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    Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Seeks to Nullify His Purchase of Toronto House

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    Irate investors looking for a bankrupt “crypto king” were regular visitors to the new Toronto-area home of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder.The six bedroom, 10,000 square-foot house on Lake Ontario that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a star player with the Oklahoma City Thunder, bought for just over 8.4 million Canadian dollars, or $6.1 million, should have been a dream home.But in May, two days after Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander, 25, moved into the house, near Toronto, with his partner, it became a nightmare, according to a lawsuit seeking to nullify the sale. A menacing visitor appeared looking for a previous occupant. The couple left the next day and haven’t returned.The young N.B.A. player’s house, described in the real estate listing as an “elegant, resort-like estate,” had been the home of Aiden Pleterski, a self-styled “crypto king” who declared bankruptcy in 2022, while owing 26.8 million Canadian dollars to more than 150 investment clients.Court records show that the home received a steady stream of angry visitors seeking to talk to Mr. Pleterski while he was living there and after he moved out.Last December, court documents show, Mr. Pleterski was kidnapped by one of his aggrieved investors and four other men, then beaten and tortured over three days.Testimony in the bankruptcy case reveals that Mr. Pleterski had a security guard to ward off angry investors and was eventually moved out of the house for his own safety. Another resident also fled, fearing for his safety after angry visitors continued to turn up every day.A holding company owned by Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander is now asking a court to reverse the purchase of the Burlington, Ontario, house because the seller did not disclose its link to Mr. Pleterski and the home’s potential security threat.Aiden Pleterski was beaten by his kidnappers, according to court records.CBC NewsCiting the kidnapping, the holding company, in its filing, said the people who had been showing up at the upscale home “were not making idle threats.”The property’s former owner, the head of a Toronto real estate company with holdings that include apartments, retirement homes and hotels, hid the information about alarming visitors from potential buyers because “any purchaser who could afford to spend in excess of $8 million on a luxury home would value privacy and would also in any case want no part of a property that had a history of threatening visits to the past two occupants.”Through his lawyer, Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander declined to comment.The Halton Regional Police, which has authority over Burlington, declined to provide any more information and a spokesman refused to say if Mr. Pleterski was the target of a criminal investigation.A banking analysis by a bankruptcy trustee shows that Mr. Pleterski was not the investment prodigy many of his investors believed him to be.It found that of the 41.6 million Canadian dollars he took in, just 1.6 percent of the money was actually invested. He used about 38 percent of the money to repay redemptions — supposed investment gains — to some clients and spent about the same percentage on private jet travel, a fleet of luxury cars, watches, including one costing more than $300,000, and a lease on the Burlington house.The trustee concluded that “the extravagant lifestyle that Pleterski lived, which was funded by his investors,” had “ultimately led to his bankruptcy.”During a sworn 2022 interview with lawyers for the trustee, Mr. Pleterski said he first became interested in cryptocurrency after using it to make purchases for video games and began trading it when he was still in high school.He started out with money from his family and his earnings as a part-time baseball umpire. His knowledge of trading and financial markets, he said, came from “YouTube videos, Google, quick Google searches.”The business, Mr. Pleterski said, operated through his personal bank accounts until December 2021, when he set up his company at the suggestion of a former landlord.His only record keeping, he said, consisted of his texts and WhatsApp messages with customers. While Mr. Pleterski did create spreadsheets for a handful of customers who demanded them, he acknowledged that the investment return they showed was just “a general ballpark figure” he came up with after looking at his bank accounts.The home that Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander bought was located between Toronto, where he was born, and Hamilton, Ontario, where he was raised. It came fully furnished and included a gym, three car garage and a home theater. The bedrooms, reached by an elevator, offered sweeping lake views, including the property’s private dock.In his lawsuit, Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander said that two days after he moved in a man appeared demanding to see someone he had never heard of — Mr. Pleterski. Rather than leave when told that no one by that name was there, the uninvited visitor looked around the property and then sat in his car in the driveway.Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander’s partner, Hailey Summers, called the nonemergency number for the police and was told that the agency “had received several reports about threats to the property, including that there was a threat to burn the home down,” the lawsuit said.In the spring of 2021, Mr. Pleterski agreed to lease-to-own the Burlington house from a company controlled by Ray Gupta, who also controls the Sunray Group real estate holding company in Toronto. But when Mr. Pleterski’s trading business began collapsing, he stopped making his monthly 45,000 Canadian dollar rent payments and moved to a hotel owned by Sunray, where he wasn’t charged rent.In a response to Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander’s complaint, Mr. Gupta’s company downplayed the frequency and potential danger brought by the uninvited visitors and argued that it had no obligation to disclose the persistence of the unwelcome guests.“Notwithstanding the fact that Aiden was abducted, any visit to the Property by an individual inquiring about its former occupant would be viewed as an entirely normal occurrence,” it said.But during a sworn interview for Mr. Pleterski’s bankruptcy case, Sandeep Gupta, Ray’s son, who handled all the dealings with Mr. Pleterski, painted a different picture.“People were coming up to the house every single day, looking for Aiden,” Mr. Gupta said.He said the unwanted visits continued when a Sunray employee moved in to keep the furnished home occupied and the employee asked for a security guard. “His wife refused to stay there,” Mr. Gupta said. “It was a very bad situation.” More

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      Argentina’s Most Sacred World Cup Watch Party: Maradona’s Former Home

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      A Buenos Aires businessman bought Diego Maradona’s old house and has been opening it up for Argentina’s World Cup matches, meat included.BUENOS AIRES — Argentina had just punched its ticket to the World Cup final with a 3-0 victory over Croatia on Tuesday, but most Argentines at the party simply wanted to poke around this stranger’s house.There was a retiree taking selfies in a mirrored corner bar. A house cleaner hung out the window of a bare bedroom. A tattoo artist checked out a backed-up toilet upstairs. And a hotel owner who had brought his mother-in-law was wandering around barefoot.“When I entered, I started crying,” said Osvaldo Bonacchi, 52, an air-conditioner repairman, who was starting to tear up again on the spiral staircase leading to the carpeted attic, where someone said there used to be a sauna. He had lived nearby for 15 years, and always wondered what it was like inside.“To be here is a dream,” he said.The battered, three-story brick chalet in a quiet Buenos Aires neighborhood once belonged to the Argentine soccer hero Diego Maradona, and in this World Cup, it has become one of the hottest places in Argentina to watch a match.A local entrepreneur bought the house last month and has opened the doors for the past several games, paying for drinks and more than 1,000 pounds of meat for hundreds of friends, neighbors and strangers crowded around Maradona’s backyard pool to cheer on the national team.The bar in Maradona’s former home.Ariel Fernando García, the new owner of the home, with his daughters on what was once Maradona’s balcony.“We started letting people in, and then they collapsed and started crying,” the house’s new owner, Ariel Fernando García, 47, said of the first party. “For me, he was an extraterrestrial,” he said of Maradona. “No man has given more joy to Argentines.”Maradona died of a heart attack in 2020 at age 60 but remains one of Argentina’s biggest figures. His story of a poor Buenos Aires boy rising to become one of history’s greatest soccer players and the leader of Argentina’s 1986 World Cup championship team has made him a sort of deity in this nation of 46 million.In fact, the Church of Maradona is a legally recognized religion in Argentina, now entering its 25th year, that claims tens of thousands of members with branches around the world. Some Google searches will return a little box of questions that other people searched, starting with: “Is Diego Maradona a God?”A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      in Basket

