David Ball is readying for his annual late-summer trip to High Point, his family’s private retreat on Cumberland Island. He’s cleaning and rigging his fishing gear, collecting supplies and foodstuffs — there’s no grocery or convenience store on the primitive barrier island — and eagerly anticipating evenings on the porches of homes built by his mother and grandparents.
He’s also fuming over what he sees as a threat to his future on the property. Ball is a great-great-great-grandson of Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler, whose eldest son, Howard, in 1929 bought a shuttered Gilded Age resort, the High Point Hotel, along with surrounding land at Cumberland’s remote northern tip and transformed it into a vacation compound for generations of his descendants.
A limited liability company led by two family members, Sam Candler and Glenn Warren, is negotiating a land exchange with the National Park Service meant to ensure the Candlers’ long-term presence at High Point. But Ball and his two brothers, Lamar and Warren, are not part of the LLC and David and Warren have voiced fears about what a change in ownership would mean for them and their descendants.
Credit: Photo courtesy of David Ball
Credit: Photo courtesy of David Ball
“If they get this thing, they’ll find a way to kick us off or drive us off,” said David Ball, a 71-year-old Statesboro resident and the owner and operator of a community service nonprofit, the Outreach Center. “I’ll take a bulldozer to my mother’s house before I let them get full control of it.”
What’s the deal with the land swaps?
The Balls’ angst stems from a series of proposed Cumberland land exchanges that have faced fierce public debate since being made public two years ago. The deals would swap federally owned lands in out-of-the-way parts of the Georgia barrier island for private tracts near land frequented by visitors, such as public docks, campgrounds and walking trails.
The trades are meant to improve the National Park Service’s management of Cumberland as a national seashore. Environmentalists say they open the door to renewed construction on the island, which was a Gilded Age retreat for wealthy families before U.S. Congress decreed in 1972 that it should be “permanently preserved in its primitive state.”
One of those trades would transfer ownership of High Point to Lumar LLC. The Candlers no longer own the property — they sold it to the federal government in 1982 for $9 million and rights to it as a life estate.
Under the 1982 agreement, the Candlers can occupy the compound until the deaths of all family members who were alive at the time of the sale. Sixteen Candler heirs remain, the youngest in her 40s.
The proposed swap would bring High Point back under Candler control for future generations — but only those affiliated with Lumar LLC. The others listed as members on the life estate can’t be pushed off while they’re still alive, as David Ball fears, according to information from the National Park Service. But at the end of the life estate, the Lumar members of the family would be the property’s legal owners.
What happened with Sea Camp property offered for High Point?
The High Point exchange calls for swapping a Lumar-owned, 85-acre tract 100 yards north of the Sea Camp visitors center and campground near Cumberland’s southern tip in exchange for federal property identified as being at “the far north end” of the island. Based on a map published by the National Park Service, that includes High Point.
Lumar bought the land near Sea Camp in 1998, and in 2016, the LLC mounted an effort to rezone the property to build homes.
Glenn Warren, an Atlanta lawyer and wealth management executive, signed the variance application to subdivide the property into 10 lots. Sam Candler, an Episcopal priest at Atlanta’s Cathedral of St. Philip, acted as Lumar spokesperson as the rezoning was being considered.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
The rezoning bid failed — and split the family. The Balls say they didn’t learn their cousins were behind Lumar LLC for the first 20 years it existed. The secrecy sowed distrust that’s now turned to resentment.
David Ball said he is convinced the LLC-affiliated Candlers bought the property near Sea Camp in order to build replacement homes for those the family was set to lose at High Point. That the Balls weren’t included in those legacy plans stung.
Now, with the Lumar Candlers negotiating for High Point, David Ball feels betrayed. He suspects once their cousins’ plan to put homes on the property near Sea Camp didn’t pan out, they pushed for the High Point compound trade instead.
Glenn Warren and Sam Candler declined to comment on the Balls’ accusations. Several other family members listed on the life estate — those believed by David Ball to also be excluded from Lumar LLC — declined interview requests.
Lamar Ball, the eldest Ball brother, did not respond to requests for comment, although David and Warren said he shares their concerns.
What happens to the life estate in a sale?
The status of the High Point land exchange is not publicly known. Preliminary agreements have been reached in two other swaps, with public review and comments on the deals anticipated this fall. Another trade has been abandoned, according to the private property owner involved. All three of those proposed exchanges involve descendants of Thomas Carnegie, brother and business partner of Pittsburgh steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.
Credit: AJC
Credit: AJC
David Ball “wants to kill” the High Point swap. He says he couldn’t stomach the knowledge that the homes built by his side of the family are owned by the Lumar-affiliated members of the family and that the Balls’ children and grandchildren could be barred from vacationing there at the life estate’s end.
Warren Ball, 67, is “more at peace” with the situation than his older brother. He said his generation of the family has never been as close-knit as his mother and grandmother’s generation was. High Point today is treated more as a club than a family entity.
“At my age, I figured I had 10 more years at High Point, and I’d be satisfied,” said Warren Ball, who visits High Point with his family three to four times a year. “I told my children that when I’m dead, they need to consider getting out of High Point because of the family dynamics.”
He has already established a new coastal retreat for his descendants. In 2016, he bought a small home on a 1.2-acre ocean-view lot on Sapelo Island, an hour north of Cumberland and closer to the family’s home in Statesboro.
His major concern with the High Point swap is the uncertainty over his cousins’ plans for the property. The draft deeds for the Carnegie heir exchanges allow for the construction of new homes. Assuming the High Point deal includes similar terms, expanding the compound is a possibility.
“It is my hope that whatever family members end up with High Point, they will continue to use it as my great-granddaddy who purchased the land years ago intended it to be used, for family members and their guests,” Warren Ball said.
David Ball is less diplomatic. He wants his mother and grandparents’ High Point homes to sit empty once the last of the living heirs has died, as was intended when the property was sold to the National Park Service all those years ago.
“We came as a family,” Ball said, “and I thought we’d leave as a family.”
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