Orono’s iconic Penobscot Valley Country Club has a new owner after a search that lasted a year and a half.
Course owner Penobscot Valley LLC and Resurrection Golf LLC, the course’s operator, had been looking for a new owner since 2020.
Last week, a local real estate investor purchased the property and its assets, but Resurrection Golf will stay on as operator, said Sean McCarthy, the course’s operations director.
The new owner’s identity and the sale price will not be released at this time, McCarthy said.
Robert Baldacci, an associate broker with F.O. Bailey Real Estate, the firm that represented the buyer, confirmed the sale but did not release the buyer’s name.
The new owner is a “respected local Bangor business owner,” he said.
Under the deal, proceeds from the sale went toward paying off debt on the property, and Resurrection had to enter into a lease agreement to run the facility, McCarthy said.
“The new financial arrangement allowed us to get rid of a significant amount of holdover debt we had, which opens us up to be able to change the course a little bit and continue our capital improvements on the course,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy and his team are focused on improvements to the course’s turf and bunkers, and expect to agree on other improvements as Resurrection’s partnership with the new owner develops, he said.
“Both parties are interested in the property, being an important one in the Orono area,” he said. “We’re both of the same mindset that we want to make sure that we can continue to have that gem up there in Orono.”
The course was designed by famed golf course architect Donald Ross in 1924 and has been a golfing destination in the area ever since.
Penobscot Valley LLC acquired the golf course from Harris Golf Inc. in 2017. Harris Golf had not paid its property taxes to the town of Orono since 2015.
Harris Golf Inc. purchased the property for $3 million in 2007.