Two historic Moore County hotels are entering a joint venture with a real estate investment firm that owns college and resort hotels.
Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club, which opened in 1921, and Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club, which followed in 1928, are being sold to Marine & Lawn Hotels & Resorts. Both facilities will undergo significant renovation starting in the fall, said Kelly Miller, president and CEO of the local company that has owned the resorts for decades.
Miller’s company, Ross Resorts, will become the largest partner in the venture. It will retain ownership of the adjacent Donald Ross-designed golf courses, both of which are in Southern Pines.
“This is an exciting initiative for our resorts,” says Miller. He’s the leader of the company that owns the resorts and their two Donald Ross-designed golf courses, as well as Southern Pines Golf Club. “We’ve needed for some time to upgrade our lodging facilities as well as our food and beverage operations, and Marine & Lawn is the ideal partner for us.”
Marine & Lawn is a division of Nashville-based AJ Capital Partners, which was founded in 2008 by Ben Weprin and manages $5.4 billion in real estate investments in the U.S. and U.K.
Terms weren’t disclosed.
Marine & Lawn operates six hotels and resorts set alongside several premier courses, including Rusacks at St Andrews; Marine North Berwick, Marine Troon and Dornoch Station in Scotland; Slieve Donard near Royal County Down and Portrush Adelphi in Northern Ireland.
This will be the company’s first venture in the United States, but its parent company, AJ Capital, owns hotels in college towns, including the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill.
Warren Bell and his wife Peggy Kirk Bell, one of the first members of the LPGA Tour, began operating Pine Needles in 1953 and bought it in 1959. It has remained in the family ever since. The Bells took on partners in 1994 to purchase Mid Pines. Today, the enterprise is owned and operated by the Miller, McGowan and Tharani families. They will retain total ownership of the golf courses.
“This is a very exciting chapter for us,” says Haresh Tharani, who has been a partner with the Bell family at Mid Pines since December 2017. “We intend to elevate the guest experience while preserving the rich history and traditions of Mid Pines and Pine Needles. We believe this is in the best interest of our membership and guests as well as our outstanding staff.”
Miller says the companies began discussions of a joint venture in 2022. He has visited a number of Marine & Lawn’s properties and developed a close relationship with the company.
“One of the reasons that we selected them is I was so impressed by the culture at each one of their properties,” Miller says. “I knew they had to be a great company and they had to have great leaders in order to have the culture that they had at each facility.”
Miller notes that Mid Pines and Pines Needles have some employees with four decades of longevity with the company.
“We’ve got a great group of associates here,” he says. “And everybody will be given an opportunity to stay with us long-term, and hopefully they will.”
The family has had numerous conversations with potential partners over many years. It had three criteria for a potential new venture:
“One, make sure that we respect and honor what Mr. and Mrs. Bell started here in 1953 and continue the history and tradition of the properties.
“Two, we wanted to reposition these resorts for the next 100 years. We think we’ve done a pretty good job with the golf courses and bringing them up to much higher standards. Now, it’s time to do that on the hospitality side.
“And three, we wanted to keep the families involved. Both Mid Pines and Pine Needles have been strong family operations for many decades, and we want the younger generation to have an opportunity to stay involved if they’d like.”
Wolfspeed said it is filing a bankruptcy restructuring deal by July 1 that will reduce the company’s overall debt by $4.6 billion, or 70%, and reduce annual cash interest payments by approximately 60%.
In May, the Durham-based company said it may not be able to continue as a going concern, citing shifting U.S. trade policies and lower demand for its chip.
Wolfspeed said that it reached a restructuring agreement with creditors and the U.S. subsidiary of Tokyo-based Renesas Electronics. The deal includes $275 million in new financing supported by existing creditors.
The company wants approval on the pre-packaged plan so it can emerge from bankruptcy by Sept. 30.
“After evaluating potential options to strengthen our balance sheet and right-size our capital structure, we have decided to take this strategic step because we believe it will put Wolfspeed in the best position possible for the future,” CEO Robert Feurle said in a release.
Wolfspeed is nearing completion of a nearly $5 billion factory in Chatham County, marking one of the largest capital investments in North Carolina history. It is being supported by major state and local incentives, tied to the company hiring about 1,800 employees.
The company has tried to make a transition to manufacturing high-powered silicone carbide chips, which improve the efficiency of machines and other devices. But federal support promised during the Biden Administration is threatened by the Trump Administration’s efforts to reduce spending and corporate subsidies.
Pending approval of the plan, Wolfspeed says it will have sufficient near-term liquidity to support customers and pay vendors, the company said.
Shares of the company were down more than 10% in early trading. The company’s stock has lost virtually its entire value in the past year. Existing equity will be canceled during the proposed restructuring.