      An Indiana Family Lives in a Basketball Gym (Seriously)

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      WILKINSON, Ind. — Many people in basketball-obsessed Indiana claim to eat, sleep and breathe the game. This summer, in a microscopic rural town about 30 miles outside Indianapolis, a house went up for sale that would give its occupants little other choice.“Rare opportunity for your very own high school gym,” began the listing for the Wilkinson High School gymnasium, which was erected in 1950, fell out of use two decades later and at some point afterward underwent a perfunctory residential conversion.Kyle and Lauren Petry were not looking for a new home when they stumbled upon the listing, and they certainly had no interest in one built inside the rickety skeleton of a 72-year-old gym. But because they lived nearby, because it all seemed so absurd, they stopped in for a look.The pictures, they thought, had not done the space justice. They were awed by its cavernous proportions — most of the 11,000-square-foot gym was left untouched — and humbled by its antique aura. Then they walked away, happy to leave it in the realm of fantasy.A week and a half later, while sitting in church, the couple experienced a moment of clarity. They wanted to own it, they realized. They called the real estate agent that morning and made an offer. It was accepted before they went to bed.The concept of home-court advantage, for the couple and their three children, suddenly took on new meaning.“It was the strangest thing I’d ever heard of,” Lauren Petry said of the house, “and the coolest thing I’d ever heard of.”Lauren Petry in front of the gym. “It was the strangest thing I’d ever heard of, and the coolest thing I’d ever heard of,” she said.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesLittle did the Petrys know their house-hunting fever dream was only beginning. The next morning, Roy Wilson, the couple’s real estate agent, called to tell them that the listing had gone viral on social media, seemingly overnight, and was being covered in several news outlets.In the age of Zillow surfing — the sort of aimless, daydreamy scrolling of real estate sites that became something of a national pastime at the height of the coronavirus pandemic — the listing was pure catnip. The whimsical text oozed small-town charm. The rustic pictures evoked childhood emotions. The kitchen and living room, featuring the original maple floor and regulation basketball lines, seemed like sight gags. (Not everybody was seduced: “I have zero fond memories of high school gym,” someone replied to a Tweet from the account Zillow Gone Wild.)Calls from journalists and curious buyers from as far away as Singapore soon flooded Wilson’s office. The Petrys’ winning offer that Sunday — for $300,000, a hair more than the list price — had been only the fifth bid in three weeks. In the three days after the listing went viral, there were 49 more, some of them for well over double the price, the Petrys were later told.Wilson, 71, whose high school graduation ceremony had been held in the gym, could not offer the callers much. The Petrys’ bid had been accepted, meaning the wave of eager buyers had to be turned away. And because the deal had not closed, he could not publicly name the family. Photographers and camera crews showed up at the gym anyway, trying to get pictures through the windows.“It was a hubbub,” said Cheryl Middendorf, 68, who attended school in the district. She now runs an insurance agency a couple of blocks from the gym that is one of the few businesses in Wilkinson, which has a population of only a few hundred people.Among miscellaneous furniture, boxes await unpacking.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesThe viral moment faded as quickly as it appeared. The worldwide attention subsided. What remained, though, was a quintessentially Hoosier story, one whose ending is still being written.The Petrys — who have three children: Carson, 12; Kaylynn, 9; and Kyla, 8 — said they want to refurbish the court and open it up somehow to the Wilkinson community. They have pondered starting a partnership with the school district or simply hosting events, like pickup games and movie nights, on their own. They both grew up in the area (and met while riding horses in the fifth grade) and now feel a responsibility to honor the history of the building.In many ways, they have their work cut out for them. The space is enormous: More than half the original gym, with its weathered gray bleachers, was left in its original form. The previous owners then constructed a bilevel, three-bedroom home in the remaining area inside the structure. The gym can be entered from a door in the living room, and the court can be stared at from any number of large windows in the home.The Petrys realized one night that a colony of bats had taken up residence in one corner of the gym. Spiders continue to emerge all over the house. Moving has been a slow process, but they have positioned a dining table in the kitchen, near the top of the key, and plan to install an island inside the paint.“We’re still walking around here thinking, ‘What did we just do?’” said Kyle Petry, who estimated the cost of renovations, over a period of years, would eventually exceed the original cost of the home.The people of Wilkinson are rooting for them, waiting to see what happens next, well aware of what is at stake.Basketball maintains a fervent following in Indiana, and the state’s high school gyms from the first half of the 20th century occupy an almost spiritual place across its landscape, like the bygone churches dotting the Italian countryside.Kyla Petry rides her bike around the boxes.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesSeveral nearby gyms have their own claims to fame. A 20-minute drive east, for instance, will take you to the New Castle Fieldhouse, the largest high school gym in the United States. Ten minutes in the other direction is the former high school court where much of “Hoosiers,” the 1985 film starring Gene Hackman that captured the state’s deep reverence for the game, was filmed.“Most of these country schools didn’t have enough boys for football, so basketball was king,” said Neil Shaneyfelt, the board president of the Hoosier Gym, which operates today as a museum and event space. “The crops are in, so what do we do for entertainment during the cold months in Indiana? You might as well have shut the towns down, because everybody came to the ballgames.”Other than churches, gyms were often the only large communal spaces in these rural towns. Along with basketball games, they hosted sock hops, ice cream socials and graduations.Wilkinson was no different. Greg Troy, 72, grew up six miles north of the school, watched games there as a young child and eventually played for the varsity team. He recalled the thrill of seeing the bright lights of the gym from the main road on the way to Friday night games, knowing the room would be packed.“It was always noisy,” Troy said of the building, “always smelled good, like popcorn.”The tragedy for old-timers and basketball lovers is that so many of these storied Indiana gyms have fallen out of use. In 1959, a state law forced hundreds of tiny school districts to consolidate. That year, there were 724 basketball-playing high schools in the state, according to a 2009 story in the Indianapolis Star. Fifty years later, there were 402.Some gyms have been saved, with at least a few others becoming private homes. Others have fallen into disrepair. Many are gone altogether.Kyle Petry, right, and his father, Scott, examine carvings on an original wooden school desk left in the home.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesThe Wilkinson gym started to fall out of use when the school consolidated with nearby Charlottesville High School in 1965. The building was sold in the 1970s to a local family seeking a larger space for its hardware store. For a time the family also used an adjacent classroom building — which has since been demolished — as a restaurant serving homey classics like beef Manhattan and pork, beans and potatoes.“People would come in and say, ‘Huh, this is the old basketball floor, isn’t it?’” said Terry Molden, 79, who owned the store with his family. “And I would say, ‘Yeah, and you’re out of bounds.’ ”Two decades ago, the Molden family sold the gym to Jeff and Christy Broady, a local couple, who lived in the gym while gradually constructing the home, piece by piece, all around them. The price back then was $85,000, according to Wilson, who worked on the deal, with few people interested.Today, people have been clamoring to get inside.Soon after the Petrys moved in, a few local children followed the Petrys’ kids off the school bus and into their home to play. The next day, there were a few more. The number kept trickling upward, until one day there were almost 20 children shooting hoops and riding bicycles around the court.“I was like, ‘Do your parents know that you’re here?’” Lauren Petry said, laughing.Older residents have taken notice, too. The day before the family moved in, an anonymous visitor dropped off a box of black-and-white photos of the gym with a note that read, “I think you should have these.” The Petrys were also given a dust stack of yearbooks from the 1950s.The Petrys have a photo showing the construction of the Wilkinson High School gym.Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesPeople continue knocking on the door, asking to see the place, reminiscing about little life events from long ago.In this spirit, the Petrys have decided to reserve one entire wall near the front door of the house, where the concession stand used to be, as an exhibition space to hang memorabilia from the school. They have a classroom desk that students carved their names into a century ago. A local collector offered to donate a varsity cheerleader uniform from the ’50s.“It’s this little time capsule where you can go back and remember a time when things were slower,” Lauren Petry said of her odd, new home. “Basketball takes you back to that, that nostalgia, that warm feeling. I think people are responding to that. Their hearts gravitate toward it.” More

