Crest Hills Country Club

Detailed description of Crest Hills Country Club

Crest Hills Country Club, is a Private, 18 hole golf course located in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The course opened for play in 1967. The course was designed by Bob Simmons.

The course has a number of trees that can alter your shots and water hazards come into play at least three times.  The greens are fast, and the fairways are narrow.  Caddies are mandatory if you choose to walk the course

The course closed in December 2003.

Crest Hills peaked in 1985 with 420 members and remained exclusively Jewish until about 1999. In April 2002, Crest Hills merged with the nearby Losantiville Country Club to form one entity: "The Ridge Club." The two establishments had merged their boards of directors and membership groups, initially providing two clubhouses and two courses. In December of 2003, the Ridge Club closed the former Crest Hills 18-hole course to focus on the former Losantiville property. They had plans to sell the Crest Hills property to residential developers. Their only problem......the property was zoned as a park.

The Ridge Club asked the village for a zoning change: remove the park classification and designate the area as residential. This way they could sell the land (prime, mostly flat land in an upscale area) to a home developer for a nice price. The city's politicians and residents seemed to be divided: take in new tax revenue from more residents or keep the zoning in hopes of keeping the green space? In the end, the zoning change was denied.
Big money was involved. The Ridge Club didn't take things lightly. The lack of a zoning change had forced them to back out on a $7.6 million deal with developer Hal Homes. They filed a lawsuit, unhappy with the village's refusal to change. The Village council fired back with a list of citations and code violations that needed to be fixed on the property.  

In the meantime, Jerry Carrol stepped forward and tried to buy the property from The Ridge Club. Jerry was a former owner of Turfway Park, the horse racing track, and owner of Kentucky Speedway, the automobile racing track. His purchase offer and mayor endorsed mixed-use plan eventually fell through. The lawsuit continued. Crest Hills stayed closed. Losantiville continued on as "The Ridge Club."