Opened to great fanfare in late 2006, Mountian Run was the brainchild of Tommy Pollard, a local business owner turned developer, who had developed The Hollows, roughly 15 years prior.
MR was to be a 99 homesite rural preservation subdivision located along Route 33 and the South Anna River in the NW Ashland/Montpellier/Glen Allen area of Hanover. The preservation lot was to be home to a 27 hole Arnold Palmer Signature golf course, called The Federal Club, and built by one of the finest golf course construction crews in the world.
Parts of this plan came together.
Before the market crashed in 2008, roughly 50 of the 99 homes were built and 18 of the 27 holes were built. The clubhouse that was to be the centerpiece of the course was not built as the development team, relying on lot sales that were no longer coming, effectively went bankrupt. The club and the remaining lots were purchased by a local Hanover family, the Gilmans, who have been operating the club since early 2011. While the bank (Bank of Essex) was owed close to $10M on the original development loan, the club and remaining lots were purchased for close to $3M.
While lot sales have remained slow, the club itself is moving towards clubhouse construction and a fully private membership structure (September 2012).
There was a pretty high number of short sales and foreclosures in Mountain Run due to the luxury pricing, poor timing, uncertain financial backing of the original developers and incomplete clubhouse facility. The distressed inventory has largely worked its way through the system and the current ownership and management is far healthier with a fraction of the debt that hamstrung the original owners.