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      in Golf

      Finding the Balance Between a Golf Course and a Golf Community

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      For the course architect Tom Doak, holes and fairways are only two pieces of a puzzle that includes topography, infrastructure and much more.Golf may be one of Scotland’s gifts to the world, but the golf community — a course surrounded by real estate — is almost purely an American idea. A flyover of the American Sun Belt will show you homes packed tightly together with threads of green fairways running through their mostly parallel lines.Early in his career, the golf course architect Tom Doak chased golf community projects as he hunted work, but “I quickly realized I didn’t have the kind of name that would be attractive to someone wanting to buy a homesite,” he said. That lack of brand value may not be as apparent today as Mr. Doak has seven of his courses in the world’s Top 100, according to Golf Magazine. In Golf Digest, Doak has four designs among the Top 100 and seven others he has helped remodel.Tom Doak at Tumble Creek, a course he designed in Washington State.Courtesy Tom DoakThough Mr. Doak does not do a lot of developments, he is acutely aware of how one must incorporate housing, lodging, a clubhouse and other infrastructure into a world-class design without ever distracting from the golfing experience. The following interview has been edited and condensed.What are the challenges of designing a course when you know homes will be present? What are the things you consider?The biggest challenge is whether or not you will be allowed to put the golf holes where they fit the topography, or whether you will have to rebuild the topography around where the homes need to go.Every developer says they have given the golf course architect free rein on where to place golf holes, but that’s actually pretty rare, because it’s not efficient in terms of use of space. Developers don’t want to build a road with houses on only one side; that’s way more costly. So, a lot of times, if the property is going to be densely developed, you start with lots and roads from the outside boundary working in, and that width has a lot to do with determining where the golf holes will go.Your new project, Te Arai Links in New Zealand, features homes along the 18th fairway. That kind of housing arrangement seems to be designed for the course to be showcased when one looks outside. Does that affect how you might make the hole look? Or do you think more about how you might make the surroundings look for the golfer playing the hole?Well, as at Pebble Beach, the homes on the 18th at Te Arai are looking across the fairway toward the beach and the ocean, so I don’t know that it’s important for the features of the golf hole to stand out for the homeowners. You probably just want the fairway to look like your backyard. There might be some cases where I think about how a hole will look from the lots, but for the most part, my focus is on what the golfer will see.Homes set back a reasonable distance from the edge of the fairway are not that distracting, but if homes start to creep into the line of sight for the golfer playing the hole, then it starts detracting from the golfer’s feeling of playing “out in nature.”A backyard in Mamaroneck, N.Y., with the 11th hole of Winged Foot Golf Club just over the fence.Suzy Allman for The New York TimesThe American model of a golf community is not one that has been replicated very often internationally. Often the homes get the best land at the expense of the course. Can you speak to communities in America or internationally that you think have managed to achieve a balance?Lots of famous older courses have homes around the perimeter of the course — Merion, Winged Foot, Pebble Beach. Others, like Yeamans Hall or Fishers Island, were master planned to marry golf and real estate as we do today, but they were only trying to get 50 lots around the golf course, not 250.It’s when you build homes between the golf holes, that the priorities are truly flipped. There were tons of those sorts of golf developments built across America in the past 50 years. The lots got sold, and the developer was happy, but in the long term, many homeowners decided they didn’t really like having the course right in their backyard, where the maintenance crew is mowing a green at 6:30 in the morning, and where a stray shot into the backyard happens every couple of days.How can good course design aid the development of not only housing but other essential golf infrastructure such as a clubhouse, maintenance buildings, and even restroom and eating facilities?If we are thinking about the community as a whole while we design the course, we can incorporate things together much better. I’m working on a plan now where the halfway house for the course will be right next to a community park, so it can be used not just by golfers but by everyone who lives there as a great picnic spot.If we understand the land plan, we may be able to incorporate walking trails through the course, so residents can really enjoy the value of the open space the course provides. That’s harder to do in America because everything is so litigious, and the safety of nongolfers is a concern as is potential vandalism to the course. But my experience from overseas is that when the two are integrated, the residents come to understand the rhythms of golf and when it’s safe to proceed — even if they know nothing at all about golf — and the golfers respect the safety of their neighbors.One of the first projects you worked on was Long Cove Club in Hilton Head, S.C., built by your mentor, Pete Dye. Many of the homes on that course are hidden from golfers, though they are not far from the course. What did you learn about routing a course on that project that you carry with you today?Nearly every hole at Long Cove is surrounded by homes on both sides, but the corridor for the golf holes is wider than normal — 400 feet instead of 300 — and there were lots of trees on the site. We only clear about 150 to 200 feet of trees for our fairways, so there’s 100 feet of trees on each side of the hole before you get to the homeowner, whether he cuts down all his trees or not. That’s enough to make it feel like you are playing through the trees, not through the homes.Pete’s one rule was that he didn’t ever want to see a home located behind a green, where golfers would aim at it. The lots are always to the sides of the holes, but they don’t wrap around them. More

