Real estate

The historic Gulfstream and Palm Beach clubs inspired the concept of the polo country club. Sarah Eakin looks at the prospects for the new generation of developments

Real estate can be a fast track to the American dream. John D Rockefeller said America’s major fortunes were made in land, and for America’s polo clubs especially, the development of that land has certainly dictated fortunes.

When Florida’s Gulfstream Polo Club was relocated in 1953 from Delray to Lake Worth in Palm Beach County, land was some $1,000 per acre. This year, acreage at the club was under contract to be sold for 300 times that amount. Thanks to the presence of polo, property prices have increased and are appealing to new residents in Wellington and Lake Worth in Palm Beach County. In addition, as seen with Gulfstream, the impact on real estate can have a knock-on effect on the clubs themselves.

When Bill Ylvisaker first had a vision for Palm Beach Polo & Country Club in the 1970s, he was playing polo with friends at Gulfstream. It was the kind of club where several players got together and played, socialised and kept their horses in understated barns surrounding the communal polo fields. It was a polo club, in the raw sense of the word.

But Ylvisaker was thinking bigger and imagining a polo ‘development’. Even though the land he had in mind was at the time nothing but a swamp, with his foresight and conviction, it became America’s first true polo and country club. The Palm Beach Polo and Country Club –featuring golf courses, a tennis club, pristine polo fields, a field-side stadium, club barns and even horses for rent by visiting players –was a huge success and changed the face of high goal polo in the United States.

Since being scaled down in recent years after Ylvisaker sold out, there has been nothing to match the club in terms of experiencing the storybook polo way of life: powerful businessmen playing polo at the weekend after a Learjet commute into Palm Beach International Airport with Argentine professionals drafted in to heighten competition on the field. Breakfast at the Tennis Club followed by lunch at the Players Club completed the polo lifestyle, with Sundays featuring a game on the crowdpacked number one field. On Mondays players and their patrons hit the golf course and talked over the week ahead while their families romped in the country club pool and lunched at the Tikki Bar.

The model has since inspired others, like South Carolina’s New Bridge Polo and Country Club, founded in 2000 by businessman Russ McCall and Argentine professional Matias Magrini. Together they built a ‘polo and country club’ in Aiken, where a spring and fall season was starting to attract the attention of the US polo scene and players were beginning to set up shop. With land prices around two to three thousand per acre in the area, New Bridge set the stage for a polo boom in Aiken, building upon an initial surge of interest in the area generated by the town’s newest polo residents, Owen Rinehart and Adam Snow.

Following the advent of the USPA Gold Cup Polo Championship, which New Bridge hosted for two years, many prospectors began to think of combining equestrian sports with real estate sales. Today, there are upwards of 40 equestrian developments in Aiken County. With the city of Aiken hosting a modest population of 40,000, outsiders may fail to see the reasoning. But Aiken is attractive: it boasts a unique combination of sandy soil, excellent footing, historical links to polo and other equestrian pursuits and a horse-friendly community.

Some of the new Aiken developments like New Bridge and Brigadoon (a newer version) also boast two top-quality ‘championship’ polo fields – the key to success for any development wishing to position itself for the polo market, and define itself as a polo ‘club’. Other developments have further combined polo and equestrian facilities. Unlike in Gulfstream’s early days when a polo field and a track would suffice, many clubs today offer trail riding and dressage/jumping arenas in addition to the polo amenities.

New developments are further seeking a competitive edge by linking up with sporting personalities. The nature-lovers’ equestrian community Bridle Creek, on Aiken’s south side development and whose partners

include Julian Daniels and his wife Dineen, boasts Australian three-day event Olympic champion Phillip Dutton as its ‘poster boy’. Brigadoon, on the other hand, has Aiken’s own 6-goaler Tiger Kneece, who is well known and respected in his home town, and will manage the polo side of the club.

Memo Gracida is linked to a new venture in Port Mayaca, Florida, which is being developed by Steve Orthwein and which is one of four new Florida polo clubs that are simultaneously opening in the state. Gracida owns a private facility nearby and Orthwein says he has been ‘a big help, consultant and supporter’. Orthwein’s vision is simple: ‘I’d like to see much more of a “club”. Teams often come and play and leave right after the game. We are going to host some barbeques and socialise after polo. It will be the kind of club where I may play against you this week and on the same team as you next week.’

While the club’s founders may set the tone, it’s the players’ image that affects the overall perception. No one knows this better than Bob Whitley of Whitley Development Group, who is the owner and developer of Hobe Sound Polo Club –located 30 minutes from Palm Beach International Airport and close to the coveted beaches of Hobe Sound on the Atlantic shore. The club is a partnership between Robert Whitley, Tucker Frederickson and Rockwood Capital, and they in turn are partnering with a triumvirate of polo players: Ted Brinkmann, Andres Weisz and Merle Jenkins.

When Hobe Sound was ready to pursue new members, it made the announcement that Adolfo Cambiaso had purchased a lot in the club in partnership with Andres Weisz. The players would not only use the Hobe Sound Polo Club as a base to train and maintain horses from Cambiaso’s renowned breeding operation in Argentina, but also for the 10-goaler’s horse operation and practice while playing at the International Polo Club Palm Beach (IPC). Located 20 minutes away in the heart of Wellington, IPC is Florida’s new high goal club, but while it fulfills its role as a world-class polo venue, it does not have real estate options linked to it. Within a week of the Cambiaso announcement, the first phase of Hobe Sound Polo Club had sold out and reservations were already being taken for the second.

