Hidden Lakes Will Take Upscale Path Developer Unveils Scale Model Of Home Sites, Golf Course Plans

The moose that live around Hidden Lakes Golf Course soon will have more neighbors.

The 15-year-old golf course is in the midst of an expansion that will bring more summer homes and visitors to the Pack River flats.

The resort owners unveiled their scale model of the development and golf course improvements Friday. They expect to sell 70 new home sites by Aug. 12.

Co-owner Dick Villelli boasts that the course is already among the top 10 in Idaho; “Our goal is to be No. 1 in the next couple of years.”

To that end, the resort has created four new challenging holes that wind among trees and oxbow lakes, has broken ground on a 15,000-square-foot log and native rock clubhouse, and is pampering its guests by polishing their golf clubs and offering drinks out on the fairway.

Work also is under way on turn lanes from U.S. Highway 200 to the golf course’s new entrance.

Next summer, the cramped manufactured-home clubhouse will be gone and four of the original fairways could be sprouting new homes, while golfers play on the newer, better replacement holes.

Eventually, the developers hope to get approval for a lodge hidden in the trees near the new clubhouse.

On Friday, Villelli stood near the tee for the new 18th hole, which crosses two waterways and winds up on the banks of the Pack River, near the new clubhouse.

“It’s going to be one of the finest finishing holes in the country, period,” he said.

Villelli and his partners, who include his brother Tom and Coeur d’Alene architect Mike Patano, are spending “millions” to turn Hidden Lakes into a top-notch golfing and housing development, Villelli said. He wouldn’t give specific figures, except that the clubhouse alone will cost $1.6 million to build.

Lots are selling from $110,000 to $185,000, which includes a boat slip at Villelli’s Idaho Country Resorts marina at Trestle Creek. A boat will shuttle homeowners between the marina and the golf course.

The planned unit development for the 244-acre golf course met with relatively little opposition in 1997, considering the property is laced with wetlands, floods regularly and provides habitat for a number of animals.

Agencies expressed concern, however, and an Idaho Department of Lands letter declared that “it would be irresponsible to approve the proposed development.”

The resort has had many bureaucratic hurdles to jump, but Villelli said he has no problem with the requirements.

“We don’t believe we have compromised what Mother Nature gave us,” Villelli said.

Moose are part and parcel of Hidden Lakes, from the embroidery on the staff polo shirts to the divots in the manicured putting greens.

The golf course has eight resident moose. Two weeks ago, one gave birth to two calves in the middle of a fairway.

While the Department of Fish and Game expressed concern during the planning phase, the resort has agreed to nearly every condition suggested by the agency - such as maintaining a 70 percent canopy in forested areas, leaving vegetation buffers between the development and waterways, and disallowing boat docks.

By damming up one outlet from an oxbow lake to the river, the golf course has created 16-1/2 acres of year-round wetland where before there were mudflats in winter, Villelli said.

“Now that’ll be full-time habitat,” he said.

The golf course has tested the river water for years to be sure that maintenance practices don’t harm water quality. The resort uses low-impact herbicides and pesticides. The Idaho DEQ confirmed that the water quality tests have shown no measurable impact to the Pack River.

The developers also agreed to move home sites out of the floodway. Now those low-lying areas will contain the driving range and golf course.

Keith Williams, a retired building contractor from Florida, toured the course and home sites Friday with Villelli. Compared with other golf courses he’s been to, Hidden Lakes was looking pretty affordable, he said.

“We’re into boating and golfing and mountains,” Williams said. “I’m going to get a lot today.”