Seascape Hospitality Group, headed up by Joe Guerra and Adam Fuller, acquired Fripp Island in early January 2023 from the Wardle family, a local prominent family in Beaufort, South Carolina. The total capitalization for the sale was approximately $50 million.
The resort hosts two golf courses and has tennis and pickleball courts, a marina, two pools, nine restaurants and a nature center.
Some 1,400 homes, about two thirds of the island’s residents, are part of the resort and can opt in to be part of the membership and get access to the amenities.
Guerra plans to update the parts of the resort in most need of attention, including upgrading the restaurants and improving the infrastructure of the buildings, most of which were built sometime between the 1960s and 1980s. A key part of the plan is to balance any new development with the wildlife habitat on the island, which is home to hundreds of deer and birds, as well as about 300 alligators, including an 11-foot specimen referred to by the locals as “King Arthur.”
Guerra also stated that there are no plans to build a hotel on the property, which had been a point of concern for some of the residents.
“We’re not hotel developers,” he said. “We never have been. We’re resort golf operators and club operators.”
Fuller is the owner of an oil change service center in Atlanta. Guerra first made his mark with American Golf when it was the largest management company in the world. He was co-president with David Pillsbury, who now runs Invited. He started his own company, Sequoia Golf, in 2002 with the acquisition of seven courses in Atlanta. The company grew through acquisitions, building tight clusters in Atlanta, Houston and Denver and owned more than 30 properties. Guerra sold Sequoia to Invited (then known as ClubCorp) in 2014 for $260 million. This acquisition, Guerra’s first since then, has been in the works for six months.
