When it comes to sportsmen, the word “development” may be 11 letters long, but it’s a 4-letter word that brings up some ugly memories.
Like the dove field of your youth that’s been paved over and is now a strip mall. Or the little creek where you used to turn over rocks to find crawdads for your weekly fishing excursions — it’s now in a culvert. Or the nice oak flat and 8-acre pond that made deer and duck season such a delight — the one that will soon house a hospital and doctor’s offices.
So you can’t blame the camo-clad, crankbait-casting crowd when another development comes along and they collectively cringe. The thought of one that caters to them is too much to believe. Winning the lottery might be easier to swallow.
“The Territories” might be a mouthful, but it goes down a lot easier than a spoonful of castor oil. Spread over 2,200 acres along the Saluda River near Ninety Six, it contains 69 homesites, fishing and waterfowl ponds, guest cabins, a sporting clays range, a hunting preserve, two boat ramps and 1,100 acres full of deer, turkeys, quail and rabbits. Included are 140 acres of food plots to make sure the wildlife continue to be welcome guests, plus an on-site biologist.
The brainchild of Lynn Johnson, a businessman who splits time between homes in Lake Wylie and Beaufort, The Territories is billed as a “Saluda River Preserve.” It’s a little different than the developments and country club that Johnson’s Grand Harbor Group has built around nearby Lake Greenwood. Different as a spike buck and a 12-pointer.
Johnson’s models were a couple of other developments that appealed to sportsmen, including Bray’s Island Plantation in the Lowcountry. But a Midlands site appealed to him, halfway between his two stomping grounds. A chance stop on an area highway got things going.
“We had driven by the International Paper office when we were working on the other developments (at Greenwood), and we always said we wanted to stop by and see if they had any land for sale,” said Johnson. “We finally stopped and went in there, and they were just starting to divest themselves of their property.”
In quick order, Johnson had seven miles of frontage on the Saluda, 1,100 acres on each side, starting a few hundred yards downstream from the Rt. 34 bridge below the Greenwood Dam tailrace. The land on the east side will stay undeveloped, except for a lodge and a few guest cabins. The land on the west side is cut into lots of between three and five acres. They sell for a pretty penny — six figures barely gets you in the ballpark — but the purchase is like the permanent seat licenses professional sports franchises have sold to finance stadium construction. You get permanent access to the 1,100 acres of hunting property, use of the cabins, a membership in Grand Harbor’s nearby country club, plus a pretty hefty tax write-off because the property is in a conservation trust.
Johnson said he expects fewer than half of the families who buy lots to ever build on them; many sportsmen are primarily after the aspects that more resemble a permanent hunting lease. A portion of each lot sale goes to an endowment that will manage the property for years to come.
“We call this a ‘legacy property,’” said Johnson’s son, Quinn, who works for Grand Harbor. “It’s not just thinking about now, but the future.”
Neat. A development where hunting is the future, not part of the past.
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