Dye Design Firm Seeks Purchase of Cypress Club

Golf course designer Pete Dye is attempting to purchase Cypress Country Club, formerly Los Alamitos Golf Course, and turn it into a championship golf resort that would be open to the public.

Dye Designs of Denver, Colo., has entered escrow to purchase the 96-acre course and an additional 21 acres from the owners of Los Alamitos Race Track, adjacent to the course. Sources said the purchase price is about $33 million. A spokesman for Dye Designs said he hopes escrow will close at the end of August.

“Our game plan at this point, while preliminary, would be to remodel the golf course into a championship style course, make it into a great golf course, and attach a hotel to it,” said Charles Tourtellotte, president of Dye Equity.

The 18-hole, par-66 course was closed several years ago by Hollywood Park Realty. In September of 1989, a group headed by Lloyd Arnold purchased the Los Alamitos Race Track, the golf course and adjacent land from Hollywood Park Realty for $71 million.

Since then, Arnold has spent about $2 million in renovations. But should Dye Designs purchase it, the entire course will be rebuilt.

“We won’t use any of the existing (facilities),” Tourtellotte said. “It will totally be redone.” Tourtellotte estimates that $5 million will be spent to rebuild the course, exclusive of the clubhouse.

It would be the third golf course in California owned by Dye Designs, which is in the process of building Fresno Ball Ranch and the Old Coach in Poway. But Dye, who has designed numerous courses around the world, is perhaps best known for the PGA West Stadium Course at La Quinta--a difficult course dotted with pot bunkers, boulders, railroad ties, rolling terrain and lakes.

The 21 acres adjacent to the course would be used for a hotel.

“It’s zoned for hotel and office,” Tourtellotte said. “We’re going to try and get a hotel up there as quickly as we can. We’re talking to some operators right now.”

Los Alamitos Golf Course and the use of the adjacent land long has been the subject of controversy in Cypress.

In April, Cypress voters approved an initiative allowing Arnold to convert 75 acres of land surrounding the track into a business complex. Arnold promised voters that the course, which also provides a greenbelt for some Cypress residents, would stay open for at least 10 years.