King's Challenge Golf Course in Cleveland Township will be the subject of a foreclosure sale at the Leelanau County courthouse in Leland on Friday, Aug. 3, at 11 a.m.

Manager of the course, golf pro Chuck Olson, emphasized that although ownership may be changing, the golf course remains open for business and golfers will see no difference in how the course is operated this summer.
Meanwhile, the business partners who stand to lose the golf course may take Sugar Loaf Resort owner Kate Wickstrom to court over whether they have the right to file a lien against the resort for non-payment of a bill they claim is owed for sewer service at the resort.

Florida real estate developer Brian Sculthorp and his partner Ed Fleis of Leelanau County are the principal owners of the King’s Challenge Golf Course, L.L.C. as well as Sugar Loaf Development, L.L.C. – a company set up to help develop other properties they own in the Sugar Loaf area.

The partners are also principal owners of the Sugar Loaf Service Company, which provides sewer service to Sugar Loaf Resort and more than 90 other neighboring properties in Cleveland and Centerville townships.

Shortly after Wickstrom purchased Sugar Loaf Resort in 2005, Sculthorp and Fleis purchased the service company, the golf course and other properties in the area in hopes of working with Wickstrom to revive the long-depressed area with the return of skiing and other winter sports.

Sugar Loaf Resort has been closed for skiing since 2000.

Sculthorp and Fleis purchased the King’s Challenge Golf Course from Sugar Loaf Ridge Development, a limited partnership headed by Birmingham attorney John Sills. Sills and his partners also previously owned Sugar Loaf Resort and the Sugar Loaf Service Company before the properties were split and sold to Pacific XIX, a corporation headed by Remo Polselli of downstate Oakland County.

When Polselli was convicted of federal tax evasion charges in connection with another of his downstate properties and subsequently served time in a federal prison, he sold Sugar Loaf Resort to a Florida-based company, S.L. 2002, which was headed by his ex-wife. S.L. 2002 then sold Sugar Loaf Resort to Wickstrom in 2005 and holds the mortgage on the property.

Since Wickstrom acquired the property, some routine maintenance has been conducted at the resort – but no significant redevelopment despite Wickstrom’s repeated promises.

Contacted this week by a newspaper reporter, Wickstrom would only say “We’re working on things,” before referring a reporter to her attorney.
On May 29, Judge Philip E. Rodgers Jr. ordered that an auction of the Kings Challenge Golf Course be held Aug. 3. Any sale effected on that date will be subject to a six-month redemption period during which the companies formed by Sculthorp and Fleis would have the opportunity to pay off their $1.6 million debt with interest before ownership of the golf course changes hands.

Meanwhile, Sculthorp and Fleis’ other company, Sugar Loaf Service Company, on June 14 released a lien it filed on March 22 against Sugar Loaf Resort for non-payment of a $100,000-plus bill that Sugar Loaf Service Company says it is owed for providing service to Sugar Loaf Resort.

In May, Wickstrom filed suit against Sugar Loaf Service Company for “slander of title” related to her ownership of Sugar Loaf Resort.

Sugar Loaf Service Company subsequently released the lien against Sugar Loaf Resort “in order that Sugar Loaf Service Company may seek a judicial determination regarding its lien rights.”