WAYNESBORO, Va. (WVIR) -
The Waynesboro Country Club is getting a new owner.
A dump truck company owner was the highest bidder in a courthouse auction of the foreclosed clubhouse, pool, and golf course. The new owner is an impulse buyer who's never played golf in his life.
It only took two minutes, for six potential bidders in front of a crowd of close to 100 people to reach the winning number. For $891,000 Bradley's Trucking owner Kenneth Bradley becomes the owner of the Waynesboro Country Club.
He buys the property basically sight unseen.
"I rode by it this morning, matter of fact me and a friend rode by this morning,” said Bradley.
Tax records value the clubhouse, pool, surrounding properties, and 18-hole golf course at more than $3.5 million.
“I thought it was a deal. When you walk in Weasie's Kitchen and you see a special there for $5.99, you know it's a deal,” said Bradley.
The country club went into foreclosure, owing more than $815,000.
“It just came to the point where we owed so many people, so many good people, that the first mortgage people foreclosed,” said Peggy King, WCC board president.
Membership dwindled over the decades, from more than 400 members in the seventies, to 140 today.
“When we first moved here in '73, we had to wait a whole year to get in because it was filled up,” said Mary May Browne, a WCC lifetime member. “I don't think it'll ever be able to come back the way it used to be.”
Lifetime member Kenneth Browne hope the new owner keeps the club alive.
"It'll be sad if it doesn't. It'll be said. It'll be a loss for the community if the Waynesboro Country Club folds up," said Browne.
The country club will stay open for at least 30 days until the sale closes. The new owner says he's lived in Waynesboro all his life and just "felt lucky" Wednesday morning, he says the future of the property is up in the air.