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Russell's fascination with Smith contains a selfish component, of course. He believes that Fairway Park threatens the value of his home. "My interest is, keep me from flooding," he admits.

A Smith relative emerged. In April 2005, Kenneth Smith's niece, Melba, wrote a letter to The Shawnee Dispatch. Melba Smith suggested that the Johnson County Museum should move into the old Smith factory.

Smith, who is 72, lives in Shawnee. She tells the Pitch that she had no contact with Eva Smith after her uncle's death, a fact she regrets, given what's happened with the estate. "I wish I had been there for her," she says. "Maybe I could have done something."

Smith says she avoided her aunt because she didn't want to raise suspicion that she was after her money. The club-making business had gone bust, but the Smiths were worth plenty of money. Kenneth Smith had invested in real estate and stocks. In papers filed with the IRS in 2005, the Smith Foundation showed assets of $7.5 million, not including the land in Shawnee, which is held in Eva Smith's personal trust.

The foundation made grants worth $454,000 in 2004. Children's charities, such as the Lakemary Center (a school for the developmentally disabled in Paola), received the largest contributions. The foundation also sponsors an annual award for the area's best high school golfer.

The foundation's lone trustee, Jones appears to be accountable only to the laws that govern nonprofits. Private foundations often have small boards, and Kansas law allows a nonprofit to operate with a single trustee. (Other states require nonprofit corporations to have at least three directors.)

As a one-man board, Jones complies with the law, but the arrangement opens the foundation to criticism. "The best practice here would be to add a trustee or two, so you have more diversity of opinion and viewpoints," says Bruce R. Hopkins, a Kansas City lawyer and a leading authority on tax-exempt organizations. "But there's a difference between best practice and what the law requires."

Jones does not draw a salary as the foundation's trustee, records show; however, the foundation paid his law firm, Payne & Jones, $16,150 in 2004. (The foundation also paid $74,821 in "management fees," though the forms do not indicate who received the payment.) Laws address self-dealing, but here, too, the foundation appears to be in compliance. "As long as the fees that are being paid to the law firm and the management company are reasonable, that kind of a practice is legal," Hopkins says.

Jones insists that he is following the instructions of Eva Smith. In a 2005 letter to Janine Joslin, the executive director of the Kansas Preservation Alliance, Jones wrote that he had "no alternative" but to sell the Shawnee property so that the proceeds could "further enhance the wonderful work" of the foundation.

Undoubtedly, a $50,000 donation to Children Mercy's Hospital, which the foundation made in 2004, constitutes wonderful work. But opponents of the plan question why Jones — who said in his letter to Joslin that he was always looking for ways to honor the Smiths' legacy — has seemed unwilling to pursue a course that would add proceeds to the foundation while also saving the grounds. The Kansas Preservation Alliance presented an idea last fall to build 50 homes and save the important buildings. "We felt we were compromising by losing the landscape and preserving the homes," Joslin says.

Joslin says Rodrock came back with the idea of a plaque.

Jones' confidence in Rodrock puzzles opponents of the plan, who wonder if another developer might have come up with something more creative than putting cul-de-sacs where Kenneth Smith once built clubs for kings. Jackie Moore, a real-estate agent who lives on 71st Street, says she understands that other brokers and developers were not informed that that property was available.

"There was never a [for-sale] sign," she says.

A waist-high rock fence separates Kenneth Smith's empty house and factory from the road. The bushes need a trim, and glass panes need to be replaced, but the buildings appear to be in good condition. The estate pays a former Smith employee to maintain the lawn.

Wandering the grounds, B.J. Klein wishes he had billions. "If I had Warren Buffett's money, I'd buy the damn thing myself and fix it up and have my own private golf course," he says.

More realistically, Klein thinks the city should buy the property. He'd like to see picnic baskets and flagsticks return to the land that he and other former Smith employees enjoyed. "It seems like they can't leave anything open space," he says. "Everything's got to be blacktop."

Rodrock's antagonists appear willing to compromise. Gene Russell, the Fairway Hills neighborhood leader and an environmental engineer by trade, notes that the current zoning allows new home construction. A developer, Russell says, could build 20 to 25 homes and preserve the old buildings and several acres of green space at the same time.

The buildings are safe for now. The residents' lawsuit remains alive in the courts.

As part of the Army Corps permit process, Rodrock is required to offer the buildings to parties who might save them. His initial request for proposals, sent out last November, suggested a minimum bid of $1.3 million. The request drew no response. The deadline was extended tentatively to the end of August.

For now, though, ending the controversy over the Kenneth Smith estate seems like a long shot.