Windermere Country Club, the shuttered golf course that once sold for $8.6 million, changed hands again on Oct. 29 for just $10,100 at a foreclosure auction. Private Financial Alternatives, the lender behind that rock-bottom bid, walked away with ownership of the long-dormant property after years of litigation against former owner Bryan Decunha.
The sale did not close out the overall legal battle, which traces back to a $3.18 million commercial term loan Decunha took out through Private Financial Alternatives in March 2022, according to the Orange Observer. As part of that deal, Decunha signed a promissory note granting PFA senior lien rights over the property. The loan carried a two-year term with a maturity date of March 31, 2024, but Decunha did not repay it by then, the Observer reported.
Court-presented emails cited in the Observer's reporting show Decunha told PFA he wanted to sell the property and that prospective new owners had agreed to assume the debt. A PFA official reportedly advised him to first request a loan repayment extension before pursuing any sale, but Decunha never filed that extension request. Windermere Country Club did make a $1.2 million payment toward the debt in July 2024, per the same account, but it wasn't enough to resolve the default.
A Secret Sale and a Lawsuit
The following month, Decunha sold the property to NYA Capital Inc., a Florida for-profit corporation, for $8.6 million — without PFA's knowledge or approval, according to the Observer's reporting. PFA argued the sale amounted to a breach of contract and, having the right to seek foreclosure if the loan wasn't repaid in full, filed a lawsuit against Decunha, NYA Capital and Windermere Country Club in 2024. The lender said it had already sent at least two notices warning the parties that nonpayment would lead to a forced sale of the property.
NYA Capital, having purchased the property, became responsible for the remainder of Decunha's debt. But the company filed for bankruptcy in 2025, and the Observer's report notes the lawsuits continued regardless. Earlier this month, a judge granted PFA's foreclosure motion, finding that the defendants owed the lender $4,375,744.06, and ordered the clerk of court to auction the property on Oct. 29 if the debt went unpaid.
It wasn't paid, and the auction proceeded. PFA bid $10,100 — the winning amount — and gained ownership of the long-vacant club, the Observer reported. Court documents state that the auction proceeds will be applied to the defendants' outstanding debts, though the defendants must continue making payments to PFA at a 7.87% interest rate on whatever balance remains.
A Last-Minute Hearing Falls Through
Decunha wasn't finished fighting in court. An ex-parte hearing had been scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 4, at his request, seeking to amend the supplemental final judgment of foreclosure. But the hearing was canceled the day before, on Nov. 3, when Decunha's attorney called it off, according to the Observer's reporting.
Development Rights Remain Tightly Restricted
Whatever PFA eventually decides to do with the 1980s-era country club, the land itself comes with baggage. Windermere Country Club cannot be redeveloped without approval from the Orange County Board of County Commissioners, per the Observer's account — a restriction that has frustrated past owners for years. The Observer's recent reporting attributes that restriction to a 1986 agreement between the county and the original developers, though a 2017 Orange Observer report dated the same agreement to 1985; neither account has been reconciled.
Decunha originally purchased the Windermere property in 2011 for $2.17 million and closed the club in 2016, citing mounting losses, according to an earlier Orange Observer report. He later pushed to build 95 homes on 50 acres of the shuttered course, but the county's development restrictions stood in his way. The Orlando Sentinel reported that a judicial panel rejected his appeal to pry those development rights away from Orange County government in 2019.
In a 2024 interview reported by the Observer, Decunha said rebuilding the 18-hole golf course would cost far more than what comparable courses were selling for at the time. He added that keeping the course running would have required millions of dollars he didn't have, and that he lacked homeowner support for the project. His only remaining option, he said then, was to pursue limited development on some of the golf-course land with homeowners' approval — an outcome that never materialized before the property slipped away in foreclosure.
What PFA intends to do with Windermere Country Club now that it holds the deed remains unclear, and no information about those plans has been made public.
