Country Club Rebuffs Mosher's Discount

Heritage, Mosher says, was going to pump at least $1.7 million in capital improvements to the club, but more likely another $4 million to $5 million. But after many of the 491 members of the private club protested, Mosher is offering a deal to the members, according to correspondence obtained by GlobeSt.com.

Mosher is offering to sell it to the members for $9.3 million, a 23% discount to what Heritage agreed to pay, he says. In addition, at closing he will provide $250,000 in working capital, effectively reducing the price to $9 million.

However, there are conditions to the purchase. In exchange, Mosher wants the homeowners to drop any litigation against him. Last year, the group unsuccessfully tried to stop the sale. Mosher wants the same thing from developer Jack Vickers III, founder of Castle Pines, which includes estates worth more than $1 million, in addition to the Castle Pines Golf Course that hosts the PGA International tournament each year.

A letter to members, obtained by GlobeSt.com, from a grassroots group called the Committee For the Preservation of the Country Club calls the idea of asking Vickers to drop the lawsuit "preposterous." The lawsuit stems from a former business arrangement where Vickers and Mosher were going to buy the land and club from Fidelity Castle Pines Ltd., Castle Pines Fidelity Associates Limited Partnership, and St. Paul Properties. Fidelity, an affiliate of St. Paul, was Vickers' lender during the real estate crisis of the late 1980s, and obtained the land from him when he couldn't meet his loan payments. The lawsuit, obtained by GlobeSt.com, among other things, alleges that Mosher provided Vickers with a phony agreement that "fabricated a portion of a purchase and sales agreement with Fidelity that purported to prohibit Vickers from purchasing or developing any interest in the Fidelity property. Mosher then used the phony agreement to carve Vickers out of the transaction and to keep the Fidelity for Mosher's own benefits. In so doing, Mosher both defrauded Vickers and breached his fiduciary duty to Vickers."

Mosher, for his part, says Vickers' suit is unfortunate and saddens him, but doesn't want to comment on it. Mosher also wants members to assign a lawsuit they have against Fidelity to him, alleging Fidelity "looted" the club over the past decade. But a lawyer for the group, who also is a club member, says that judgment could be worth about $10 million, so they don't plan to turn it over to Mosher.

And although Mosher says he is losing millions of dollars by selling the club at a discount, members may think he is asking too much. A poll of the members by the Committee For the Preservation of the Country Club at Castle Pines, however, shows that 84% would be wiling to buy the club for $8 million. Indeed, the committee says that even the $8 million is an "economic stretch."