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      in Golf

      Golf Homes Where You Play Inside

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      Fans have decamped from their hallways, opting instead to build stand-alone homes where they can practice putting and driving in any weather.The outside of the 2,000-square-foot building next to David Orlofsky’s home in Spring Lake, N.J., doesn’t seem unusual. The building’s exterior matches his residence next door, a six-bedroom house with 4,600 square feet of living space.But step inside and its interior is startling. The entire space is given over to his favorite hobby — golf. There’s a TrackMan simulator as well as a four-hole physical putting green, complete with artificial turf. Mr. Orlofsky added a bar in the style of many a 19th hole, and a bathroom complete with a urinal. His sole concessions to overnight guests are the two bedrooms tucked away upstairs, grudgingly incorporated into the blueprint.“I don’t really want people coming there. This is my space,” he said by telephone, laughing. “I could spend days in here, my little oasis from everybody else. It’s my happy place.”It’s an example of a new kind of golf home — not a greens-fronting mansion, but rather a house built expressly for indoor golf.Dedicated golf fans have many more options now than just practicing on a putting machine in the bedroom or hallway. Those who can afford the costs have decamped from their kitchens, opting instead to build a stand-alone home where they can practice putting and driving indoors, whatever the weather or time of day.The exterior of Mr. Orlofsky’s golf house, left, across from the porch, right, of his other home in Spring Lake, N.J.Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesMr. Orlofsky said he did not intend to create a second golf-centered home when he bought property on the New Jersey shore in 2013. The 52-year-old consultant and his family normally live in Hoboken but spend extensive periods in Spring Lake; he and his wife, Danielle, had demolished the original Spring Lake home to build to their own specifications. It was only when a smaller, neighboring house came onto the market that an idea crystallized. Why not buy it, they thought, and level the structure? They could then merge the backyards to create a larger outdoor space while also constructing a convenient stand-alone building.Mr. Orlofsky, who already spent long hours playing a simulator in his garage, resolved to use that new space as an oversize, golf-specific rec room. It was custom built with ceilings of around 12 feet to accommodate his simulator — much higher than the 8-10 feet typical in residential construction — but ideal for swinging golf clubs. He estimated that the entire project, including the building and the installation of the golf systems, cost $1.2 million, but he had not set a budget. “I wasn’t going to nickel and dime because I’m going to have this house for the rest of my life,” he said.Todd Kaufman looks at the golf home he is building in much the same way. The 59-year-old moved from Southern California to a 5,300-square-foot home in the Clear Creek Tahoe development in Carson City, Nev., in March last year. “I wasn’t really that into golf until I got to the club here, and like a lot of people, got the golf bug,” he said by phone. “Man, it’s powerful.”His newfound hobby prompted him to plan an addition to his property: a stand-alone 1,800-square-foot casita built primarily as a golfing hideaway. Mr. Kaufman said he planned to install a simulator, a bar and a lounge and would configure it as a guest cottage too at some point.Mr. Kaufman said he budgeted around $1,000 per square foot for construction and expected the golf hideaway to be ready in about 14 months.It is a deliberate upgrade from installing a simulator system in the garage or living room. “Out here, we have a half year of perfect weather, and the rest of the year, the course is under snow, and we can’t use it,” Mr. Kaufman said. “I really wanted a more posh, customized setting for the golf experience.”The stand-alone golf simulator room at Celine Dion’s former residence on Jupiter Island, Fla.Alexandre Parent/Studio Point de VueSuch projects are commonplace at real estate’s highest end, according to Angela Reynolds, an interior designer who is based in the golf-heavy town of Jupiter, Fla. She specializes in large projects for multimillion-dollar homes that take several years to finish.The first such stand-alone golfing house Ms. Reynolds created was for Celine Dion’s estate, later sold, on Jupiter Island, which included a 13-bedroom, 11,000-square-foot house. The golf house was centered around a simulator but its aesthetic determinedly resisted country club chic. “We did this black epoxy floor, almost like a nightclub,” Ms. Reynolds recalled by phone. “You’re no longer talking about going to a man cave in the garage. This is next level.”Clients might spend up to $1 million on such golf houses, Ms. Reynolds said, adding physical greens around their simulators from companies like Full Swing or PuttView. These playing mats shift and change their slope and undulation as needed, able to mimic various putting contours. “These amazing rooms where you can invite people over for a cocktail are the ultimate status symbol on the golf course,” she said. “Most people are doing these as a place for socialization, perhaps to go to after a dinner party, hang out and play a round. That’s the key element: you’re not going in alone, like getting on a Peloton.”A golf simulator by Carl’s Place, a company based in Wisconsin. Carl’s PlaceNot all golf homes, though, cost six figures or more to create. Carl Markestad, president and founder of Carl’s Place, a golf simulator firm based in Milton, Wis., said he regularly tackled such projects for several thousand dollars.“We’re getting more and more requests for stand-alone sheds. You can go nuts and make it a whole man shed for all kinds of entertaining, or we can do it for $5,000 — a 20-by-15 foot shed that’s just for this is a pretty efficient way to do it,” he said by phone. “And that’s our bread and butter as a business.”Carl’s Place will provide the design blueprint for a golf shed, as well as the technology; owners then hire a local contractor to execute its construction as directed by Mr. Markestad and his team. Prices for such simulators have dropped in recent years, mostly because of more-affordable screens, although supply-chain issues have affected costs recently. “If you could afford a home theater five years ago, you can do a golf sim now,” he said, “The vast majority of our customers are ordinary Americans.”A golf bay at the Intown Club in Atlanta.Intown ClubThe growth of indoor golfing at home, and stand-alone shrines to the sport, has generated unexpected side effects. Simulator-based, indoor golf is emerging as a hobby, for instance. Michael Williamson co-founded Intown Golf Club, in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta just over two years ago; his 13,000-square-foot facility has 10 TrackMan-equipped golf bays, a restaurant and a bar. He said he did not charge by the hour, but instead had adopted a club model, with monthly dues from $200 to $275. Affordability is key to its appeal, Mr. Williamson said, as is convenience: Players can avoid the five-hours-long rounds on standard greens and play any time of day or night.“We’re really busy at lunch and at happy hour,” he said by phone. “Indoor golf is more accessible and less intimidating, especially if you’re learning to play. It can really help people get into it.”He said he would open a second facility, in Charlotte, N.C., later this year, and was scouting sites in cities including Chicago, Nashville, and Scottsdale, Ariz.But those with their own golf house won’t need to wait. Mr. Orlofsky, the consultant with his golf home on the New Jersey shore, treats the golf house like his own private country club. “I don’t let too many people in there,” he said jokingly. “You think it’s hard to get into some golf clubs? You’re not getting into the Orlofsky man cave unless I let you in.” More

