Many Seven Hills homeowners settle suit over Rio golf course

Grace Leong

Monday, April 24, 2000 | 11:48 a.m.

Many Seven Hills homeowners quietly settled a lawsuit late last year over the Henderson community's golf course.

Neither side will discuss terms of the October settlement of a lawsuit filed by some 175 homeowners against lead Seven Hills developer Silver Canyon Partnership and two other Seven Hills developers.

The homeowners' suit said they bought their homes thinking they were in a golf course community, only to see the development's golf course sold to the Rio hotel-casino in 1997 for use by its high-rollers.

A judge in a separate case ruled the homeowners must be allowed access to the course, but allowed the Rio to charge greens fees of $300 -- a sum the homeowners called exorbitant and said effectively eliminated the golf course as an amenity they could regularly use.

The settlement came to light in a lawsuit filed March 27 in behalf of Patricia Brooks, a homeowner who did not join the other homeowners in the original suit.

Brooks would not have sold her Chicago home had she known the Rio would buy the course for the use of its customers, her suit asserted.

Brooks seeks damages caused by the alleged reduction in the value of her home and for the difficulty she claims to have had in marketing it because of the golf course issue.

Brooks alleged the defendants were told by the Rio to stop advertising Seven Hills as a golf course community in March 1997, but allegedly made no efforts to warn homebuyers until September 1997.

The defendants in her suit include Silver Canyon Partnership, which is comprised of American Nevada Corp. of Henderson, Forest City Enterprises of Cleveland and Canadian developer Terry Johnston.

The defendants declined comment on Brooks' lawsuit and on the earlier settlement with the other homeowners. American Nevada is owned by the Greenspun family, which also owns the Las Vegas Sun.