Deer Track North Course owners still planning redevelopment

The former Deer Track North Course was pulled out of a foreclosure sale last week, and one of its co-owners said he expects to retain ownership of the property and still intends to develop it.

The National Bank of South Carolina has a mortgage lien against the course's owners of nearly $2.93 million stemming from a $2.6 million loan in 2006. The course was on the list of foreclosed properties to be auctioned on Nov. 7, but the bank pulled it from the sale.

“We're negotiating with the bank on the note,” said co-owner McCray Smith. “The foreclosure was what the bank had to do and we're doing what we have to do.

“… Like I've said before, we're going to develop that property.”

The bank's attorney in the case, Tara Nauful of Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd P.A., could not be reached.

The course was originally scheduled to be auctioned off on July 5 after the bank foreclosed on Smith and co-owner Jerry Pettus.

The sale was canceled after the owners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the course in late June, but the case was dismissed on Aug. 19 and officially closed on Oct. 24, reinstituting the foreclosure.

United States Bankruptcy Judge George R. Hodges dismissed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, granting a motion by Synovus Banks – The National Bank of South Carolina is a division of Synovus – seeking dismissal.

The case was filed in the Western District of North Carolina after Deertrack Investors LLC – the entity that owns the course – merged with Woodend LLC, another of Smith and Pettus' companies that owns property in North Carolina. The bankruptcy was filed under Woodend.

Hodges ruled the continuance of the Chapter 11 case would be “objectively futile,” and he found the filing to be in “bad faith.”

In his decision, Hodges wrote: “Deertrack has no current business operations, other than the pursuit of litigation. Deertrack has no revenues, no employees, no going concern to preserve. … Quite simply there is nothing to reorganize

“Additionally, a review of the debtor's schedules show that the merged debtor is not operating any business and has no cash flow. Without a reliable source income, debtor cannot sustain a plan of reorganization to pay Synovus and other secured creditors.”

In the bankruptcy, the Horry County Treasurer submitted a claim for $8,287.12, and a bank submitted a claim for $437,000 stemming from property owned by Woodend LLC

Hodges added: “The timing of this bankruptcy was strategically aimed at forestalling foreclosure and hindering the collection efforts of Synovus.”

Smith said he is prepared to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in South Carolina if it becomes necessary.

Smith and Pettus purchased the course in March 2006 for $8 million, according to court documents, and closed it six month later with intentions of redeveloping the property.

But Horry County Council changed the zoning against the will of its owners from R-7 primarily to a less-dense R-3 at the behest of homeowners in November 2006, and homeowners have a class-action suit against the course owners arguing that there is an easement on the property preventing redevelopment.

Two judges have ruled Smith and Pettus are free to redevelop the land, but the rulings were appealed and the homeowner lawsuit remains active. Smith said an appeal hearing is scheduled in the next two months. Smith also has a countersuit against the homeowners.

Sammy Truett of Surfside Beach and potential partners Dr. Brian Adler and Linwood Foster have been interested in purchasing the 183-acre property and reopening the golf course. They were prepared to attend the July 5 auction.

But Truett said if the course ever makes it to auction and the bank bids at least $2.6 million to protect its interest, his group would be eliminated from contention. Truett's group had negotiated with bank officials prior to the bankruptcy filing.

“I can tell you if the price is $2.6 million we're out. The numbers don't work,” Truett said. “We're not even close to $2.6 million and when we were negotiating with them before we weren't even close.

“… We still think it's a viable project but it's been dragging on for a couple years. Our fire is not burning [to reopen the course] as much as it was six months ago.”

Capital Punishment Provides a Unique Slice of Washingtoniana

The scene this past Saturday was typically D.C. A packed gym, representative of city demographics with basketball interest, served as the tiniest of temporary meccas for the basketball world.

"Welcome to D.C." by Mambo Sauce blasted on the speakers and hands went in the air. One shirt read: "I'm taking my talents to..." followed by the red bars and three stars of the District of Columbia flag. If it wasn't at the local basketball court -- the most associated being the plot at Anacostia's Barry Farm Recreation Center -- then the cozy sports facility of a liberal arts women's college, Trinity University in northeast Washington, would certainly do.

"Capital Punishment" billed some of the top basketball players from the area (with Maryland's Prince George's Country being part of Washington's talent pool), particularly those who have participated in D.C.'s famed Goodman League (a summer street basketball league played at those Barry Farm outdoor courts) versus some of the best talent Los Angeles could provide. The West Coast team was represented by L.A.'s Drew League.