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      in Golf

      Greg Norman Knows About Golf and Golf Homes

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      The former player shared his perspective on emerging golf locales and what makes an ideal golf home today.When it comes to golf, Greg Norman is a familiar name. Born in Mount Isa, Australia, the retired professional golfer, 67, is the chief executive of Greg Norman Golf Course Design, a firm that has designed more than 100 courses in 34 countries. Mr. Norman, who now resides in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., is also behind residences in more than 17 golf communities globally, including Rancho San Lucas in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Pelican Waters in Queensland, Australia, and Reflection by Greg Norman in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.Golf has gained tremendous popularity in the wake of the pandemic, according to Mr. Norman, and the interest in owning a golf property has increased in the same vein. “Golf takes you outdoors for hours and is an automatically socially distanced sport,” he said. “After years of declining traction, it’s now being rediscovered in new destinations and has seen well-established markets full of activity again.”Below are edited excerpts from a recent interview with Mr. Norman where he shared his perspective on emerging golf locales and what makes an ideal golf home today.In your opinion, what are the most up-and-coming destinations today for golf homes?Saudi Arabia is definitely hot. The kingdom is making a massive investment in tourism, and golf tourism is a big part of this larger initiative. There are 25 golf courses slated to be built in the country by 2030. I’m working on a 27-hole design in Diriyah Gate, a planned mini-city of sorts that’s just outside of Riyadh. It will have shopping, entertainment, housing and much more.Costa Rica is also emerging and has great golf courses on its Pacific Coast. Some are part of developments with residences, and others aren’t. Either way, there are a lot of golf home options. You have apartments in buildings with lots of amenities, townhouses and villas on the beach. The perk of owning a home here is that you get to enjoy great surfing and fishing and that real estate is inexpensive when you compare it to other places with high-quality golf.I also can’t leave out the coastline north of Cabo San Lucas, which stretches for hundreds of miles. Cabo itself is saturated with golf courses and properties, but the region has lots of open space with new properties coming up.Can you talk about the appeal of golf in Vietnam, where you’ve designed seven courses, are working on 10 more and have residential projects?Similar to Saudi Arabia, the country is investing heavily in golf tourism by building new courses and developments that have residences and golf. There are options all over Vietnam, and each has its own appeal. Near Ho Chi Minh City, NovaWorld Phan Thiet has two 18-hole championship courses that we designed inside an almost 2,500-acre resort along the coast. The property reminds me a lot of my home country, Australia, with its broad undulations and rugged vegetation. The sandbelt of Australia was the inspiration for the design of our courses there and they fit very naturally with the terrain.The Bluffs Ho Tram, located southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, is an 18-hole course with 60-meter sand dunes and views of the ocean.A view of the Ho Tram Open at The Bluffs Ho Tram Strip in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The course was designed by Greg Norman.Khalid Redza/Asian Tour, via Getty ImagesWe just started design work on our first course outside of Hanoi. It has a significant amount of topography and dense vegetation, so they are clearing the property now. I’ve designed several courses in high terrain, such as the mountains of Korea and Japan, so I’m looking forward to drawing from that experience to create something different than the coastal region courses we’ve designed in Vietnam.What are the benefits of buying a golf home in Vietnam?For starters, it’s an incredibly beautiful country that’s diverse — from its tropical rainforests to the gorgeous coastline to the historical cities. Then there are unbelievably friendly locals and delicious, fresh food. It’s also very safe and has lots of activities including snorkeling, swimming, hiking in the rainforest and boating. The cities have amazing sightseeing, and from a value point of view, I would put it in the top three destinations in the world. Your money goes a long way in Vietnam. You can find a great three-bedroom property with amenities like a pool in a luxury development or on the beach for less than $500,000.Tell me about the golf scene in Dubai, where you’ve designed several courses, and are also behind the residences Fireside by Greg Norman. What makes Dubai so appealing?One of the great things about Dubai is that it’s very centrally located from a global standpoint and the government has done a great job staying ahead of the curve with air travel into the country and infrastructure. Dubai has also done a great job of showcasing its culture, which has played a big part in the growth of tourism in the country.The par 5, 18th hole with the clubhouse behind on the Earth Course designed by Greg Norman at Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.David Cannon/Getty ImagesWhat makes a golf home destination a strong one?It depends on what you’re looking for, but you want a place that’s easy to reach. You won’t use the property if it takes all day to get there. You also ideally want to buy in a location that you can enjoy most of the year and has non-golf diversions. You can only play the game so much.Aspen is an example or Big Sky, Montana. You can ski during the winter, golf most months and also enjoy recreation like hiking and mountain biking. Bodrum, Turkey, is another example because there’s great golf, mild weather year-round and beautiful beaches. Plus, it has good accessibility with lots of flights daily from Istanbul and nonstop flights from other cities in Europe.In golf markets that are saturated such as South Florida, is it still possible to find an affordable home?Yes, but you must look outside of areas that are super popular and where inventory is limited. West Palm Beach and Naples are expensive, and it’s hard to find a home at all, let alone an affordable home. The scenario changes if you look north to Martin County. My top tip is to look to secondary markets.Sustainability in golf course design and golf properties are priorities for you. Can you share sustainable features of both that interested buyers should look for during their search?With golf courses, look for electric golf carts, using recycled water to irrigate the courses, and avoiding the use of chemicals to care for grass as much as possible. Sustainable courses also don’t rely on plastics in their restaurants and use local food purveyors whenever they can.Sustainable golf homes should rely on solar energy and be constructed with green materials like pine. And they should have heating and cooling systems that are energy efficient.Many sustainable features aren’t overly apparent when you’re looking at properties and courses so the only way to know is to do your due diligence. More

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      Short Courses Are Gaining Favor With Golfing Families

