Hershey school's purchase of golf course helped investors

Launched around 2000, the Wren Dale Golf Club filed paperwork in Harrisburg incorporating as a nonprofit organization in August 2001 and bought three parcels of land for $1.7 million in May 2002 for the course, according to real estate records.

Doctors, business owners and executives formed its core membership. To join, one had to pay $25,000. Hoping for 300 members, Wren Dale opened in August 2003 with only about 50.

"We all went out on a limb," said one member, William Hicks. "We wanted a golf-only equity club that didn't exist in central Pennsylvania. So we stretched to get it done."

In March and April 2005, Wren Dale converted to a for-profit company. That August, the Hershey Trust agreed to a deal.

Larry Hirsh, a Wren Dale member and a professional golf-course appraiser, said that "as a partner in Wren Dale, the sale price was a pleasant surprise."

The Hershey School's first phase of its expansion consisted of 32 family-style student homes near the golf course.

Sixteen of those homes, with a capacity of about 190 students, were built and are now open. The school, with an enrollment of about 1,800 to 1,900, halted construction of homes near the golf course in the last year because of the bad economy, but has said it will resume.

The elite par-72 course is open to the public and costs $85 for 18 holes for residents of 13 counties in central Pennsylvania, and $120 for Philadelphia-area residents and others. As the renamed Hershey Links, it's included on the website of the Hershey Golf Collection. Students don't play there.

INSIDE

Map of Hershey golf and other properties, A6.

Contact staff writer Bob Fernandez at 215-854-5898 or bob.fernandez@phillynews.com.