When the Grant, Minn., club’s 30-year lease expires on October 31, the owner will allow it to close, but has plans to reopen the property under a new name and with new management next season. Multiple lawsuits and disputes over the years have transpired between the owners and the current management company, with the owner attempting to evict the operators four times since 1989.
After 30 years, Sawmill Golf Club in Grant, Minn., is closing its doors when the 30-year lease expires on October 31, but plans to reopen the property under a new name next season are in the works, the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press reported.
Sawmill Golf Club Inc., the group that runs the business, and the Nicholson family, which owns the land, have decided not to renew the lease contract that has bound them since 1983, the Press reported.
Court records show that the two parties have a contentious history and that the Nicholson family has tried to evict the operators four times since 1989, the Press reported.
Marian Nicholson, a trustee of her late husband’s estate, has hired a management company to run the day-to-day operations of the course, in honor of his will. Written in 1999, Robert W. Nicholson Jr.’s will states that he wanted the property “to be owned and operated as a golf course by Nicholson family members,” the Press reported.
“I knew very well what was going on, and I knew what my husband’s wishes were,” Nicholson said. “So when I go to bed at night I can sleep, because I know I’m doing the right thing.”
Dan Pohl, one of the owners of Sawmill Golf Club Inc., said he tried to renew the lease. The company also operates the Loggers Trail course, which is adjacent to Sawmill but leased from a different landowner. Loggers will remain in operation, the Press reported.
“Loggers is certainly a great course,” Pohl said. “But when you put as much time and energy in (at Sawmill) as we did, you’ve got to feel some disappointment in not being able to continue to operate and improve it.”
Sawmill, which sits on 140 acres, has earned a reputation of being a value course, with some of the lowest rates in the metro. Over the years, the course was expanded to 18 holes and the Sawmill group built a driving range, a maintenance building and an irrigation system. Loggers Trail, which opened in 2003, was conceived as a complimentary 18-hole course aimed at skilled and “upscale” golfers, Pohl said.
Sawmill was a 9-hole course before Pohl’s group took over. Originally a horse farm, the land was first transformed into a small golf course in the 1960s, according to Marian Nicholson. Another group ran it for about five years just before Sawmill, the Press reported.
Pohl and a group of friends, collectively Sawmill Golf Club Inc., signed a lease with Robert Nicholson Jr. in 1983, and the course opened in 1984. Squabbling began in 1989, when Robert Nicholson Jr. served Sawmill with a notice of default and notice of termination. Nicholson claimed he was getting short shrift on the rent and royalty payments. Ultimately, Sawmill cut him a check and explained how it had been calculating his share, the Press reported.
In 2003, Nicholson sued Sawmill, claiming that work done without his permission, including cutting down trees, had devalued the property. He also claimed Sawmill diverted water and electricity to Loggers Trail. When Nicholson died in July 2004, his wife took over the lawsuit, the Press reported.
After a five-day bench trial, a Washington County judge ruled in favor of Sawmill and ordered Nicholson to pay attorneys’ fees. The judge found that the work had been done with Nicholson’s approval and supervision and that it had improved the property’s value. The case was appealed, and in 2006, the Nicholson trust sued again. Both cases were later dismissed by the parties, the Press reported.
In 2007, the family sued Sawmill again, saying it had breached its contract by allowing a high school ski team to practice on the land. Sawmill countersued, saying the litigation was hurting its reputation and its prospects for investors, ultimately leading to “its financial demise.” This, Sawmill claimed, was done “to secure a competitive advantage over Sawmill in its operation of the Loggers Trail course,” court documents said.
In 2008, the parties agreed to dismiss the case, the Press reported.
Looking forward, Pohl and Marian Nicholson both say they don’t aim to compete with each other’s courses and neither wants to drive away Sawmill’s loyal customers, the Press reported.
“We don’t think there’s going to be much impact (at Loggers Trail),” Pohl said. “They’re kind of two different customer bases.”
Nicholson wishes Pohl well and holds no animosity, the Press reported.
“(Sawmill) is a great course,” she said. “I don’t know that (the new management company) is going to do a great deal differently.”
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