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      Many golf communities are adding pint-size courses, which appeal to children as well as to parents who lack the time to play 18 holes.Even in Cabot Cape Breton, a golf community perched across sandy cliffs in remote Nova Scotia, the waves pounding against the dunes can’t erase the pandemic pressures of video calls and remote-work deadlines.They also can’t extend the stamina of a child or novice golfer, so last summer, Cabot Cape Breton opened the Nest: a 10-hole short course that can be completed in just over an hour.The Nest’s opening came as hundreds of other short courses have been designed or unveiled across the globe in golf communities, which have seen record-breaking sales to families with young children.At Haig Point, a golf community on Daufuskie Island, S.C., where prices are up 14 percent since before the pandemic, families have comprised nearly 25 percent of new buyers and the average age of residents is now 51. Before Covid, it was 63.As parents increasingly convert a quick turn on the golf course into a family activity squeezed between virtual meetings, golf communities are boosting their amenities with pint-size courses that can shift a round of golf into a true family affair.“Short courses are all the vogue now,” said Ben Cowan-Dewar, chief executive of Cabot Cape Breton. “We’ve seen them everywhere.”Short courses are not new — courses with nine or 10 holes have been gaining steam since the 1950s as fast and fun alternatives to the full 18-hole experience.But as social mores have shifted over the decades, so has the demand for a different type of golf experience. Women worked their way not just into the boardroom but also onto the back nine; men began to take more active roles in their children’s lives; smartphones, and all their buzzing alerts, began accompanying people everywhere they went.Then came Covid-19, and its trifecta of remote work, virtual school, and the need for activities in the open air.As sales of golf homes rose among families with children, “short courses really took flight because they allowed families to recreate together safely, outside and socially distanced,” said John Kirk, a partner at the architecture firm Cooper Robertson. “Younger golfers don’t necessarily have the stamina or patience for a more prolonged golf outing, and have other things going on in their lives, so this works.”Short courses, where a round of play can cost half as much as on a full-size course, also are part of a bigger cultural shift, said Rob Duckett, vice president of South Street Partners, which has developed several master-planned golf communities in the Southeast including Kiawah Island Club and Kiawah Island Real Estate, the Cliffs and Palmetto Bluff.With the arrival of younger residents, there’s been a push for more casual, relaxed programming, thinking beyond the traditional parameters of retirees playing golf.“At our properties, we have added fun programming such as night golf, music on the range, and comfort stations to the golf courses with signature dishes and cocktails that make golf more of a social event that is still enjoyable for experienced golfers while less intimidating for new ones,” Mr. Duckett said in an email. “The addition of nongolf amenities that appeal to a broader age range, such as pickleball and shooting, is also a shift I’ve seen. Basically, thinking about programming and activities that appeal to the whole family, rather than just traditionally catering to dads.”Karen and Brad Cook, avid golfers who live in Maui and are building a 3,400-square-foot, four-bedroom home at Cape Breton, are hoping that the community’s new short course will help them pass on their love of golf to their two boys, 11 and 13.“There’s a lot less pressure playing a par-3 course than there is playing the big course,” said Mr. Cook, who owns an engineering company. “And the attention span for golfing for younger kids just isn’t the same.”Cabot Cape Breton has two top-ranked full-length courses: Cabot Links, designed by Rod Whitman, and Cabot Cliffs, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. Mr. Whitman, along with Dave Axland, was tapped to design the new short course.Cabot Cape Breton’s real estate offerings, which range from two-bedroom golf villas to four-bedroom homes, run about $825,000 to $2.5 million.Mr. Cowan-Dewar said they were often occupied by families with children. That mirrors trends seen across North America among families, who continue to seek new homes outside of cities.Across the United States, relocation from major urban centers to smaller metro areas rose 23 percent in 2021, according to the National Association of Realtors.Mike Williams, managing director of Innisbrook, a golf resort in Palm Harbor, Fla., said that it was not just families who had been drawn to short courses during the pandemic. With business travel shut down and conventions on hold, he has seen a sharp spike in business colleagues gathering on one of the four courses at Innisbrook in clusters of three or four, where they combine networking and novice golf practice into one or two-hour segments.Innisbrook has taken note and is now converting their full-size North Course into a short course. The project will leave them with some unused land, so they plan to convert those additional acres into spots for new residences. They don’t yet have an estimated completion date.“We have seen a very robust golf group segment grow as conventions and conferences evaporated,” Mr. Williams said. He notes that competitors including Pebble Beach and Pinehurst have recently added their own short courses. “In order for Innisbrook to remain competitive and be mentioned in the same breath as some of those resorts, we feel compelled to put in a short course as well,” he said.At Suncadia Resort in Elum, Wash., nearly 300 new homes have been built in the last two years. Mike Jones, Suncadia’s golf director, said that he had seen the number of children on both the Arnold Palmer-designed Prospector golf course, as well as the Jacobsen Hardy-designed Rope Rider short course, increase by 50 percent.“I used to view this as a second home for a lot of people, and the residents that did live here full time, the majority were retired,” Mr. Jones said. “And since the pandemic, all these young kids started moving here and what I started noticing was I’d be at Prospector and I’d see three young kids on the putting green, and they didn’t know the other kids, and there just wasn’t a community feel.”To cater to the new arrivals, Mr. Jones started a PGA Jr. League, and also launched a meet and mingle program on the green, where members could gather to get to know each other and cocktails were served for the adults.Charles Nay, who purchased a 3,000-square foot, four-bedroom cabin at Tumble Creek, a private neighborhood within the Suncadia community, in September 2020 for his family, prefers to play at Prospector. But he believes the short course is ideally suited for his 13-year-old daughter.“When she and her friends want to golf, they get bored and don’t necessarily want to play 18 holes,” said Mr. Nay, who lives in Seattle.In Big Sky, Mont., the Spanish Peaks Mountain Club community will be putting in a new short course this spring in addition to its existing 18-hole Tom Weiskopf-designed course. It will be a 10-hole par-3 course, something that Mr. Weiskopf said the community had been considering for years.“Covid really gave golf a shot in the arm,” he said. “Spanish Peaks has so many members with big families with grandkids, and they want to do what grandpa and grandma do, or with their dad and mom. It’s a great way to get people started in the game.” More

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      Nets Rookie Day’Ron Sharpe Goes Apartment Shopping.

