Carving out new purposes for golf courses, country clubs

Mike Smetak recalls learning to play golf at Timber Ridge Golf Club in East Huntingdon, before it closed in 2016.

In years prior, the site off Route 31 was known as the Mulberry Hill Golf Course.

Smetak says he finds it “a little surreal” that he and his wife, Lindsay, along with Geno and Rhonda Gilbert, now own the site and operate it as Yinzer Valley Farms.

“It’s local vernacular, catchy,” he says of the name.

The organic farm and farm store opened on the 206-acre site in 2018.

“We’re turning the golf course back to Mother Nature. The old golf course is becoming a farm,” Smetak says.

The owners recently completed renovating the original clubhouse and now offer party space for up to 300 for weddings, showers and other special events.

Smetak also credits the assistance of Ed and Diane Cheek, maintenance head and director of food safety, respectively.

Those who book the site hire their own caterers. The facility is BYOB.

The land is producing vegetables, including peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, corn and zucchini, along with herbs. The sunflower garden is becoming a photo op for many visitors, and the pumpkin patch is a popular autumn attraction.

They plan to schedule outdoor weekend events with music and food trucks, and farm-to-table dinners may be in their future.

The property was the host site for last year’s Headwaters Party, a Jacobs Creek Watershed Association fundraiser.

“That’s kind of what really got us going,” Smetak says.

“That was definitely always our plan, to expand. That was the first large event we had. It got people talking, and we got some inquiries. The positive response from everything we were doing confirmed we were doing the right thing and what we were supposed to do,” he adds.

The event space had two dozen bookings by mid-March of this year. Eleven weddings are booked between this year and next.

“It’s bearing its fruit,” Smetak says.

Inside the warmly decorated farm store — formerly a pro shop — light-colored repurposed wood forms the counter. The pro shop, Smetak says, “was neon yellow.”

“I think a lot of people had good memories (of the golf course). We realized it was a unique opportunity. People saw a closed-down golf course. I saw a lot of essentials to run a farm,” Smetak says.

The property already had underground irrigation, he notes.

It also had grass 10 feet high.

“It took a lot of work to get to this point,” Smetak says.

“At the end of the day, we want to be an agritourism destination as the land evolves. I have a pretty ambitious vision,” he says.

Other courses repurpose, languish

Studies have shown that the number of golfers across the country fell from 30 million to 20.9 million between 2002 and 2016.

Over the last 20 years, at least half a dozen golf courses have shuttered in the region, according to Terry Teasdale, executive director of Western Pennsylvania Golf Association in Pittsburgh.

They include Hempfield’s Valley Green (closed in 2019), Scenic Links of Westmoreland (2015) and Churchill Valley Country Club (2013).

Oak Lake Golf Course in Upper Burrell closed Oct. 24 after the Conley family decided to get out of the golf business.

Looking for a buyer

In Harrison, the Brackenridge Heights Golf Course remains for sale.

Tomson Scrap Metal bought the course in 2011 for $970,000. Asking price is a “negotiable” $1.5 million, Ted Tomson says.

The 97-acre property includes a clubhouse and several outbuildings. The golf course remains open for business, but the restaurant no longer operates.

Tomson says he enjoyed seeing the restaurant set up for weddings. “I was excited for (the couples),” he says.

But while weddings are one day a week, it can take two or three days to set up and prepare, Tomson adds.

He says he would have been content to break even, but that did not happen.

“It’s a beautiful building. But the expense is so immense. It’s so beautiful and so neat. On a spring day when you ride out there and the course is cut …” Tomson says, his voice trailing off.

“I would like to sell. It would be nice if someone would use it for what it is,” he says.

Hoping for suburban green space

In May, representatives of the nonprofit Allegheny Land Trust announced efforts to raise funds to purchase the defunct Churchill Valley Country Club along Beulah Road in Penn Hills and Churchill.

The country club, started in 1931, closed in 2013; its clubhouse was demolished in 2016.

Plans for the 148-acre Churchill Valley Greenway include preserving the site and repurposing it into a public green space for recreational uses.

According to the Greenway’s website, as of Jan. 9, 504 individuals have contributed more than $125,000 to the effort.

Tom Dougherty, ALT’s vice president of development and external affairs, says the project is “about one-third of the way” to the $3 million needed to buy the site.

He says the ALT recently finalized a one-year extension of a sales agreement with property owner Zokaites Properties LP, a Wexford-based development company.

Dana Zokaites says that extension is also her understanding, adding she is not directly involved in the process and declining further comment.

In November, state Sen. Jay Costa Jr., D-Forest Hills, announced that a $500,000 state grant will go toward the ALT’s efforts.

That funding came on the heels of a $150,000 grant from the Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County’s Gaming and Economic Development Fund.

“Our fundraising is continuing. We’ve been really impressed, energized, I guess, by the amount of support we’ve received from the community,” Dougherty says.

He says the ALT also hopes to work with other community members for environmental uses of the property, including environmental education or tree planting.

Dougherty cites numerous benefits of keeping the land natural, including helping to prevent water runoff and flooding by absorbing rainwater before it goes into Chalfant Run, a Turtle Creek Watershed tributary.

Green space can help to attract homeowners to an area and increase property values, he adds.

Residents already use the paved golf paths as walking trails.

“When you repurpose land like that, it becomes an asset for the community,” Dougherty says.