The Golf Homes and the Influence of Pete and Alice Dye

This article is part of our special section on International Homes, which looks at homes and golf, from planned communities and sustainability to course designers and where they live

Pete and Alice Dye were known for creating challenging PGA Tour courses. T.P.C. Sawgrass in Florida and PGA West in California – both with treacherous island greens – were early and controversial creations, but are regular stops on the tour. Later they designed Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis., This year's host club for the Ryder Club, and the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort, where the P.G.A. Championship will be played next year.

But the couple who died within a year of each other – Alice in February 2019, Pete in January – appreciated the need for real estate to finance the costs of the courses they were designing and fulfilling the desire of people to live with a view of green fairways, rippling water and trees.

They were the first course designers to recognize the potential of the Dominican Republic as a golf destination when they signed with the owners of a local sugar factory to make the dog's teeth in La Romana. Now there are three Dye courses in what is known as Casa de Campo.

They collaborated with Jack Nicklaus in designing the Harbor Town Golf Links in Hilton Head, SC, with a red-white lighthouse that signals as a beacon for players crossing the 18th fairway.

Both developments are clad in condos, villas & houses. This also applies to T.P.C. Sawgrass, PGA West and the Ocean Course.

"Housing was an important part of the work we did," said Perry Dye, the eldest son of the Dyes, who is also an architect. He worked with his parents, just like his younger brother P.B. Dye, another successful course architect. "We were dependent on residential real estate."

Pete and Alice lived on golf courses themselves. In the Dominican Republic, where they spent the winter, they had a house on the seventh hole par-3 with Teeth of the Dog. They lived on Crooked Stick in Carmel, Ind., A job he built in 1964, and also lived in Delray Beach, Fla., Between Gulf Stream Golf Club, a classic design by Donald Ross, and The Little Club, a party three job.

"Because he lived on golf courses, he knew what you were looking at," Perry said. “People walking on the fairway are not as interesting as people on the green. Places like Old Marsh, where the alligators were on your front yard, made sure the houses were put back, "he added, referring to a course his parents had designed in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Here is a look at how the dyes used real estate in some of their more famous designs.

Dog's Teeth

The course lies along the Caribbean coast, but given the flatness of the land, houses could sit back without endangering the wave or the view, ranked as the best in the Caribbean and still among the top 100 jobs in the world.

None of this was predetermined in the late 1960s, when the dyes took a helicopter over thousands of acres of sugar cane and a lone sugar mill in La Romana that became Casa de Campo. "There was no wave on the island, and the interest in golf was zero," Perry said. "The owner of the property tried to build a golf course in Santo Domingo," but Perry said his father didn't think that location made sense.

Pete turned out to be right. The development in La Romana now has almost 4,000 houses and 54 holes with Dye designs. Architectural gems overlooking the sea and the course are listed for a whopping $ 13 million.

Perry said the owners would never have imagined that it would become an international resort. The sugar factory owners "built a golf course for the senior staff," Perry said.

"They had no intention of anyone else playing there," he added. "They used to fly to Puerto Rico to play golf and dinner, but that was 90 miles away."

T.P.C. Sawgrass

What is now hosting the Players Championship was once a swamp. But houses were always in the plan – albeit around the perimeter. "You can't put anything in the interior," Perry said. “It was three feet of water. They lost machines there. ”

The course, which was opened in 1980, was challenging and controversial from the start. Professional golfers complained that it was too heavy – or, in their words, required too much luck. But the houses were the opposite of the Florida flash, hidden behind trees that protected them from players and also from the thousands of fans and workers who complete the course every March for the tournament.

Deane Beman, who was the PGA Tour Commissioner, wanted to build the job that this & # 39; democratic & # 39; was because a player had to make all the different shots. That is under discussion, given how difficult it is. But the current list of houses in Sawgrass seems to have fulfilled its load, ranging in price from $ 200,000 to $ 2 million.

Harbor Town

The dyes worked with Mr. Nicklaus to create a course of instantly recognizable finishing holes with marsh grass along one side and the turbulent water of Calibogue Sound in the distance. But the 18th green of the lighthouse was almost obscured.

"That classic 18th hole – the developers wanted to place condos directly on the edge of the hole," Perry said.

Instead, Pete pushed back and the houses have been hidden behind trees. The homeowners still had a great view, but the aesthetics of the course were not compromised.

"My father said: if you put a house on the sound, you will sell it once. But if you put it on the other side, overlooking the golf course, you will sell it forever.

Now stands a four-bedroom apartment overlooking the lighthouse for $ 1.45 million, with houses going for more.

Ocean Course

The Kiawah Island Golf Resort near Charleston, SC, had no shortage of courses when the dyes were hired to build one that would house the Ryder Cup 1991. Yet, at the eastern tip of the island, the country quickly became entangled in admission

They were rescued by Hurricane Hugo, who smoothed good parts of Charleston and allowed the dyes to start under the guise of working under a hurricane refurbishment.

"My father knew so much from what he did when it came to working with the sea water and fresh water, "said Perry. “He planted sea oats and refreshed the land. He had done it in Florida. ”

The Ryder Cup – won by the United States in what was called the coastal war – attracted a great deal of attention from a picturesque community. It also sold many homes, one of which is on Ocean Course Drive today for just under $ 8 million.

"If Hugo had not been there, that project would never have got off the ground," Perry said. "The licensing process would have been impossible."

Whistling Straits and the Future

Perry said the current trend was not golf communities or resorts, but destinations. With Bandon Dunes in Oregon, Streamsong in Central Florida and Sand Hills in Mullen, Neb., The jobs are the call.

The same goes for Whistling Straits, which Dye designed in 1998.

"What golf really supports are trends, and the trend at the moment is projects 50 miles outside major metropolitan areas," he said. "That leads to more camping cabins than $ 2 million homes."

On Whistling Straits, the American Club serves as the base camp for the thousands of fours that descend each season for high-end trips filled with as much golf as a group of friends can play one day.

Yet Perry said the market for golf properties would return. "Some of your better investments have been on golf courses in the last 25 years," he said. It didn't hurt if they came with a beautiful view.