1975: Adams Road Development creates Knollwood

1975 – TODAY

The founding fact is the developer's own: the Home Builders Association of St. Joseph Valley's Spring 2019 showcase account, published for Adams Road Development Corp.'s Bradford Shores, states the course plainly: "Adams Road Development entered the Michiana Area in 1975 with the creation of Knollwood and Knollwood Country Club. The neighborhoods now encompass over 3,400 home sites, on 3,000 acres, in 20 neighborhoods, and 30 lakes… known as the Communities of Knollwood," spanning "two states, three townships and three school districts," the developers named as Brian and David Eckrich, of the family company founded by Dave Eckrich Sr. Sworn testimony converges: Steve Smith of Irish Realty, himself a co-owner of the Cooreman Real Estate Group, testified under oath in the Granger Water Utility case that Adams Road Development under Dave Eckrich Sr. developed more than a dozen neighborhoods and several thousand homes, beginning close to University Park Mall in Granger and Clay Township, centered on Knollwood Country Club and its two golf courses, and expanding east toward the Elkhart County line across the farm tracts between the Toll Road and the Michigan line. The plat file bears the account out in its own register: the original Knollwood ground lies in Clay Township west of the hamlet, platted as Knollwood Additions A through F and Knollwood West Additions A through E — 300 parcels inside the boundary under the core addition names alone, before the ring of named communities around them is counted.

The founding conflict, printed whole: against the developer's 1975 account and the anniversary arithmetic that confirms it — the club approached its 50th anniversary in 2025, when it was acquired by the local Knollwood Golf Group LLC — a layer of web aggregator lore assigns the club a 1924 founding by Clement Studebaker Jr. and J. Millard Owen, a Willie Watson first course and a 1955 George Fazio second, or alternatively a Donald Ross design, or a founding in 1894. No source of record reached supports any of it: the claims trace to golf-directory and content-farm sites copying one another, they are contradicted by the developer's own published account and by the trade press's anniversary reporting, and the one course attribution carried by a golf-record source — GolfLink's — names Ernie Schrock as designer of the West course, opened 1985. The lore is printed here because it circulates as the club's history; it is not credited. The club's own sporting course — the 36 holes, the 2024 listing at $6.5 million by Invited Clubs, the 2025 local acquisition — belongs to the Sports leg; this section owns the plats around it, and notes only the fact the plat file proves: the "Knollwood" of the legal descriptions is a 1975 creation that grew by additions for three decades.

The creation's context was the mall: Smith's testimony supplies the sequence the plat file assumes — Edward J. DeBartolo built University Park Mall in corn fields annexed into northern Mishawaka in the 1970s, and a suburban housing boom followed on the township ground around it. Knollwood's first additions stood minutes from the mall across the township line, on well-and-septic prairie (the testimony's named exceptions, on city water and sewer, are Bradford Shores and Springwood Estates), and the mall's annexed ground and the club's unincorporated ground grew up together as one suburban fact in two jurisdictions — the pattern that governs Granger's southern edge to this day.

Sources

1. Home Builders Association of St. Joseph Valley, Spring 2019 Bradford Shores showcase (hbasjv.com) — Adams Road Development's own account of the 1975 creation, the 3,400 home sites, 3,000 acres, 20 neighborhoods and 30 lakes, and the two-states/three-townships/three-districts span.
2. Verified rebuttal testimony of Steve Smith, IURC Cause No. 45568 (26 October 2021) — Dave Eckrich Sr., the dozen-plus neighborhoods, the mall-first sequence, and the well-and-septic exceptions, sworn.
3. Club + Resort Business (11 February 2025) — the Knollwood Golf Group LLC acquisition as the club approaches its 50th anniversary; (23 September 2024) — the Invited Clubs listing, $6.5 million, 36 holes, about 400 acres.
4. St. Joseph County parcel record, read November 2026 — Knollwood Additions A–F and Knollwood West Additions A–E, 300 parcels inside the boundary.
5. GolfLink course record — the West course attributed to Ernie Schrock, opened 1985; aggregator founding claims (1924, 1894, Ross, Watson, Fazio) carried by golf-directory sites, unsupported by any source of record reached.