GOLF PROPERTY IN LEGAL WRANGLE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 19, 1993                   TAG: 9301190195
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
GOLF PROPERTY IN LEGAL WRANGLE
Chestnut Creek Properties, a golf course and residential development at Smith Mountain Lake, is caught up in the dispersal of a Vinton businessman's estate.
Central Fidelity Bank last week filed a $6.9 million lawsuit against Chestnut Creek, its president, David C. Smith, and the heirs of W.E. Cundiff.
Robert Eicher, an attorney for Central Fidelity Bank, said the bank is trying to cooperate with those involved in Chestnut Creek to work out the situation.
"It's fair to say, the bank would much rather have some sort of mutual resolution rather than press forward to judgment," Eicher said. "The bank is not hellbent on going to court."
According to the lawsuit filed in Roanoke Circuit Court, Chestnut Creek stopped making its payments on the loan shortly after Vinton business and civic leader W.E. Cundiff died last June.
Cundiff's three daughters - Ann C. Brown, Billie Sue Musselwhite and Jacqulyn C. Logan - are named in the lawsuit as heirs to Cundiff.
Wallace Cundiff and Smith had teamed up in the late 1980s. Smith had the idea for the golf course. Cundiff had the land to build it on.
Chestnut Creek, off Virginia 616 in Hardy, was the third golf course to be built in Franklin County at Smith Mountain Lake.
Chestnut Creek followed lake developer Ron Willard's Waterfront and Water's Edge residential and golf developments. Unlike Willard's courses, though, the public can buy a membership to the club.
The first nine holes of Chestnut Creek opened in 1989, and the 18-hole course was completed in 1991.
Once the legalities of distributing Cundiff's estate can be worked out, it should be possible to smooth out the problems between the bank and Chestnut Creek, said Roanoke attorney Charles Williams, who is representing the development's owners.
"All the people involved acknowledge that the money is owed," Williams said. "There's no question about that."
Eicher said he is hopeful Chestnut Creek's financial problems can be worked out before the court acts.
"From the bank's perspective, that is not a pleasant scenario," Eicher said, "because the bank is not in the business of managing land."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB