Mother Nature is keeping the Vineyard Golf Club under construction until the next summer season.
Even though the fairways and contours of the course are beginning to glow in a shade of bright green, the caretakers of Vineyard Golf Club refuse to open the 71-acre facility until they know it can sustain foot and cart traffic.
“We agreed to do this the right way. It’s really a labor of love,” said Owen Larkin, managing partner of Vineyard Golf Club.
The trees have been cleared, the land smoothed over; the contours of a new 18-hole golf course in Edgartown are taking shape. While it is months before grass seed takes root, the landscape already presents vistas never seen before. The Vineyard Golf Club project is well under way.
The Vineyard Golf Club completed its purchase this week of four lots owned by the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation in the old Vineyard Acres II subdivision off the West Tisbury Road in Edgartown.
The four lots include four acres of land and were sold to the golf club by the conservation group for $310,000. Of that, $10,000 was paid to the foundation as an option at the time of the sale agreement and was used to cover legal expenses associated with the sale.
Some 245 acres of land once planned for 148 houses in the rural perimeters of Edgartown were sold last week to a golf club development group, closing a key chapter in a complicated land transaction which began nearly two years ago.
Total sale price was $15.9 million. The sale resulted in a sharp spike in revenues for the week for the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank, which collected $318,000 in fees from the transaction.
Ending an exhaustive regional and local review that began some 15 months ago, the Edgartown zoning board of appeals voted unanimously this week to approve a plan for a private 18-hole golf club at the site of an old subdivision in the rural perimeters of Edgartown.
“I feel it complies with the vision set forth in the bylaw, and I don’t think it will adversely affect the neighborhood,” said John Magnuson, a member of the appeals board, just before the vote on Wednesday night.
Leaders in the two rival golf course development groups in Edgartown said yesterday that they will merge memberships and stop competing with each other.
Owen Larkin, the managing partner for the Vineyard Golf Club, confirmed that he has signed an agreement to offer guaranteed membership to every member of the Meetinghouse Golf Club Inc. In return, the leading developers for Meetinghouse have agreed not to reapply for permission to build an 18-hole golf course on the MacKenty family property along the Edgartown Great Pond, Mr. Larkin said.