The game was turned down by big networks, afraid of crossing their various relationships with the NBA. But with the league's players currently locked out and its courts devoid of any activity -- nor would there be much action from NBA players anyway; it's just that most are anticipating an extended work stoppage -- scores of others had no problem with providing first hand accounts of the much-hyped action.

Understandably, Mayor Vincent Gray received a smattering of boos when he was introduced and handed the mic by the night's master of ceremonies, Miles Rawls, commissioner of the Goodman League and recently anointed king of summer hoops. The boos for Gray didn't exactly turn to hisses, but there were certainly no cheers to contend for balance. The awkwardness of the scene was complete when Gray tossed out the ceremonial jump ball.

The moment didn't, however, serve as a bad omen. The Goodman team won a back and fourth game, 135-134. It came down to the last possession, the visitors getting a chance to steal the show but falling short on two game-winning attempts. The crowd was entertained by back-and-forth action, dazzling dunks, breakneck speeds, and some good-to-honest moxie and defense -- not to mention Rawls' antics on the mic. (Rawls, if you recall, once famously heckled President Obama at a Wizards-Bulls game in the Verizon Center.)

Despite the down-home District atmosphere and extracurriculars surrounding the play, the players actually took the game seriously. Bragging rights from the West Coast to the East Coast were on the line, after all.

Hometown hero Kevin Durant represented a reprieve from both Gray and Redskins angst, even if town's polarizing NFL team currently looks good in games that do not count. Although Durant doesn't play for the Washington Wizards, rather the Oklahoma City Thunder, the crowd showed that watching locally cultivated basketball talent -- the likes of a former rookie of the year, an NBA all-first teamer and the youngest scoring champ in league history -- could bring happiness equivalent to the Monday morning after a 'Skins win.

Durant, fittingly dawning Redskins-colored Nike shoes, scored 44 points, took home the M.V.P. award and, more importantly, sank the game-winning free-throws with 21.5 seconds left. (Cue the go-go music and the after party at Love nightclub.)

In total, around a dozen currently locked-out NBA players found their way onto the holy Catholic campus between Franklin Street and Michigan Avenue NE. Wizards No. 1 draft pick John Wall, his University of Kentucky teammate DeMarcus Cousins (Sacramento Kings), Gary Neal (San Antonio Spurs), Ty Lawson (Denver Nuggets), and Josh Selby (Memphis Grizzlies) suited up for D.C.'s team. Brandon Jennings (Milwaukee Bucks), James Harden (Thunder), DeMar DeRozan (Toronto Raptors), Craig Smith (L.A. Clippers), Pooh Jeter (Kings) and JaVale McGee of the Wizards dressed for the L.A. team. Other players on each team included local legends and those with various professional experience, including Team Drew's Brandon Bowman, who grew up in Los Angeles but played collegiate-level ball locally at Georgetown, Hugh "Baby Shaq" Jones (the much-touted Goodman League/And-1 street baller), and Omar Weaver of Coolidge High and Goodman League fame. (Weaver had to turn himself in on carjacking charges last March, but he got some quality run with the D.C. squad on Saturday.)

L.A. native Nick Young, a restricted free agent with the Wizards, didn't play in the event due to a mysterious miscommunication. Several other big names in professional basketball, including 2011 No. 2 draft pick Derrick Williams (Team Drew), PG County's Michael Beasley (Team Goodman), and even the much vaunted Kobe Bryant (Team Drew), swirled around as rumored participants, but none of them actually showed.

Fans and ticket holders had trouble getting into arena -- said to hold 1,600 for basketball -- in a timely fashion, some being turned away and thus angrily feeling on the short end of an oversold event. Organizers have doled out promises of a refund, along with speculative claims of rampant counterfeiting, another classically Washingtonian concept. This all could lead one to believe that some of the counterfeiters might have been attendees. Still, not much could put a damper on an exhibition game held in the nation's capital, on the receiving end of basketball interest nationwide, if not the world.

Meanwhile, summertime hoops carries on just the same at D.C.'s Barry Farm, weather permitting. One can follow the Twitter account of @Inside_da_Gates for information on the games, which are held several times per week and feature the best basketball talent in the DMV -- which, as anyone will readily admit, can compete with the best across the country. At this point, the Goodman playoffs is entering the home stretch.

