Plans for Deluxe Resort at Glen Cannon "On Ice."

The corporation behind the proposed 200--unit project did not respond to requests for updates, but building costs are likely a factor. So is, the landowner said, a dispute with nearby homeowners.

View of the land where Sun Communities Inc. planned to build a high-end resort from the grounds of the adjacent Skyterra Wellness Retreat.

PISGAH FOREST — Josh Leder looked out over the grassy slopes of the former Glen Cannon Golf Course and then at his phone, scrolling through images of the gleaming restaurant and community center that were to be built on it.

“I was super-close to getting something glorious,” Leder, the owner of the property off Wilson Road, said of the $75 million resort planned for the site.

“This would have been a superstar on the East Coast.”

“Was”? “Would have been”?

That’s right, Leder said on a recent tour of his property. Though the project isn’t dead, he said, “it is in the past tense right now. It’s on ice.”

Plans for the 200-unit resort were announced last year by publicly traded Sun Communities Inc., which builds and operates mobile home communities, RV parks and marinas across the country and in Europe.

Reportedly because of concerns about a large investment in a British company, Sun’s stock prices fell sharply last year and remain well below peak levels.

Sun is also facing the same economic conditions that long delayed the recently revived City Camper hotel in downtown Brevard, said Burton Hodges, executive director of the Transylvania Economic Alliance.

Though he hasn’t had any recent conversations with Sun officials about the resort, he said, “cost of construction, cost of labor and difficulty in borrowing money are impacting activity across industry sectors,” Hodges said, adding that “geopolitical uncertainty” and the prospect of local and national elections may also be factors.

Leder named another one: His dispute with two Glen Cannon homeowners over a .3 acre parcel that Leder says is part of his property. Because the land lies in the path of one of the development’s main roads, he said, it is crucial to the completion of the project.

Not likely, said Mack McKeller, the lawyer representing the homeowners in a suit over the issue that one of Leder’s companies, Le Parc LLC, filed in March.

“It’s a miniscule sliver of property that shouldn’t have any impact at all,” he said.

The Plans

Interior of the restaurant at the resort planned by Sun Communities Inc. on the site of the old Glen Cannon Golf Course. (Image Provided)

When the Sun project was announced in February 2023 it was praised for its future contributions to the county’s property tax base and its promised creation of 128 jobs paying about $3,300 more than the county’s then-average annual salary of $42,179.

Partly on the strength of these job numbers, the Transylvania County Commission agreed to provide $2.3 million worth of potential property tax rebates for the project.

Though this deal was criticized for supporting mostly service-sector employment, Hodges emphasized last week that Sun will receive none of the rebates until it provides “very specific” proof of investment and job creation.

Overall, Transylvania County Commission Chair Jason Chappell said of the resort after commissioners approved the package last year, “this is extremely significant for our community.”

And that was before the company completed its plans for the project, which would cover about 90 acres of the 150-acre former golf course Leder bought for $850,000 in 2014.

These drawings, which Leder shared with NewsBeat, show a block of “standard” RV sites close to the resort’s entrance on Wilson Road, “premium sites” farther up the north-facing slope, as well both conventional cabins and “tree houses” built on raised platforms in the wooded areas of the property.

The community center and restaurant, the plans show, would feature sleek design, high-end materials and large windows providing views of distant mountains. If built, Leder said, the resort will be “beyond, really, my dreams.”

The plans also show an on-site wastewater treatment plant, meaning the property will not need to be annexed into Brevard to access utilities, a previously discussed possibility.

The Suit

So what’s the holdup?

The Sun executive who announced the project last year didn’t respond to repeated requests for an interview. But last week, when City Camper’s Alan O’Neal described how the hotel’s new affiliation with the Hilton Hotels and Resorts chain could attract investment needed to proceed with the project, he also provided insights into the challenges of building in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

When revising the hotel’s plans to reduce expenses, he said, “we would cut square footage out of the building, rebid it, and it would come back higher,” he said. “Costs were going nuts.”

These prices have recently “stabilized,” he said, and Hodges added that Brevard Station, an upscale lodge-and-cabin destination planned for 16 acres on Lambs Creek Road east of downtown Brevard, is also moving forward.

Without Sun’s input it’s hard to know the precise impact of market conditions on its plans — or the role that the dispute with landowners has played in the delay.

Leder said “it certainly isn’t the only factor,” but though the size of the disputed parcel makes it appear insignificant “it became significant” because of its position in the path of the road.

He also said that, though the suit was filed in Le Parc’s name because it is the property owner, Sun initiated the action and is conferring with lawyers about its direction.

“They are doing it,” he said of Sun. “I don’t even get on the calls.”

The company is motivated by a desire to protect its investment in the property, he said. That includes the cost of tree planting as well as drawing up the plan that incorporates the small parcel claimed by homeowners Fulmer “Chip” Freeman and David Watkins, president and CEO of KEIR Manufacturing Inc.

The roots of the disagreement date back to 1965, when Glen Cannon Country Club Inc. bought the land to build the course, the suit said. The original deed mistakenly excluded the .3 acres, says the complaint, which calls it the “Omitted Parcel.”

The County Club transferred the small tract to Watkins and Freeman by means of a non-warranty, or quitclaim, deed in February of 2022, years after it had been dissolved by the state, the suit says; on the same day Watkins and Freeman deeded it to themselves, the suit says, though they “knew or had reason to know that they had no valid right, claim or interest in . . . the Omitted Parcel.”

“They are consumed with this to the point where they would abandon their ethics and quitclaim . . . this thing for themselves,” Leder said.

It is also inappropriate for McKeller to represent the homeowners, he said, because his position as the city of Brevard’s attorney sends a message of official opposition. McKeller said he is a private attorney for whom the city is just one client and, besides, the disputed land is not in Brevard.

Overall, Leder called the lawsuit “petty” and “stupid,” adding it “will cost more in litigation than the property is worth.”

The counterclaim also suggests pettiness on Leder’s part, saying he walks his dogs on the disputed parcel, “encouraging them to urinate and defecate.”

As for the central point of the suit, McKeller said, there is no proof the land was ever intended to be part of the golf course.

“This parcel had nothing to do with what (Leder) acquired,” Watkins said. Leder countered by providing an email from Watkins’ previous lawyer, in which the lawyer acknowledged an error in the original survey.

But even if the land was meant to be part of the larger property, McKeller said, the record should have been updated when Leder bought the land or when a supposedly “corrected” copy of the deed was filed in 2018.

And because the suit was filed in 2024, the three-year statute of limitations on its claims has long since expired, the counterclaims states. Quitclaim deeds are typically used for transfers of parcels when money does not change hands and in this case, McKeller said, they were “a way to clear up the title.”

“For whatever reason,” McKeller said of Leder, “he’s arguing about this three-tenths of an acre that is basically my clients’ back yard.”

Leder said he is not marketing the property for any other use because he still hopes Sun will build the high-end resort, which he sees as compatible with the upscale Skyterra Wellness Retreat that occupies another portion of the old golf course.

But he also pointed out that Sun, which agreed to lease the property, maintains a large inventory of mobile home communities.

“I’ve been trying the best I can to get a high-end resort here,” he said, but “maybe this will just be mobile homes.”

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