The shuttered Mays Landing, N.J. club was sold to Frank Ruocco, Executive Vice President of Ocean Casino Resort, earlier this year. While the entire property is a prime spot for a housing development, no fewer than 12 golf holes must be kept open on the land, according to a deed restriction amendment filed in 2014. The deed restriction leaves 50 acres that could be developed.

Mays Landing (N.J.) Country Club appears to have been closed for about two or three months, The Press of Atlantic City reported. Some residents fear more houses at the golf course could be on the way because a deed restriction from 2014 is still in place.

While the entire property looks like a spot for a developer to add to Hamilton Township’s property tax base, The Press reported, no fewer than 12 golf holes must be kept open on the land, according to a deed restriction amendment filed in 2014 and signed by James Fraser, the country club’s former president.

However, the deed restriction leaves 50 acres that could be developed, The Press reported.

Residents of Glen Eyre, a newly built housing development beside the course, are concerned that property values may drop, especially for homes whose backyards are adjacent to the golf course, The Press reported. When the development was built, homeowners who chose to live on the golf course paid a higher amount for their properties.

Fears of higher traffic and the effects of construction have also spread in the neighborhood, The Press reported. The owners who purchased the course in 2015 said they planned on maintaining 18 holes, opting not to make substantial changes besides improvements. But that’s not who owns the course now.

Frank Ruocco, Executive Vice President of Ocean Casino Resort, bought the shuttered golf course out of foreclosure, according to a notice of sale filed with the Atlantic County Clerk’s Office late last month.

The purchase comes about two years after Ruocco and a group of investors purchased Greate Bay Country Club in Somers Point.

The country club initially put a deed restriction on the land to keep it a golf course, according to a filing in the Clerk’s Office from March 19, 2002, The Press reported. In the filing, the club agreed the property “shall be used only as a public golf course and shall be operated and maintained as a public golf course in the first-class, mid-market manner and condition.”

Should the country club be sold, the incoming owner would be subject to the same terms, the document states, The Press reported. The deed restriction, however, was amended, according to a filing from 2014, which kept the limitation in place only for land occupied by holes 10-18, leaving the other holes closest to Monet Drive available for building.

That filing amended that the course’s restricted area “contain no less than a 12-hole public golf course,” The Press reported.

Fraser said when the country club was sold in 2015 that his family pondered selling part of the course to developers and leaving it as a 12-hole course, an idea that was scrapped because of Atlantic County’s then economic condition and housing market, The Press reported.

Mayor Carl Pitale said last week he was not deeply familiar with the property or its history but wished for the new owner’s success, The Press reported.

“I’m being optimistic that it’s a good thing,” Pitale said.

The country club was a well-known 18-hole course in Atlantic County and a Fraser family heirloom until it was sold in 2015 to Green Valley Destinations and Resorts, The Press reported. Its event room was also a popular place for parties and wedding receptions.

While prime golf season is approaching, drawing hundreds of local and visiting players, the facility is mostly dormant, displaying “no trespassing” signs on different ends of the property to steer away curious people, The Press reported.

Since the 2015 acquisition, the club appeared to retain its golfing operations before being acquired by WSFS Bank, based in Wilmington, Del., earlier this year for about $2.5 million, tax records show, The Press reported.

Before the shutdown, the club’s owners, in 2021, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, safeguarding the facility while its finances were reorganized in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Press reported.