Getting the course back made me absolutely euphoric . I started it and now I get to finish it .”
Nearly 20 years after an abrupt closure , Beacon Hill Golf Club is set to come back to life in 2024
by JIM MCCONNELL
Beacon Hill is set to reopen at the end of 2024 .
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THOMAS CLARK AND RESORT DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS
Even though it was only fully operational for parts of two years in the mid-2000s , the saga of long-shuttered Beacon Hill Golf Course reads like a network TV courtroom drama — complete with lawsuits , fraud allegations , millions of unaccounted-for dollars and investors , creditors and club members left holding the bag .
Now , however , the 330-acre Loudoun County course and its once-spectacular blend of soaring elevation changes , water views and serene natural setting is being brought back to life .
Virginia-based Resort Development Partners and renowned golf course architect Tom Clark are working together to transform the former 27-hole layout that closed in 2006 into a private 18-hole course known as Beacon Hill Golf Club .
For Clark , whose ties to the property stretch as far back as the early 1980s , it ’ s a deeply personal “ full circle ” experience and one that seemed at many points along the way destined to forever remain just beyond his grasp .
“ Getting the course back made me absolutely euphoric ,” he said . “ I started it and now I get to finish it .”
In 1998 , Larry Goldstein with Odyssey Development contacted Clark and asked if he ’ d be interested in designing a golf course as part of a 300-unit upscale residential development Goldstein was planning to build west of Leesburg .
There was a catch : It had to have 27 holes , with all three nines starting and finishing in the same general area , and it had to avoid septic fields located throughout the property . Even for a veteran architect , crafting
Getting the course back made me absolutely euphoric . I started it and now I get to finish it .”
— Tom Clark
a routing plan under those parameters was “ one of the great jigsaw puzzles I ’ ve ever done ,” Clark recalled .
As it turned out , the challenges at Beacon Hill were just beginning .
In collaboration with several well-known retired PGA Tour pros including Sam Snead , Billy Casper and Johnny Miller , a Harvard alumnus named Stan Abrams had formed a golf development firm called Senior Tour Players Inc . in 1982 .
Abrams flew to Virginia , met with Goldstein and convinced him that Senior Tour Players was the best choice to operate the planned Beacon Hill course . Then shortly
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