Idaho Club taking shape

Sales of residential homes and property may have cooled from the torrid pace which lit up the Bonner County real estate market a couple of years ago, but a new housing sector — the vacation or second home in planned community resorts — has suddenly taken off in the last year. Projects like The Crossing at Willow Bay, Dover Bay, The Seasons at Sandpoint and The Idaho Club are all reporting strong sales and reservations of homesites in developments that include marinas, fitness centers and a host of other amenities.

Inside is the Daily Bee's Real Estate Annual 2006 publication that zeroes in on Bonner County's changing real estate market, which is still percolating interest and bringing in buyers from around the country.

Featured below is one master plan community, The Idaho Club, where 85 properties ranging from $200,000-$800,000 have been purchased since last summer.

By R.J. COHN

Staff writer

SANDPOINT — Purchased in June from Dick Villelli, Chuck Reeves has been transforming the former Hidden Valley Golf Resort into the Idaho Club — a premier family-oriented community nuzzled beneath Moose Mountain in the lower Pack River area.

With the infrastructure of the first phase nearly completed, the project that will showcase an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course couldn't be turning out more perfectly for Reeves.

Eighty-five properties of Idaho Club's 370 single-family and cabin lots have already been purchased.

Home sites are priced from $200,000-$800,000.

The project is also expected to bring an estimated $5 million in net tax revenue to the county.

"All the pieces have managed to fall into place almost every step of the way," says Reeves, who owns Pend Oreille Bonner Investments, which is financing the development. "It's been an absolute delight to work on."

Reeves' four-year planned project — which he hopes to be completed in 2009 — has received an enormous response, thanks to a big push from a South Carolina-based company that markets and sells planned communities across the country. "We've had more than 2,300 inquiries about the Idaho Club since June, and we've had interested parties coming here from New Jersey, Florida and just about everywhere," says Reeves, who has been developing properties for the last 29 years. "I've looked at properties from north Virginia to southern California, and I've never seen anything prettier than this piece of property."

Buyers are also finding the same attraction to The Idaho's Club drop-dead gorgeous digs.

But Reeves stresses one of the main draws bringing prospective buyers is not just the Nicklaus Signature Golf Course, which will have nine holes completed this summer; it's also the quality of the project and a family program/amenity package that offers just about everything under the sun.

"We're selling a family community, not just a top-notch golf course," says Reeves. "People are making a big investment to be here, and they want to be in a place that every member of family can enjoy instead of being in a place that's snooty. That's not what The Idaho Club is all about."

Along with a full-service club spa, health club with wellness and fitness programs, and a kid's camp, Idaho Club will feature a resort-styled pool, tennis and sport courts, private marina and even fully-staffed day and evening child care.

Yet with all the amenity features Reeves in including, he has managed to preserve the character of the property instead of stacking it like a subdivision. Originally approved for 450 units, Pend Oreille Bonner Investments spend thousands of hours designing a project that won't overtake its natural surroundings.

"We wanted to reduce the overall density, and we pared it down to 220 single-family home sites and 150 cabin sites," says Reeves. "We did it as we built the lots. We wanted to make all the sites fit well with this land and keep the essential quality of this gorgeous piece of land.

"It's been designed for a unique community, not a large subdivision. That wasn't our intent."

Three or four more phases throughout the next several years are also in the works, which Reeves says will be developed in smaller increments that the initial phase where the majority of the project is being built.

All of the graded roads, underground utilities and a lagoon for wastewater treatment for the first phase are expected to be completed by spring.

Reeves has also gone through a lot of hoops to make The Idaho Club a reality.

After receiving unanimous approval from the Bonner County Commissioners in April for expansion plans, Reeve was granted a federal permit to fill wetlands to make room of additional housing and a redesigned golf course.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers okayed Pend Oreille Bonner Investments' request to place 4.37 acres of clean fill in marshy and scrub-shrub wetlands. The company is planning to construct 6.52 acres of new wetlands to compensate for the fill impacts. The bulk of the wetlands slated for filling is to accommodate the golf course redesign.

"Our goal at The Idaho Club is to create a great place for families in an extraordinary community where they can enjoy years of memories that will last for generations," says Reeves.