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      Day’Ron Sharpe, the 29th overall pick in this year’s N.B.A. draft, is making himself at home in New York as he gets ready for his first season alongside the Nets’ big stars.Day’Ron Sharpe ducked his head under the doorway instinctively and scanned his eyes across the apartment. Its shape was a straight line running perpendicular to him with two bedrooms and a bathroom to his left; another bedroom and bathroom to his right; and a kitchen, living room and balcony opening up in bright light from big windows before him.In that moment, it didn’t matter that this brand-new building in Downtown Brooklyn was still coated in dust. It didn’t matter that he’d just taken an elevator that had insulation on the walls and plywood on the floor. It didn’t even matter that the construction crew had left behind a ladder and soda bottles in the living room, or that the fire alarm was shrieking a low-battery warning every 60 seconds. All that mattered was this: He could imagine himself being at home in this apartment.Sharpe had been on his house-hunting journey for only an hour, and already he was behaving like a lifelong New York City apartment shopper. He overlooked the apartment’s flaws and instead focused on its attributes. He smiled and declared: “Oh, yeah, this is the one.”Sharpe wanted his new apartment to have enough room for his mother, father, cousin and, of course, video games.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesWhen most people enter the work force, they get at least some say in where they will live. But that’s not the case for elite N.B.A. prospects like Sharpe, a 6-foot-11, 265-pound center from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The Phoenix Suns selected Sharpe with the 29th pick in July’s N.B.A. draft and traded his rights to the Nets. And his calendar over the next month was as crowded as the city itself. He first flew to New York to complete his physical and sign his contract. Then he returned home to North Carolina to pack his bags for Summer League in Las Vegas. He spent most of August in Nevada before making another pit stop in North Carolina on his way back to New York.Now it was Aug. 28, and Sharpe, 19, needed to find an apartment for the first time in his adult life. And he needed to do it before the Nets began their training camp on Sept. 28.If all of this felt overwhelming, Sharpe didn’t show it. He was dressed casually in gray sweatshorts, a black T-shirt and high-top Jordan 5s. From the back seat of his chauffeured black Cadillac Escalade, he marveled at Manhattan’s skylines and made mental notes of the restaurants people had recommended. On the way into the first apartment — a 1,600-square foot, 23rd floor three-bedroom with unobstructed views of Midtown — Sharpe saw an Ample Hills Creamery store. “That’s a huge bonus,” he said. “I’ve heard that ice cream is really good. I can’t wait to try it.”Sharpe had several priorities for his new apartment, and fortunately, he had the budget for them. The N.B.A. employs a pay scale for first-round picks, so Sharpe will earn around $2 million this year from his Nets salary alone, and more than $6 million if he does nothing more than remain on the team’s roster for three seasons. In a city where nearly half of all households spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, and nearly a quarter spend more than 50 percent, Sharpe’s salary is a luxury. Although his financial adviser told him not to worry about his rent, the units he considered cost no more than $10,000 a month, which would amount to about 5 percent of his gross income.Besides staying within the budget, he wanted to be close both to the Nets’ practice facility in Industry City and to Barclays Center in Prospect Heights. He wanted a place that was pet friendly because he plans to adopt a dog. He wanted good Wi-Fi so that he could play Call of Duty: Warzone and NBA 2K. And he wanted a three-bedroom apartment so his parents, Derrick and Michelle Sharpe, and his cousin, Trevion Williams, could live with him.Sharpe, center, and his parents Derrick, right, and Michelle.Calla Kessler for The New York Times“Family is the most important thing to me,” Sharpe said. “I wouldn’t be here without them, and I’m glad they will be here with me as I get my start in the N.B.A.”Sharpe grew up in Greenville, an eastern North Carolina city with a population a shade under 100,000. He was always a Tar Heel fan, and his childhood dream of playing basketball for them started to become a reality when he grew a foot between sixth and eighth grade and entered South Central High School at 6-foot-7. In 10th grade, he took his first trip to New York, for a basketball tournament. He gawked at the glowing billboards in Times Square and remembered thinking: “This place is seriously crowded.”As a high school junior, he led the Falcons to a 30-1 record and an Class 4A state championship. He got his first feel for living independently as a senior in high school, when he transferred to Montverde Academy, Florida’s prep powerhouse. He shared a room — and a bunk bed — with Caleb Houstan, who now plays for Michigan. Sharpe took the top bunk so that his feet could dangle off the foot of the twin bed. “People think I need a huge bed,” he said, “but I’d be happy if I just had a queen at this point.”There is a piano in the recreation room of one of the apartments Sharpe toured.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesSharpe came off the bench during his single season at North Carolina, but he had an outsize influence in his 19.2 minutes per game. His 18.2 offensive rebounding percentage was No. 1 in the nation, per KenPom.com. When Sharpe declared for the N.B.A. draft, North Carolina Coach Roy Williams, who retired after the season, called him “one of the greatest rebounders I’ve ever coached.” Sharpe’s averages per 40 minutes of 19.8 points and 15.8 rebounds pointed to his potential impact if he had been given more playing time. N.B.A. teams admired his ability to pass out of the post and his comfort in playing in a pick-and-roll offensive style that dominates the league. He figures to fit into the Nets’ rotation — which is thin on big men — early on this season.But before he finds his place with the Nets, he had to find his place in Brooklyn.He liked the 23rd-floor unit, even though the master bedroom, he said, “was smaller than my dorm room.” His realtor, Joshua Lieberman of Douglas Elliman, laughed and told him that was something he might have to live with. But Sharpe couldn’t abide by their pet policy. The building manager told him that he could have a dog, but it would need to be on the smaller side. “I want a big dog,” he said. “I mean, really big. I’m a big guy. I can’t be out here with a little Chihuahua.”Lieberman assured him that the issues with the second apartment — the one with the dust, the litter and the alarm — were to be expected in new construction. On the plus side, he’d be the first person to live in the unit, and among the first renters in the building, which featured a roof deck with a doggy playground, two lounges, a business center, a two-story gym with a sauna and a steam room, and a mini movie theater. Sharpe liked that he and his cousin could have adjoining bedrooms, while his parents had the master on the opposite end of the unit. “There’s two of them,” he said, “and only one of me. As long as I’ve got my bed and my games, I’m good.”Sharpe took his first trip to New York when he was in 10th grade and was awed by the billboards and crowds of Times Square.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesThe final listing for the day was in Brooklyn Heights, closer to the Nets’ practice facility. The building somehow had even more amenities, including a dance room and a virtual golf simulator, but the unit had only two bedrooms and one bathroom, and Sharpe didn’t want to make his cousin sleep on the couch all season. Not even an envy-inducing view of the Statue of Liberty could persuade him.After the final listing, he climbed back into the Escalade and asked the driver to take him downtown to get his parents some pizza. When the car stopped, he noticed that he was back at Ample Hills. Sharpe realized he was only a mile away from the apartment he had dubbed “the one” and he said that it was time to get some ice cream. Inside the shop, the first flavor he saw was Coffee Toffee Coffee, and he ordered it without so much as looking at more than a dozen other options. This was a day for decisiveness.He took the ice cream outside into Brooklyn Bridge Park. His realtor pointed to a spot where the rapper Nas had performed in 2016, and then he showed Sharpe ESPN’s South Street Seaport studios across the water. Sharpe took a big spoonful of ice cream and then leaned on the rail and looked out at the water. “Mm-mm!” he said. “I think I’m going to like living here.” More

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      A Resort Developer Who Puts the Emphasis on Golf, Not Real Estate

