Southern Land Company plans a private Tom Fazio golf club and 1,271-acre community in Pittsboro, North Carolina, near Raleigh
Nashville developer Southern Land Company will build a 1,271-acre master-planned community inside Chatham Park, about 30 miles from Raleigh, around a private club with a Tom Fazio 18-hole course, a nine-hole short course, and practice facilities. The project is still in planning and visioning.
Southern Land Company, the Nashville-based national real estate developer, announced on September 22 that it will develop a 1,271-acre master-planned community and private golf club inside Chatham Park in Pittsboro, North Carolina, about 30 miles from Raleigh. Tom Fazio will design the golf program, which includes an 18-hole course, a nine-hole short course, and learning and practice facilities.
Chatham Park is the 8,500-acre master plan of Preston Development Company, co-founded by Julian "Bubba" Rawl and Tim Smith. Two decades in the making, it sets aside more than 2,000 acres for parks and open space. Triad Golf Magazine places the Southern Land parcel in the South Village, where plans call for about 250 homes, commercial space, parks, and a hotel, and notes that Chatham Park's North Village has no golf course.
Tim Downey, Southern Land's founder and chief executive, said the goal is a sense of place rather than simply well-built houses. Brian Sewell, the company's president and chief operating officer, described North Carolina as a key market and Chatham Park as one of the state's strongest growth areas. Rawl said Preston has always intended Chatham Park to be a mix of neighborhoods, each with its own amenities and character, while Pittsboro Mayor Kyle Shipp called the Fazio course another sign of the quality of investment Chatham Park keeps bringing to his town.
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Fazio said he wants a course that is fun to play and "deeply connected to the natural character of the land." Gavin Fazio, president of Fazio Golf Design, said a project of this size, in a part of the country the firm knows well, is a rare opportunity. The Triangle already knows Fazio's work at Treyburn Country Club and in the overhaul of UNC's Finley Golf Club. The pairing of a full course, short course, and practice ground is also one that Southern Land's home market has watched take shape, since Firefly in Spring Hill, Tennessee, opened an Andrew Green eighteen and short course ahead of its SWABACK amenity campus.
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Southern Land's largest community to date is Westhaven in Franklin, Tennessee, a 1,500-acre development with an Arthur Hills championship course that is expected to reach about 3,500 homes by 2031. Foley & Lardner advised Southern Land as buyer and developer on the Chatham Park transaction. If the figure of roughly 250 homes holds, golf and open ground rather than rooftops would carry most of the 1,271 acres, a balance that looks less like Westhaven and more like Cabot Wilds in Nova Scotia, where a limited first release of cottages and lots sits on 2,500 acres of golf and resort ground.
The community remains in the planning and visioning stages. Southern Land has not named the club, a clubhouse architect, or a construction timeline, and Triad Golf reports that start and finish dates for the course have not been announced. Prospective buyers can join the interest list at SouthernLandChathamPark.com.
What the Triangle is getting is a private Fazio campus built from open ground in Pittsboro, not an inherited routing, set inside one of the Southeast's largest unfinished master plans. For Chatham Park's South Village, that means golf and open land will set the character of the 1,271 acres before a club name or house product is public. For Southern Land, it is the first real test of whether the Westhaven idea, championship golf inside a large community, travels to the Raleigh market.
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