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I currently hold the listing on a $1.6 million, three-bedroom home in Biltmore Gates, a guard-gated enclave of 41 custom homes next to the Arizona Biltmore resort in Phoenix. The home backs to The Links golf course and has beautiful views of the course and Piestewa Peak, which is the second-highest point in the Phoenix Mountain Reserve after Camelback.
I was showing the house recently to a couple from Colorado. While the wife was walking around the home, the husband, a retired businessman, was asking me questions, but not the type I usually get for the luxury homes I sell. I usually get questions about the age of the HVAC systems, the in-home automation, the appliances, the community amenities and, for golf-course homes, I always get asked about whether membership is available to the club and how often golf balls fly into the yard. But this gentleman was asking me questions about watering, edging, divot repairs and what type of equipment was used to cut the grass on the course. I was not prepared to answer what type of mower they used for the golf course.
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He asked so many questions that I actually said to him, “You do realize you aren’t responsible for the course landscaping and maintenance, right?” It was like he was obsessed with the golf-course maintenance. It wasn’t long after that I realized the gentleman had hopped a concrete wall and wrought-iron fence and was on his hands and knees in the middle of the 11th fairway. He was inspecting the grass. I’ve sold a lot of golf-course homes, but that was a first for me. It caught me off guard. I found out later that he is an avid gardener and volunteers to do groundskeeping for some high schools in Colorado. That couple didn’t end up buying the house.
Steven Wood, president, Century 21 Diamond Realty, Hilton Head, S.C.
In July 2022, I was working with buyers interested in a home with amazing views of the 18th fairway at Atlantic Dunes golf course at The Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head Island. The 3,200-square-foot home had four bedrooms and sat on a half-acre lot, and I remember it had an open floor plan with a wall of windows in the back that overlooked the golf course.
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When I arrived for a showing with my buyers that day, the wife knew that we were coming, but she had neglected to tell her husband that we would be there. While we toured the house and looked out those back windows, we saw a man we later found out was the husband lying in the rough beside the fairway with his face in the dirt. There was a golf ball lying next to his head, and his white golf hat was on the ground and had red stuff all over it. He looked like he was dead. As we watched in horror, nearby golfers drove their cart up to check on him. They poked him, and he jumped up screaming and scared the crap out of them—and my clients. Everyone started screaming.
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I immediately called the listing agent, and she apologized profusely and told me the husband does this prank regularly. We found out later he put ketchup on his hat and face to make it look like he was hit by a golf ball and was unconscious on the golf course. It was pretty comical, after the fact. Despite the theatrics, my clients ended up buying the house and paid $1.615 million, over the asking price of $1.597 million.
Crissy Poorman, global real-estate adviser, Sotheby’s International Realty – Palm Beach Brokerage, Palm Beach, Fla.
I was working with the buyers of a vacant lot at The Bear’s Club, an exclusive golf-course community in Jupiter, Fla., that was founded by Jack Nicklaus and his wife, Barbara Nicklaus. My clients were under contract to purchase a 0.87-acre lot with lake frontage and views of the golf course for $2.5 million, and they ultimately closed on it in January 2017. But we discovered before closing that the site was home to gopher tortoises, which are a threatened species in Florida—and which I refer to as “nature’s squatters.”
I had to quickly learn about the laws protecting these tortoises, which can subject anyone disturbing or moving them to criminal penalties, including a fine or even jail time. You cannot clear the land or build on it until you have relocated the tortoises, and that can only be done by someone with a permit. We worked with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to find an authorized tortoise mover, who first had to investigate the entire nearly acre lot to look for gopher burrows and then relocate them.
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They ultimately ended up in a preserve in Central Florida. But the entire process was tortoise-slow, and while we ended up closing on time, we held back money in escrow because I had negotiated that the seller would pay for the relocation even though the actual relocation didn’t occur until my clients started developing the land. It took over a year, but my clients ultimately built a six-bedroom, 9,690-square-foot mansion on the property, which was completed in 2019, and by that time the adorable gopher tortoises had a new home and so did my clients.
—Edited from interviews by Robyn A. Friedman
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