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      Mike Keiser has become a star in the golf world by putting the sport over vacation homes. Though he’s sold plenty of those, too.This article is part of our latest special report on International Golf Homes, about some of the top spots to live and play.Mike Keiser started building Bandon Dunes, a remote golf destination in Bandon, Ore., with little care as to where the golfers who came might stay after they played.Bandon is certainly hard to get to: It is hours away from any airport and a five-hour drive from Portland. But in the late 1990s, Mr. Keiser felt the time was right. He also had the funds to make it happen, having built a successful greeting card company, which he sold for $250 million in 2005. And he wanted to test his theory that golfers in America would love links golf — an old form of the sport, invented in Scotland, involving a more open landscape and generally near the water — if exposed to it.“I expected we’d have 10,000 rounds the first year, which was the break-even number,” Mr. Keiser said. “We did 24,000 that first year and that basically paid for two years of development.”Bandon Dunes, built along a barren stretch of the Oregon coast, has 1,200 acres, 48 rooms and a clubhouse. The club and vacation homes were added by Mike Keiser at the urging of Howard McKee, an early partner.Bandon Dunes Golf ResortEven with that sort of success, Bandon needed somewhere for players to stay. Enter an early partner, Howard McKee. At Mr. McKee’s urging, Mr. Keiser built a clubhouse with 12 rooms and four guest cottages with individual rooms for group trips. “It was self-funding after the initial investment in 1,200 acres of land, 48 rooms and a clubhouse,” Mr. Keiser said. “But that wouldn’t have been possible if Howard hadn’t made me build the rooms and the clubhouse. I give him kudos for that.”Mr. Keiser is one of the most successful golf developers of the past three decades. From barren, coastal land in Oregon, he created a new template for the stay-and-play buddies’ trip. He has since built three more.His model is the reverse of many developers who lead with real estate and fit the golf in around it: Mr. Keiser puts the golf courses first, then he listens to what the local market wants. Today his name is spoken of among serious golfers in the same manner as top players and star architects: with reverence, a bit of jealousy and a good deal of amazement.Soon, he was expanding. In 2014, he had opened Cabot Links on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and has recently begun development on Cabot St. Lucia in the Caribbean, both with an outside partner, Ben Cowan-Dewar. In between, he helped spread the model to Sand Valley, a golf resort his sons Michael and Chris opened in 2017 in central Wisconsin.Sand Valley and Cabot Links both have real estate developments within the resort. Cabot St. Lucia is experiencing a pandemic-driven boom in demand for its homes — even though the resort is still years from opening.At Bandon, however, Mr. Keiser had a practical reason to build temporary dwellings and not vacation homes: He could not imagine golfers’ successfully selling their families on trekking out to a vacation home in coastal Oregon.“The Bandon brand is it’s cold and windy and it rains a lot,” Mr. Keiser said. “Does that sound like a marketing hook? Had we tried, we would have failed.”Two decades on, Bandon, with its five full-length courses, two short courses and international reputation, has remained a “spartan” experience, as Mr. Keiser’s son Michael put it. But the resorts under the Keiser brand that have come since Bandon have all found a way to include real estate without cheapening the golf experience with Florida-style condos lining every fairway.“Most developers try to maximize the amount of real estate they can put around their golf course,” Michael Keiser said. “We sell just enough real estate to fuel our golf addiction.”The market for Sand Valley, unlike Bandon Dunes, is one where most guests are driving less than three hours to get to a part of Wisconsin known for vacationing. So the homes can be rented and earn income for their owners.The Sand Valley golf resort in central Wisconsin was built to be family-friendly. “We got golf going first, but we’re adding other things like a pool and a pool house and court tennis,” said Michael Keiser, Mike Keiser’s son.Sand Valley“It doesn’t go against the spirit of Sand Valley,” Michael Keiser said. “Our guests love staying in them. By selling real estate we’re also able to give our resort guests more of what they want, like fire pits and screened porches.”Yet, like his father, Michael Keiser said he was resisting the siren call of money from home sales. He has built only 15 homes at Sand Valley with eight more in the works.“We just want to sell enough to house our resort guests and fund golf courses,” he said. “I’d rather spend my time building great golf courses, and the real estate lets me do that.”At Cabot Links, which opened in 2012, real estate has come slower. For years, Mike Keiser was uninterested in partnering with the prospective developer, Mr. Cowan-Dewar, then a 20-something Canadian golf enthusiast, and did not return his calls.“A friend convinced me to take his call,” Mr. Keiser said. “The deal was land for a dollar. It was remote, but I’d already done that.”“When I finally went there,” he added, “I was flabbergasted that it looked that good.”Cabot sold out its original 19 villas in 2014, but it only recently got zoning approval for 29 additional homes at its second golf course. Those homes sold quickly and are now funding other improvements. Mr. Keiser said that he had never wanted to rush a development and that he had been fortunate to have the money to take his time.After surveying the original homeowners, Mr. Cowan-Dewar said people wanted more non-golf amenities like tennis, walking trails and barns for exercise and entertaining. “As people live in these places, they behave differently than if they just come for golf,” he said. “You start to go to the beach. You don’t just play 18 holes when you arrive, then 36 holes the next day and 36 holes the day after that.”Mr. Keiser did not balk at the different formula. One of his business philosophies is to listen to the clients and shape the resort around what they want.“You need to find the best property you can, but then sit next to the first tee and ask people what they want,” Michael Keiser said. The Dunes Club in New Buffalo, Mich., was an early acquisition of Mike Keiser. A nine-hole course, it is not far from Lake Michigan. Lyndon French for The New York TimesHis father takes that approach literally: When Cabot Links opened, he eschewed the ceremonial first round, and instead sat with Mr. Cowan-Dewar on the first tee, asking people what they liked and disliked.Largely because of its geographical location, the project underway in St. Lucia is the most different. There is nothing cold or unpleasant about the golf season there and it has been a pandemic escape, which Mr. Cowan-Dewar credits for selling out the first 42 homes upon their release.Per the Keiser formula, the golf course in St. Lucia came first: Nine of 18 greens will be on the ocean and the course is being designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, acclaimed architects who have also built courses at the other Keiser resorts. The philosophy of Sand Valley has evolved to be something different still — not a dream buddies’ trip or a Caribbean escape but a family-friendly vacation spot.“Our goal is not spartan, it’s comfort,” Michael Keiser said. “The non-golf activities are the difference at Sand Valley. We got golf going first but we’re adding other things like a pool and a pool house and court tennis.”In addition to its two existing courses at Sand Valley, a third is about to be approved. For hard-core golfers, one of the Keiser family’s favorite course architects, Tom Doak, is in the process of recreating the Lido, a revered Long Island course that closed after World War II. The new Lido, scheduled to open in 2023, will have just 17 homes, with half of them for rent to provide 50 guest beds. Additional rooms might be added above the club house, if needed, he said.“Part of that secret sauce is that nimbleness and ability to flow and adapt,” Michael Keiser said. “Just like at Bandon, my dad didn’t set out to build all these courses. He set out to do what was immediately in front of him.”The success of Bandon begot the subsequent resorts, but that success required a wholesale reimagining of what the golf vacation would be.It started with the land. Then Mr. Keiser added architects who were little known — David McLay Kidd, now a sought-after designer, had yet to design a course when he was selected at age 26 to build the first Bandon course, which opened in 1999. And he asked the designers to make the courses fun, not penal as many top courses had been.“I’m using a no-name inexperienced golf architect at a remote site that had no chance of succeeding,” Mr. Keiser said. “It was ridiculous that it could work. But I had the money to lose, which was good because no bank would have financed it.”That risk has been rewarded. In addition to a steady stream of golf tourists at all the resorts, Bandon was just awarded 13 national championships from the United States Golf Association over the next two decades, starting with the U.S. Junior Amateur next year. Mr. Keiser is proud of getting the recognition but prouder still of having the courses to do something that, again, hasn’t been done before.When Bandon hosts the U.S. Men’s and Women’s Amateur in 2032, the tournaments will be played the same week. “With five courses, we can have two televised golf tournaments going on at the same time,” he said. “It will be very important for girls golf. I’m very proud of that. That’s the direct result of having enough golf courses.” More