LAKE WALES ― Rhonda Stewart Carl was scheduled to fly back to St. Louis in late April along with her husband, Mark.
But Carl delayed her return because she could not bear to miss a meeting at which the future of Lake Wales Country Club, the site of the couple’s second home, would be discussed.
The owners of the community, centered around a century-old golf course, have proposed a development called Vintage Preserve that would bring nearly 1,100 new homes to a roughly 550-acre tract that includes the adjacent Oakwood Golf Club, which is now closed.
The owners propose converting the two courses into one as part of a proposed master development plan submitted to the city of Lake Wales. The proposal includes having 260 acres of the property, now about a half-mile east of Lake Wales’ boundary, annexed into the city.
A lawyer for the owner did not appear at the May 1 meeting of the Lake Wales Planning and Zoning Board, having asked for a continuance on consideration of the application. That followed a memo from the city’s planning staff recommending denial of the proposal.
But Carl and about 100 other residents of Lake Wales Country Club attended, and the dozen who spoke during the meeting all urged rejection of the proposed development.
“Let me start with just the name,” resident Ron Rogers said. “How could it be more misleading? Vintage Preserve. Vintage. Lake Wales Country Club will be 100 years old this year. It is truly vintage, but it will be dissected, and it appears nearly half of it will be destroyed and covered with new homes and streets.”
Rogers added that the development “will not be a preserve in any sense” for a property that he said is home to a variety of wildlife, including foxes, sandhill cranes and wild turkeys.
The Planning and Zoning Board took a compromise approach at the May 1 meeting, allowing public comments but voting 4-2 to delay action on the proposal until its July 22 meeting. The volunteer board only has the authority to recommend approval or rejection, and the City Commission will determine the project’s fate.
Project would add 2,633 residents
Lake Wales Country Club lies just north of State Road 60, bordered to the east by Capps Road. The property under consideration, including the Oakwood course, extends northwest to State Road 17 (Burns Avenue).
Dave Schmitt, an engineer and authorized agent for the owners, requested approval of a future land use map amendment, a zoning map amendment and a master development plan, contingent upon the annexation of about 260 acres. The entire property is inside Lake Wales’ utility service area, and part is already within the city boundaries. The proposal would leave existing homes in Lake Wales Country Club and Oakwood in unincorporated Polk County.
In 2020, Lake Wales adopted a new future land use designation of mixed use, including an amendment to the city’s land development code that created a planned development mixed use zoning district as an implementation measure of the comprehensive plan, wrote Autumn Cochella, Lake Wales’ growth management consultant.
The proposal would reconfigure the two golf courses into one 18-hole course, “giving special attention to preserving as much of the historic Lake Wales Country Club course layout as possible,” the memo said.
The project would include a mixture of housing types, from lots as narrow as 40 feet wide to 80-foot estate lots, along with condominiums, totaling 992 single-family home lots and 105 townhomes. The plan estimates the population increase at 2,633 people.
Housing would cover 478 acres. The plan includes small commercial centers along SR 60 and SR 17, a new driving range near the entrance at SR 60, a publicly accessible multi-use trail and a nature trail and scrub preserve area.
In recommending against approval, the city staff found that the proposed annexation area “is not reasonably compact in shape, creating potential future challenges for managing municipal services, including Police and Fire response.” The memo said the project does not meet the intent of the mixed-use land use category or the master development plan.
The property owners and development team sought a continuance after receiving the staff report with the recommendation of denial just two days before the planned hearing, said Tim Campbell, the lawyer representing them.
The owners have substantially modified their plan for Vintage Preserve since sharing an initial version with the city and the community, based on feedback and comments, Campbell said by email. The development team chose a land-use designation recommended by Lake Wales’ planning department, he said.
The plan has changed “because of the odd configuration of the existing City of Lake Wales municipal boundary and annexation requirements,” Campbell wrote.
