A lawsuit claims Jack Nicklaus improperly fired members of a property association board and saddled residents of his Jupiter golf community with extra maintenance costs.
 

The year is new, the weather is warm, and the greens are pristine over at the Bear’s Club, a Jupiter golf course community built by golf great Jack Nicklaus. But for some residents of this luxury enclave, life is not good. Some are angry at the way Nicklaus is running the community, which is home to numerous professional athletes including NBA great Michael Jordan and pro golfer Michelle Wie. Through the years, more of the cost of maintaining the community has shifted to the homeowners from the golf club, with no say from the homeowners, according to a lawsuit filed last month by a Bear’s Club resident.

The final straw was a decision on Nov. 2 by Nicklaus to fire homeowner Gary L. Sellers as association board president and install his own people on the board, “as retaliation” for disagreements about the way the association was being run, the lawsuit said.

The dispute could seem like any other homeowners association battle, except this one features very wealthy residents against a developer who has won the most majors of any golfer — and who regularly hits the links with President Donald Trump when he is town.

The Bear’s Club community, east of Interstate 95 just north of Donald Ross Road, was created in 1999. It features an 18-hole golf course and a 40,000-square-foot clubhouse. The 400-acre community consist of about 80 homes, villas and cottages, with average home values in the millions of dollars, according to the lawsuit.

In a letter Jack Nicklaus sent to residents on Nov. 6, he defended his decision to fire the old board and appoint a new one. Nicklaus said he wanted the Bear’s Club to avoid the disputes that afflict other residential communities, and that’s why the the property association gave the club majority voting power, to resolve disputes and “refuse coercion.”

The golf club is not owned by the residents or the property association, Nicklaus wrote. Instead, it is owned by 35 founding partners. As such, Nicklaus wrote that the Bear’s Club is not a typical residential golf community but a golf club where a small number of properties “bask in the glory of adjacency to a spectacular golf facility.”

Nicklaus’ imperious tone upset many residents, said Boca Raton lawyer Spencer Sax, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Bear’s Club homeowner David Nissen and other residents.

Nicklaus’ letter “sets Nicklaus up as the king and residents should be lucky they are his minions,” Sax said. “But it’s not OK for Jack to eliminate the old board and install people who are affiliated with him, or who work for him.”

The five-person board now features Nicklaus’ son, Gary, as well as Bear’s Club general manager Bob Weselman, who was named president of the association even though he doesn’t live there. In fact, according to the complaint, of the five people on the board, only Gary Nicklaus lives in the community, and he’s been trying to sell his home for years.

In his letter, Nicklaus wrote that membership in the club “is not a right but a privilege” by people who must respect “the need to abide by rules of conduct.”

Sax said residents fear if they challenge Nicklaus further on their own, they will be banned from the club. That is why they are seeking help from the cour

On Dec. 27, Nissen sued the Bear’s Club Property Owners’ Association, GBR Properties Ltd., Golden Bear Properties Ltd., The Bear’s Club Founding Partners Ltd. and other related entities in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.

The lawsuit was filed by Nissen individually and on behalf of the homeowners as a member’s derivative lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks to force the Bear’s Club homeowners association to turn control of the association over to the homeowners, as required by Florida law; and to recoup assessments improperly paid by the homeowners for the care of the community, a figure described as millions of dollars in the complaint.

The lawsuit also seeks the appointment of a receiver for the association to protect the interests of the homeowners, pending a court determination on the lawsuit.

Nicklaus could not be reached for comment, and an email to a spokesman said the office was closed for the holiday season. Efforts to reach a lawyer for the Nicklaus companies were not successful.

In the letter to residents, Nicklaus said people who bought at Bear’s Club knew what they were signing on to when they bought their homes and read and accepted the Declaration of Master Covenants.

But Sax said the declaration violates Florida law, specifically Chapter 720 of the Florida Statutes, which requires that homeowners have control over the governance of their community association.

The Bear’s Club recently was in the news over a failed effort to swap habitat land on a conservation easement it owns, in exchange for a $1 million contribution to a fund that maintains the county’s natural areas. The Bear’s Club wanted to build more homes on the 15-acre easement, but a public uproar halted the effort in October.