"If the NBA wants to be stubborn, you always got the Drew League and the Goodman League to make it happen," said Drew League Commissioner Dino Smiley after the exhibition game. Smiley says he hopes to schedule a rematch between the two teams in Los Angeles on September 10. Thanks to stars like Durant leading the organization effort and players partially self-funding their presence at Capital Punishment, basketball passion in the District has become further magnified, and so it might not be the last Washington sees of such affairs, especially if signs grow that the entire 2011-12 NBA season might be cancelled.

Hopefully next time, with more sponsor support and a larger venue and less ticket controversy, love for the game of basketball can be served like it deserves be, not as a victim of a bitter dispute between billionaire owners and millionaire players.

Dealer posts his stamp of endurance

CITY stamp dealer Max Stern has chosen the date for his retirement. "February 38th," he says with a chuckle. That's right, although he is approaching his 91st birthday, Stern is enjoying work too much to stop now. "Look at this," he says in excitement, showing me a stamped envelope an elderly lady brought in the other day. It carries the name and logo of the Singer Sewing Machine Company and in 1927 it carried a receipt to "Mrs Beatrice Williamson" in Tasmania. "Never seen one of these before," he says. "Not of great value but very interesting."
Among a cluster of certificates and awards on Stern's office wall is a "platinum" citation from the lord mayor recognising his 58 years as a Melbourne city retailer. But we are talking here of former lord mayor John So - the platinum gong is five years old. Stern has now been 63 years at the helm. "The oldest original trader in the city," he says proudly. His first stamp shop was in the Empire Arcade, opposite Flinders Street Station, then, in Melbourne's Olympic year of 1956, he moved to the Port Phillip Arcade nearby, where he has been ever since. Despite new technology's king-hit on the world's postal services, Stern's business continues to boom, now occupying multiple arcade shops and a second floor.
It was back in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, where he was born, that this lifelong love of stamps and coins began. His father, Moses, a haberdasher, bought him an illustrated Schaubek stamp album for his bar mitzvah. "It became a challenge to find the right stamps to fill the pages," says Stern. "In those days, you didn't look at the value, you just wanted stamps from as many different countries as possible." It became his career after March 1938, when the Nazis invaded Austria. Stern had been studying engineering in Vienna. "The Germans invaded on a Friday," he recalls, "and I went home to Bratislava on the Saturday. That was end of my engineering studies."

Once More Unto The Bleach: Debbie Harry Interviewed

Unusually for a bona fide pop icon, Debbie Harry was already 33 when Blondie released their UK breakthrough album Parallel Lines in 1978, and had even turned 34 when 'Heart Of Glass' was a colossal debut hit in the US a year later. In pop terms, the dynamic core of the group — Harry and her then boyfriend, the guitarist Chris Stein — were already neighing skittishly in the shadow of the glue factory when they hit paydirt. And this ascent to fame goes from being improbable to downright astonishing when you cast your eye over Harry's full CV. It seems unlikely that anyone attempting to tread in her footsteps would have any kind of life left to live by their mid-thirties.

Born on July 1, 1945 in Florida to parents who gave her up for adoption, Debbie Harry grew up in suburban Jersey, where she spent her time formulating plans of escape and daydreaming that Marilyn Monroe was her biological mother. In 1965 she moved to New York City, clicking naturally with the bohemian set, and joined the whimsical folk rock group The Wind In The Willows. Their one album on Capitol, released in 1968, was produced by Artie Kornfeld, who was determined to earn some of that hippy dollar. The year after the record flopped, he got his wish, becoming the musical booker for Woodstock. Harry, meanwhile, became a barmaid at Max's Kansas City in Manhattan where she met Andy Warhol and his retinue, served drinks to Janis Joplin and had sex with glam rocker Eric Emerson in a phone booth.

As the 60s began to sour, so did her experiences. She got hooked on heroin. She married a millionaire but left him a few months later. She became a Playboy Bunny. She moved into a Harlem drug den with a dealer and his armed gang. She eventually crawled out of New York, her life in shreds, only to get lured back by the advent of glam rock. Inspired by hanging out with the New York Dolls at the Mercer Arts Center she ended up forming her own group, The Stilettos, in 1972. A year later Stein watched the group and was so impressed he ended up joining. Although they never made it, this band were essentially part of New York punk's first wave along with other CBGB's house acts Television, Suicide and Wayne County. In 1974 Harry and Stein quit to start afresh and what was originally Angel And The Snakes became Blondie; the nomenclature derived from the name that lascivious New York drivers yelled out of their car windows at her.

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