Lake Arbor Golf Club's disrepair, foreclosure have Pr. George's community worried

Sandra Pruitt and her husband, Aaron, were young black professionals getting ready to start a family when they began their house search more than 20 years ago.

It didn't take long for them to become sold on Lake Arbor, an enclave of colonial-style houses with five bedrooms, libraries and sweeping living rooms with fireplaces.

The Prince George's County community, set around a pristine golf course and lake, would eventually fill with more people like the Pruitts: career-oriented, civic-minded African Americans interested in raising families in a tight-knit community.

They made Lake Arbor one of the first Prince George's neighborhoods of upwardly mobile black professionals.

"It was the place to live," said Reginald Ware, the Pruitts' neighbor. "It was the first to have a golf course. People all over came to play at Lake Arbor."

Today, as brown, knee-highweeds grow throughout the course, many residents of Lake Arbor are worried about their community, which played an early and pivotal role in shaping Prince George's into the richest majority-black suburb in the nation.

And, if Lake Arbor was once the symbol of the new Prince George's, some residents say they are concerned about what the condition of the golf course says about the county's future.

Lake Arbor Golf, which owns the course, went into foreclosure last month. Lawyer Steven Soto was named trustee of the property owned by the company, which has four federal and state tax liens in excess of $84,000. Soto declined to comment.

Hercules O. Pitts, who bought the course five years ago, could not be reached to comment. A phone listed under his name was not answered. Pitts also owns Marlborough Golf Club, which is also in foreclosure.

"We've allowed the image of our county to slip," Sandra Pruitt said.

Ware, who used to play on the course almost four days a week, said he doesn't feel the same way he did 16 years ago, when he moved onto his quiet cul-de-sac.

Ware chose Lake Arbor not just because of the golf course but also for the sense of pride people felt in living there: They achieved the American dream. "I don't sense that anymore," he said. "I don't say to people, 'I live in Lake Arbor,' not with the level of pride that I once had."