In June 2013, an Oklahoma County judge placed one of Oklahoma City's most exclusive addresses into the hands of a receiver. Gaillardia Country Club, the 600-acre gated community built by the Gaylord family and centered on an 18-hole course later reshaped by Tom Kite, was heading toward a courthouse auction. Its owner, Herrington Inc., had defaulted on loans tied to the clubhouse and course. Bank of the Ozarks and First Liberty Bank moved to foreclose. Price Edwards & Company was appointed receiver to keep the lights on while the case worked through the courts.

The auction never happened. In January 2014, a California-based club operator named Concert Golf Partners bought both banks' mortgages and settled with Herrington in a deed-in-lieu transaction, taking ownership of the club before the gavel could fall. Concert Golf's chairman, Peter Nanula, summed up the outcome once the paperwork cleared:

"The club is now debt free, with a long-term, stable future."

If you're touring homes in Gaillardia today, that story from twelve years ago is not just trivia. It answers a question almost no one asks before writing an offer in a golf course community: who actually owns the course, and what happens to your home if that owner runs into trouble?

The Question the Median Price Can't Answer

Ask around and you'll hear the numbers. Homes in Gaillardia have traded recently in a range that swings from roughly $1.5 million to $1.85 million depending on which snapshot you catch and how many sales fed into it that month. With only a handful of closings in any given 30-day window, one high-end estate sale or one slow-moving listing can swing the median by hundreds of thousands of dollars. That volatility is normal in a market this small. It's also the wrong thing to fixate on.

The more useful question is structural, not statistical: is the golf course and clubhouse owned by the same entity as your homeowners' association, or is it a separate business that happens to sit in the middle of your neighborhood? In Gaillardia, it's the latter, and that separation is exactly what protected homeowners when the club's finances fell apart.

What Actually Happened, in Order

Edward King Gaylord's Oklahoma Publishing Company broke ground on Gaillardia in the fall of 1995, building the 55,000-square-foot French Normandy clubhouse that would later be counted among the top 100 clubhouses in the world. When the Gaylord family exited the golf business in 2002, Phil Herrington and the Herrington Group bought the club and kept developing the surrounding residential lots.

By 2013, Herrington's loans on the club were in default. Oklahoma City District Judge Patricia Parrish put the property into receivership that June, and Ford Price of Price Edwards & Company stepped in to run day-to-day operations while foreclosure moved forward. Concert Golf Partners bought the first mortgage from Bank of the Ozarks that August, then bought the second mortgage from First Liberty Bank and reached a settlement with Herrington rather than let the case go to a public auction. Concert Golf took over club operations in February 2014, kept the existing staff in place, and began reinvesting in the clubhouse roof, furnishings, and tennis courts almost immediately.

Herrington's financial troubles didn't end there. He filed personal bankruptcy in Arkansas, and a separate lawsuit over unpaid lot sales in Gaillardia's Promenade section followed. None of that touched the neighborhood's HOA or its homeowners.

Why the HOA Never Blinked

That last point is the mechanism worth understanding. The golf club and the residential HOA in Gaillardia are separate legal entities with separate finances. When Herrington Inc. defaulted on club debt and eventually filed for personal bankruptcy, the exposure sat with the club's ownership structure, not with the deed you'd be signing on a home purchase. Homeowners kept paying their regular HOA dues for landscaping, gates, and common areas. They did not get a special assessment to bail out a failing golf course, because the golf course was never their liability to begin with.

That is not true in every golf course community. Buyer guides comparing Gaillardia alongside Rose Creek, Oak Tree, and Quail Creek note that club membership rules vary from neighborhood to neighborhood. Some communities link a required membership tier to the deed itself, others make membership optional with its own waitlist, and the fine print on transferability differs by club. None of that shows up in a listing photo or a median price chart. It shows up in the CC&Rs and the club's membership agreement, and it's worth reading before you write an offer, not after.

What to Actually Ask When You Tour

Gaillardia's current membership structure runs through a handful of tiers. A Full Golf Membership includes greens fees, practice facilities, pool, fitness center, and tennis for the member and immediate family. A Junior Golf Membership offers the same access at a different rate for members under 40. A Lifestyle Membership skips the course entirely and covers pool, fitness, tennis, and dining. None of these are bundled automatically into a home purchase, which means the real due diligence questions are the ones a listing sheet won't answer:

• Is any club membership required as a condition of ownership, or is it fully optional?
• If required, does the membership transfer with the deed, or does a new owner have to apply and pay the initiation fee again?
• Who legally owns the club today, and has that owner disclosed any planned capital assessments?
• Are HOA dues and club dues billed separately, and does the HOA's budget show any history of subsidizing club operations?

Ask these questions of the seller, the HOA board, or the club's membership office directly. A listing will tell you the square footage. It won't tell you whether you're buying into a club with a decade-plus of debt-free operating history or one quietly carrying the kind of leverage that put Gaillardia's original owner into receivership.

The Debt-Free Decade, and Why It's Still True

Concert Golf Partners hasn't stood still since 2014. As of 2025, the company's portfolio had grown to 34 upscale private clubs nationally, with Gaillardia still listed among its flagship properties alongside clubs like TPC Jasna Polana in New Jersey and The Club at Pasadera in Monterey. Concert Golf's stated model is to buy clubs in cash and avoid taking on new debt, the same approach that got Gaillardia out of receivership in the first place.

That continuity matters more than any single month's median sale price. A golf course community's long-term value depends on whether the amenities around it stay funded and maintained, not just on what the last comparable sold for. Gaillardia's clubhouse has had a decade-plus of reinvestment under stable ownership. That's a track record you can verify by calling the club directly, and it's worth more to your resale value ten years from now than a favorable number this quarter.

FAQ

Is club membership mandatory to buy a home in Gaillardia? Membership tiers exist separately from the HOA. Confirm current requirements directly with the club's membership office rather than assuming either way based on what a neighbor or a listing agent tells you.

What happened to Gaillardia's country club in 2013 and 2014? The club's then-owner, Herrington Inc., defaulted on its loans, the property went into court receivership under Judge Patricia Parrish, and Concert Golf Partners acquired it through a deed-in-lieu transaction in early 2014, taking the club debt-free.

Does the same company still own the club? Yes. Concert Golf Partners has operated Gaillardia continuously since 2014 and, as of 2025, counted it among a portfolio of 34 private clubs nationwide.

If you're weighing a move into Gaillardia or comparing it against other golf course communities in the northern suburbs, the number that actually protects your investment isn't the one on the listing sheet. It's the answer to who owns the course next door. Cole Strickland has walked clients through exactly these questions on properties across Nichols Hills, Edmond, and the northern OKC suburbs. Get Your Instant Home Valuation and start the conversation with someone who already knows what to ask.