‘It is the greatest opportunity to have him as a partner,’ says Weisz, who plans to also build a field at the club. ‘The Hobe Sound Polo Club has opened up a lot of new opportunities for professional players. We are going to run a first-class operation and I expect the club will have many private fields to complement the club’s own five fields and two practice fields. Hobe Sound Polo Club will be a family-oriented club. You have the beaches close and little traffic. With 20-acre estates and 8,000 acres of surrounding undeveloped land, Hobe Sound is perfect for people who like horses or just prefer a peaceful environment.’

In addition to Hobe Sound, three new clubs are also springing up on the Florida map: Orthwein’s Port Mayaca Plantation on Lake Okeechobee (the second biggest freshwater lake in the US); the neighboring Lake Point Ranches, offered for sale by Brad Scherer and Atlantic Western Reality; and The Ranch, an upscale residential and polo development at Yeehaw Junction which is a new extension of the Vero Beach Polo Club.

Top Port Mayaca Plantation with access the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico Below Brigadoon’s Cato family: Edgar Cato (standing), Christine Cato and the club’s own professional Tiger Kneece

Top Perfect location: Hobe Sound Polo Club with the Atlantic shore behind and I-95 and the Florida Turnpike in front Below Bill Ylvisaker started Palm Beach Polo Club in the 1970s

All of them have appeal beyond the polo fields and sport extensive trail riding along with other amenities.

Port Mayaca Plantation, for example, has club barns for visiting teams but shares the boating appeal with Lake Point Ranches, the clubs being located on opposite sides of the St Lucie River and allowing access to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. Meanwhile Hobe Sound, which sits by itself in eastern Martin County due north of Wellington, offers a less remote location, closer to high-end shopping and the beaches.

Real estate prices also vary. The Ranch’s home sites start at $300,000 while Port Mayaca Plantation’s acreage starts at $55,000. Lake Point Ranches is offering 20-acre lots from $36,000 to $60,000 per acre and at Hobe Sound Polo Club, 20-acre plots can be bought for $1.7m.

The new locations were found by looking outside Palm Beach County as developers sought to compensate for sky-high land prices. ‘We began by looking around Palm Beach County without success,’ said polo player Brinkmann. ‘When we met and put the deal together with Bob Whitley and the Rockwood Corporation it just worked. The Hobe Sound Polo Club is in a unique location. It is located on an amazing piece of land neighboring the 8,000-acre Atlantic Ridge State Park. It is a reasonable commute if you want to keep your house in Palm Beach. I plan to continue to practice as a veterinary surgeon in Lake Worth but commute to Hobe Sound for polo.’

The addition of the new clubs is seen as positive for the future of Florida polo. Frederic Roy, publisher of the Morning Line, is a Wellington resident and has monitored the progress of the local polo venues over the past 20 years. ‘Polo is much stronger in Wellington now,’ he says. ‘We have Gulfstream Polo Club revived and new private fields still appearing. The Outback League for 8-goal and 14-goal is strong and even without the private fields there are enough fields to play the high goal at International Polo Club Palm Beach. There are 80 polo fields either in Wellington or within an hour’s drive.’

Roy also believes the new wave of Florida clubs could help attract new players. ‘They are going to breed a lot of new polo at the lower and higher levels,’ he says. ‘It’s farm teams, like in baseball, meaning a lot of smaller teams that feed new players for the big league. That shows a lot of the richness of the industry right now.

‘In Argentina 25 years ago Gonzalo Pieres contributed to creating Pilar in a big way. Eventually there were 200 fields outside of Buenos Aires and that supported the polo epicenter. His personal farm now has nine fields, built year after year. The growth of new polo centres outside of Buenos Aires continues to this day.’

The 100-acre Gulfstream complex –which was recently on the brink of closure and is now being revived under new management –was originally owned by shareholders, some of whom died. But now, with changing circumstances, pieces have been privately

sold off. The ‘new wave’ Florida clubs, however, have certain deeds in place to resist such eventualities. They are located in areas where lot sales are restricted to 20-acre minimum parcels and are benefiting from rules in Martin County that restrict homes in rural areas to one unit per 20 acres. (The exception is Yeehaw Junction’s The Ranch, which is confined to 200 homes including one-acre lots on 4,000 acres.)

‘Their development codes have a unique opportunity to attract these kinds of uses,’ Scherer told the Palm Beach Post about the plot sizes. ‘We don’t have to worry about a shopping center being build next to us in a couple of years.’

‘We are creating a very upscale home community, and making sure the deeds are in place to protect it,’ says Brinkmann. ‘Gulfstream was never upscale and it was mostly barns.’

Whatever the future may hold for Wellington, however, Gulfstream Polo Club will remain one of polo’s historic venues. Orthwein is among many who have a fondness for the club. ‘I grew up playing there, and was around the best polo players in the US,’ he says. A lot of players learned to play at Gulfstream, and every player in America has played there at some time in his life.’