A proceeding to sell the Boothbay Country Club took less than 17 minutes in Portland January 28, but the outcome was unknown. A lawyer directed the Wiscasset Newspaper and the other, non-bidding observers who showed up at the law offices of Bernstein Shur Monday morning to leave the conference room where the auction took place.

It was open only to registered bidders, who needed a $50,000 deposit. The Bank of Maine loaned Boothbay Country Club $2.89 million to buy the club in 2008. Monday 's auction was a "power of sale" foreclosure method that let the bank avoid going through the courts.

The winning bidder will be publicly named in an affidavit that must be filed within 30 days in the Lincoln County Registry of Deeds, the bank's lawyer, Wendy Paradis said.

The auction was set to start at 10 a.m. At 10:17 a.m., two men who said they were from the bank left the building. When asked about the auction, one said simply, "It's over."

Among those who came hoping to find out who was going to buy the club was Laura Blake of Southport. She and husband Tom Blake are members of the Boothbay Country Club.

Blake said he was disappointed about not getting to watch the auction, but she said he would stay hopeful about the club’s future. “I hope it’s somebody who can return it to what it was, a place for local people and the tourists,” she said, adding that she wishes only the best for club owner Jim Reeves in the future.

Owners of the Five Star golf cart company also turned out. Co-owner Matt McDonald said they were there to let the winning bidder know there was a Maine-based company they could buy carts from.

For two days, the auction's outcome and any further movements on the club's ownership went unannounced publicly. Golfers interested in the club's future waited for word. Some contacted the Wiscasset Newspaper and Boothbay Register in hopes of learning who bought the club.

“That was the number one question I was being asked yesterday,” Anthony Krason, co-chairman of the Boothbay Charity Classic Celebrity Golf Tournament to benefit Special Olympics Maine, said January 29. Krason was at Sugarloaf Mountain for the Special Olmpics' winter games. He received several texts from the organization's board members asking him about the club's sale, he said.

Although they were interested in the sale's outcome, Krason said he and the board were confident that this year's event would go on at the club as usual this fall. They believe whoever owns the club, whether the bank or someone else, will recognize how much the event and other charity events mean to those charities in terms of fundraising, Krason said.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or sjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com.