Course has proud history
Lake Wales Country Club once ranked among the state’s most prominent golf courses. It was designed by renowned course architect Donald Ross, according a history on the club’s website — though Carl disputes that, saying the designer was actually Seth Raynor, who also created the Mountain Lake course.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt approved $16,888 through the Works Progress Administration to build a new clubhouse that opened in 1939, the history says. After decades of ownership by stockholding club members, the late citrus magnate Ben Hill Griffin Jr. bought Lake Wales Country Club in 1980.
The LWCC course held major tournaments in its prime. It hosted the Florida Senior Amateur Championship in 2012 and the women’s Symetra Tour’s Florida’s Natural Charity Classic from 2014 to 2016.
After Griffin’s death in 1990, the ownership shifted to a Sarasota-based firm and then to a company called the Country Club of Lake Wales. In 2021, the Florida company FLLWCC bought the property for $700,000, according to Polk County records.
The authorized member for the company listed in state business records is Paru Gandhi of Rockaway, New Jersey. The company formed in June 2021, one month before the purchase.
Soon after FLLWCC bought the property in 2021, it closed the Oakwood Golf Club, residents said.
Campbell told The Ledger that the property included in the proposal is owned by two entities, with FLLWCC managed by Paru Gandhi. Dr. Andrew Hanzlik and his wife, Margaret Hanzlik, listed in property records as Windermere residents, own the remainder, two parcels totaling 222 acres in the northwest and east sections.
Falgun Dharia assists the property owners as a project manager, Campbell said.
Carl and other residents of Lake Wales Country Club described Dharia as the property owner and said he also uses the name Frank Gandhi. He has been the point of contact and has led meetings with residents since the purchase, residents said.
Questioning project manager’s past
Dharia has a blemished history, as the Lake Wales News first reported in 2024. His background includes multiple federal charges, including bank fraud related to arson at a hotel he co-owned. A conspiracy charge was reduced to mail fraud after Dharia successfully argued that he was unaware of the arson plot, but failed to report it and continued to pursue an insurance claim, the Lake Wales News reported.
Some of Dharia’s business ventures have ended in bankruptcies spawning millions in losses, the Lake Wales News reported.
“Mr. Dharia was involved in a legal matter nearly 15 years ago,” Campbell said by email. “He previously had an unblemished record and has been an exemplary, hard-working, law abiding, member of the community over the last 15 years.”
Dharia has been a project manager for other investors who purchase and redevelop golf course communities similar to Lake Wales Country Club and Oakwood Golf Club, Campbell wrote. He used the name Frank Ghandi when first meeting with neighbors about the project “because he wanted everyone to focus on the significant merit of the master planned Vintage Preserve golf course community instead of him.”
At least one resident who spoke at the May 1 Planning and Zoning Board meeting raised Dharia’s history as a reason to block the project.
Some residents cited what they called shabby maintenance of the LWCC golf course and other facilities in urging board members to recommend denial of the application.
Bill Stephenson, a member of a community board of directors, said he had recently met a man who said he played golf regularly with a group of friends. When Stephenson told the man he lived at Lake Wales Country Club, the stranger’s demeanor abruptly changed.
“He developed a sort of an angry attitude,” Stephenson said. “He said that this group had played the Country Club the last week, the week before we met, and that it was the worst course he ever played, which caused me to go out and take some pictures.”
Stephenson displayed photos, saying they showed that the golf course “would not even make a good cow pasture.”
Patrick Henry, who said he owns an adjoining property, concurred, after mentioning the closure of Oakwood in 2021.
“The course they do maintain is terrible,” he said. “Nobody wants to play there. Yet they want to tell these citizens they want to build a new golf course and make it better. It would be hard for these people to believe that.
Shelley Paros said that residents have taken it upon themselves to care for the golf course.
Rhonda Carl said that additional residents wanted to speak at the May 1 meeting, but the board cut off public comments.
