The sale will include the 18-hole golf course, founded in 1896, and a 10-unit condominium development completed in 2006. It also includes land suitable for another 90 condominiums, according to Inland Real Estate Auctions, in Oak Brook, Ill.
The country club and vacant land will be sold via silent, sealed bids. The condominiums -- named Green Lake Lodge -- will be sold in an open, outcry auction.
Originally valued from $240,000 to $500,000 each, three condo units are being offered regardless of price.
"For a dime or a dollar, those things sell," said Frank Diliberto, president and chief executive of Inland Real Estate Auctions.
Public records and newspaper articles showed that, until recently at least, one of Tuscumbia's owners was John Geils, whose family runs a funeral home in Bensenville, Ill.
Geils could not be reached for comment Thursday.
But the country club and condos are not in bankruptcy or foreclosure, Diliberto said.
"The owner is retiring out of the business," he said. "In a difficult economy, the idea of putting it on the real estate market and letting it languish, and negotiating a sale over a period of months or years, is not on the owners' agenda. They are looking for an auction to make a deal fast."
The first nine holes of the golf course were established in 1893, but the full course wasn't developed until three years later.
The first six holes were once known as the "tomato can course" because tin cans were sunk into greens for cups. Later, a small clubhouse was built, and the course grew to 18 holes -- nine of which reverted temporarily to pasture during World War II when gasoline rationing was in place.
Geils was among a group of investors who acquired the country club in the mid-1980s when its owners were in bankruptcy.
"It was a cow pasture. I'm not afraid to admit it," he was quoted as saying in a Journal Sentinel article published in 1996.
The new owners poured money into improvements and course maintenance and upgraded the country club and restaurant.
In 2004, the clubhouse was destroyed by fire but was rebuilt.
Tuscumbia is an important attraction in Green Lake, one of the oldest resort communities in the Midwest, said Dusty Walker, executive director of the Green Lake Chamber of Commerce.
"I can't imagine someone not buying the country club, but in this market, you just don't know," she said.
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