My family spent years looking for the place that felt like home. California, then Pennsylvania, then Tennessee, then here. When we found TOPS'L, we fell in love with it: the beach, yes, but just as much the people we kept meeting.
Before we bought, I did what any careful buyer does: due diligence. It was harder than it should have been. Basic records took real effort to get, even meeting minutes. And when I learned the resort was in the middle of a serious dispute, I discovered there was no one place to understand it. I pieced the story together through conversations, scattered online posts, and documents hunted down one at a time.
We bought anyway. It felt like home. It still does.
I kept at it because I want to fully understand what is happening to the place we own, and to protect what it is worth. To me this is as much a part of caring for our property as repairing the roof or making sure the foundation is stable. And I understand full well that beach access and the perception of the amenities tie directly to property value. Every buyer and every guest asks the same quiet question: does this feel like a resort, or an apartment near the beach?
So I did the work. Nearly nine hundred documents downloaded from the associations' own portals: minutes, budgets, financials, governing documents going back decades. More than 280 minutes of board-meeting audio, transcribed. Deeds, amendments, and covenants pulled from the county records. Court filings and dockets tracked in two states. Conversations with anyone willing to talk, on every side of this.
None of it happened alone. To everyone who sat with me, told me what you knew, pointed me where to look, or opened your own files: thank you. You know who you are. This record is better because of you.
The Tops'l Post is the resource I wished existed when I was searching: one place where claims come with the documents attached, where every date can be checked, and where the reader is never asked to take anyone's word for anything, including mine.
And one thing you should know without having to dig for it: my wife, Amy Corona, is a candidate for the Summit board in the October 17 election. I'm proud of her, and I'm not neutral about that. It's also exactly why this paper works the way it does. Every claim comes with the document attached so you never have to take my word, or my household's, for anything. Check the record, then vote however you see fit.