By Steve Plunkett
What is The Little Club up to?
While the members-only organization won approval of a croquet amenity and maintenance building at the Gulf Stream Town Commission’s Dec. 13 meeting, of more interest was a neighbor’s mention of the club’s plan to elevate its golf course as soon as a year from now.
Bob Donhauser, who lives in a Polo Ridge condominium just east of the staging area for Gulf Stream’s massive drainage and road project in the Core area, was at the meeting mostly to complain about dust from the construction work.
“We’re all worried about our HVACs. … It’s been a problem,” he said.
But Donhauser, who spends his winters in Gulf Stream, also fretted about having to live next to a construction zone beyond 2025, the scheduled end of the project.
“The Little Club, as you guys know, is planning to rebuild their golf course in ’26, and you should have a letter seeing that they’re planning on lifting their golf course and spending $5 million,” he said.
He and his neighbors have consulted real estate agents about the dust and the club’s plan.
“And so our concern … is that it could impact our values if this becomes a known construction site and we have this beeping and this constant thing going on forever and ever,” Donhauser said.
“What happens when The Little Club decides they want to raise their golf course and they want to have all this equipment over there and they want to put dirt — they need dirt, they need sand, they need all these things. Where else are they going to do it unless they leave it on site?” he asked.
Mayor Scott Morgan was quick to assure him that the end of the current construction is near.
“That’s a staging area for this project only. It’s not going to be permanent,” Morgan said.
Anthony Beltran, the town’s public works director, said The Little Club’s project would be self-contained.
“They’re going to have to do that on their site. They won’t be able to do it here,” Beltran said.
After the meeting, Town Manager Greg Dunham said although the club’s central portion often floods and club officials have spoken in vague terms about raising the course, they have not filed any plans to build with the town.
“We really don’t have a lot of information at this point,” Dunham said. “We don’t know if that’s one end to the other or just portions of it.”
In 2022, the town’s consulting engineers considered having the club enlarge one of the course’s lakes to trap more stormwater otherwise headed to Polo Drive.
But club officials balked, and the plan was revised to add exfiltration trenches along roads in the Core instead of rejiggering fairways to make the lake larger.
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