problems arise.  Nearby residents wanted no part of this venture.  It was their contention that area roads were inadequate for such an increase in traffic, but in general, they didn’t want their rural neighborhood taken from them.  The Tazewell County Zoning Board had significant misgivings about the project not being run to a city sewer or water line, and they were also listening to local residents, and the Board voted the project down.

The ECA, unafraid of fighting for all it had invested in this project since 1973, took the Zoning Board to court and won. A Tazewell County judge granted them zoning approval, and in late 1977, they began the public campaign for the sale of the Piazza Dei Pini condominiums. Advertisements portrayed almost a utopian residency.

Advertisements ran throughout the winter of 1977/78, and in the spring of 1978, it was advertised that the golf course had a name change along with a new address, Piazza Del Pini.

The tragedy in this story is that between the original concept of these condominiums in 1973 and the actual groundbreaking in late 1977, the economy tanked, and the ECA had severe financial problems.  Country Club memberships had fallen to below fifty with the change to a public course, and the spoiled economy meant fewer people were playing golf.  There was very little cash flow coming into the course.  These mounting problems eventually led to the suicide of the company’s president in the fall of 1978, just eleven months after zoning approval.  His death left the condominium project dead and contractors who had done the early work out of their money.  These contractors placed almost $140,000 in liens on the golf course in an attempt to recoup this money, making it hard for the ECA to sell.

In 1980, the Becker Brothers Development Company from Peoria stepped in to buy the course and bring it back to life. Interestingly, their initial plans included condominiums as well, albeit a scaled-down version, but those never came to fruition. Becker Brothers ran the course until it was sold to Steve Maxheimer. Maxheimer built a completely new pro shop in 1999, and the course reigns as one of the top courses in the area.