Signs of decline at club
Carl, who bought a 2,146-square-foot house with her husband in January 2024, described her first impression of Lake Wales Country Club. Entering from SR 60, she was stunned to see the condition of clubhouse, the first structure past a guard gate.
“We pulled in the parking lot and we said, ‘Holy crap, what have we done?’” Carl said at the board meeting. “There’s abandoned boats in the parking lot. All of the light fixtures are down in the parking lot. There’s weeds taller than I am in the parking lot, no landscaping. The roof of the Country Club is collapsed.”
Worried they had wasted airfare from St. Louis on the visit, the Carls drove down Clubhouse Drive and into the residential section. Despite their initial misgivings, they fell for a house set across from a public swimming pool on the golf course’s 16th green and decided to buy.
On a recent afternoon, Carl led a Ledger reporter and photographer on a tour of Lake Wales Country Club. Eighteen months after her first visit, two boats were stationed in the nearly vacant clubhouse parking lot, one of which she said appears to be abandoned. Some lightpoles lay toppled on the pavement.
Weeds dominated a planter in front of the clubhouse entrance. Tiles had fallen from the roof in several places, creating an opening in one spot.
A pro shop and a snack bar named Grriffin’s — honoring the former owner — were still operating. Only nine vehicles were parked in the lot, and no golfers were seen on the course near the clubhouse.
The course seemed in degraded condition. Some greens contained large spots of brown, dead grass, and larger patches appeared on fairways.
Lake Wales County Club holds the only clay tennis courts in the area, and those also showed signs of wear. One of the speakers at the Planning and Zoning Board meeting, whose name could not be discerned, said he personally maintains the courts, dispensing clay and raking the surface.
On a walkway beside the tennis courts, the yellow deck bore the initials “BHG,” for Ben Hill Griffin. The adjacent offices appeared to be abandoned. Rusted light fixtures and fan mechanisms with no blades hung from the metal supports for a missing fabric roof over what was once a covered seating area.
The residential areas, though, showed no indications of decline. Homeowner groups are responsible for maintaining the common areas, including swimming pools, Carl said.
Campbell said that the property owners are spending considerable money to maintain and improve Lake Wales Country Club and the golf course. That includes spending “significant sums” to repave and improve the parking lot, hire aquatic management consultants, buy new golf carts and invest in other maintenance equipment.
The recent drought created challenges because the golf course operation does not generate much revenue to support those efforts, Campbell said.
“That is why the property owners are trying to develop a master planned community to create additional revenue and members to support the golf course operation so that it can be an asset to the existing residents and those who buy homes in Vintage Preserve,” Campbell wrote.
Resident hopes clubs endures
At the May 1 meeting, Planning and Zoning Board member Bud Colburn seemed to anticipate the hostility toward the project during a discussion before the public comments, noting that no one was present to represent the owners after the requested continuance, which he voted against.
“I understand why they didn’t send a representative today,” Colburn said. “They couldn’t find or buy a suit of armor fast enough.”
The quip prompted laughter from the audience.
Residents grew serious as they raised additional objections to the proposed master planned development.
“This proposal to develop Lake Wales Country Club and Oakwood is made by people who don’t live here,” said Ian Williamson, a past president of a neighborhood association. “Their sole purpose is to exploit the opportunity for the land that some of them own.”
Williamson and others raised fears of both environmental losses and traffic problems.
Henry said that 63 homeowners would lose golf course views, an asset for which they already paid when buying their homes. He also questioned the city’s capacity to supply water for the planned homes.
Lori Love said that her mother, the late Theresa Huston, lived at Lake Wales Country Club for nearly 30 years. Love recalled attending wedding receptions, birthday parties, class reunions and other events at the clubhouse.
“I understand change is inevitable, but the reason I speak this evening — I think about the past and what Lake Wales Country Club has meant to our community,” Love said told the board. “My hope is that Lake Wales Country Club will not just be remembered but will endure, and will endure for many generations.”
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
