David Jaindl took possession February 10 of Moselem Springs Golf Club in Fleetwood, Pa., after late last year buying Iron Lakes Golf Course in North Whitehall, Pa. Jaindl said the golf course is reverting to its original name, and will be known as the Club at Twin Lakes. Both sites will remain golf courses and be managed by KemperSports.
David Jaindl, a turkey farmer and owner-operator of the Jaindl brands in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, took possession February 10 of Berks County’s Moselem Springs Golf Club, after late last year buying Iron Lakes Golf Course in North Whitehall, Pa., The Allentown Morning Call reported. Jaindl said he sees an opportunity in the game’s growth since the coronavirus pandemic to grow his considerable portfolio.
“We just think they’re good investments,” he said during a Morning Call interview February 11 with his four sons—Luke, Josh, Adam and Jake, who, along with daughter Joanna Keichel, work alongside their father and his businesses.
Jaindl declined to disclose the purchase prices, The Morning Call reported. Steven Ekovich, Executive Managing Director for Leisure Investment Properties Group of Tampa, Fla., which marketed the site, said Moselem Springs, a private club, sold over the list price of $2.35 million. A confidentiality agreement prevented him from disclosing the exact figure.
Jaindl said he acquired Iron Lakes, a public course, in December, for a total price of $5 million that included the golf course, banquet facilities, an artificial turf field and 64 acres of farmland, The Morning Call reported.
Jaindl said the golf course is reverting to its original name, and will be known as the Club at Twin Lakes, The Morning Call reported. He also said he will keep both sites as golf courses, (and the farmland for agriculture), “as long as I’m around.”
“It was important to us, collectively, to keep [Twin Lakes] a golf course, and hopefully, make [capital] improvements,” he said.
Luke Jaindl said membership rates, and costs for golf and other amenities have not been set, The Morning Call reported. The Club at Twin Lakes was set to host its first event under Jaindl ownership, he said: a breakfast in the small ballroom.
KemperSports in Northbrook, Ill. will handle operations of both facilities, The Morning Call reported. Jon Cheshire, KemperSports Vice President of Operations, said the family-run company manages more than 130 courses in 27 states.
The Jaindl courses would be the company’s first in Pennsylvania, Cheshire told The Morning Call. The nearest KemperSports-managed course is Heron Glen Golf Course & Restaurant outside Flemington in Hunterdon County, N.J.
Golf has seen a resurgence in the last couple of years, said Jim Muschlitz, a longtime area golf pro and instructor at Southmoore Golf Course in Moore Township, the future of which is uncertain after a developer bought it last year, with plans to build two large warehouses on the property, The Morning Call reported. C+RB last reported on those plans in January.
As it did with just about everything else, the pandemic shut down courses statewide in March and April 2020, but the outdoor game flourished after shutdowns were lifted, The Morning Call reported. It bounced back later that year, and 2021, according to Muschlitz. “was one of our best years in at least 10 years.”
Even with golf’s growth, the real estate on which the game is played has also been in high demand in recent years, The Morning Call reported. Locust Valley County Club, for example, which opened in 1954 in Upper Saucon Township in Lehigh County and Springfield Township in Bucks County, closed last year and is being developed into an age-qualified housing development run by Traditions of America.
The fight over the conversion of Southmoore into warehouses continues as neighbors complain about truck traffic and the unsightliness of huge warehouses Locust Valley Country Club, The Morning Call reported.
To the mix add Jaindl, the Lehigh Valley’s largest landowner who holds properties in four Pennsylvania counties and has plans for commercial development in New Jersey, The Morning Call reported. Besides working in residential, commercial and industrial development, Jaindl said his business has been evolving into the hospitality arena.
It recently opened a 205-room Hyatt hotel near the new Air Products headquarters in Upper Macungie Township and is working on a resort and spa at the former Mary Immaculate Seminary in Lehigh Township, The Morning Call reported.
For the golf courses, he holds firm the intent to keep them as just that, golf courses, The Morning Call reported.
“What I got from Luke,” Ekovich said, “is he sees this as a way to be able to take their guests and go out [golfing] after a day of working and visiting the area.”
Both courses have long histories, but Moselem Springs has a particularly lengthy resume in golfing annals, The Morning Call reported. Besides holding major local and national tournaments, it was the site of the 1968 U.S. Women’s Open. The course also hosted celebrities and politicians looking to get away from crowds, Ekovich said.
The Twin Lakes property, which has an 18-hole golf course, banquet facilities with two ballrooms, an artificial-turf field and other buildings, was initially operated by John G. and Mary V. Simcoe as the Northampton Sanitary Dairy and Simcoe Farms, The Morning Call reported. During the heyday of iron ore mining, mines were located on the property.
Joe Peters, an Allentown excavation contractor, purchased 121 acres from Mary Simcoe for $45,000 following her husband’s death, The Morning Call reported. Peters then designed his own golf course, despite not really being an avid golfer nor having experience as a golf course architect.
After operating the course as a total hands-on owner since it opened in 1957, Peters sold the course to businessman Bruce Young of Saylorsburg and golf pro Tom Lynch, The Morning Call reported. David Jaindl credited the Young family for its work over the years and said the sale went seamlessly.
Ekovich said Moselem Springs, owned by the Flippin family of Berks County, received eight offers, but the Jaindls’ plan included putting in more capital expenditures than other prospective owners, The Morning Call reported. The family “made a conscious decision to pick a buyer who would be the best steward going forward,” he said of the Jaindls.
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