Drive past the western gate of The Ridges this month and you will still see chain-link fencing where a golf course used to be. The fairways that once wrapped around Redhawk and Falcon Ridge are graded dirt. The old clubhouse footprint has been cleared. If you are touring a fairway-facing home right now, the agent will likely point past the fence and tell you that view is about to become one of the most exclusive golf addresses in the Las Vegas Valley. What they may not mention is that owning the home behind that fence will not put you on the golf course.
The course is Amara Golf Club, and it is reopening this fall on the site of Bear's Best Las Vegas, the Jack Nicklaus design that operated as a public course for more than two decades before it closed in June 2025. The reopening is real, the redevelopment budget is real at $300 million, and the timeline puts the new private club roughly a month out from today. What is easy to miss, standing at the fence line with a listing sheet in hand, is that the golf premium baked into a Ridges home price and the golf membership itself are now two separate transactions with two separate price tags, and only one of them shows up on the closing statement.
From Public Course to Private Roster
Bear's Best opened in 2001 as a showcase of Nicklaus's favorite holes from courses around the world, and for most of its life anyone could book a tee time. That changed when Mulligan Holdings, led by Andrew Pascal, the former Wynn Resorts chief operating officer and current CEO of PlayStudios, and Mike Mixer, co-founder of Colliers International, bought the property for $30.5 million in 2024. Pascal has said publicly that part of the motivation was land security. The parcel could have been rezoned for residential development the way the Badlands golf course was in a fight that dragged through Clark County courts for years and cost the parties involved millions. Locking the land into an operating private club, rather than leaving it as a course that could someday be sold off for houses, was the safer long-term bet for the surrounding neighborhood.
That decision reshaped the course into something structurally different from what it replaced. Working with golf architecture firm Jackson Kahn Design, the new ownership is rebuilding the layout, adding a two-level clubhouse with underground parking, and converting the entrance off Flamingo Road. Water rights for the project have already been secured. The plan calls for a reopening as a strictly private club as soon as October 2026, with a small residential component, 15 club villas in the 2,000 to 2,500 square foot range, following in 2027.
What the Frontage Premium Has Actually Been Pricing
Here is the part that matters for anyone shopping Redhawk, Falcon Ridge, or Silver Ridge right now. Golf-fronting homes in comparable Las Vegas communities have historically carried a 12 to 18 percent premium over otherwise identical interior lots. That premium has always been priced against something you could use. When Bear's Best was public, a fairway view came with the practical option of walking onto that same course whenever you wanted a round. The frontage premium and the access were, functionally, one purchase.
Amara breaks that link. The club will cap total membership at 265, split between 250 general memberships and 15 reserved exclusively for the new villa owners. If you buy a resale home in Redhawk or Falcon Ridge with a view of the course, you are not one of those 15. You are competing for one of the 250 general slots, on the same terms as anyone else in the valley willing to pay the fee, whether or not they own a single square foot inside The Ridges.
Pascal has framed the club's future as an opportunity to build something the west side of Summerlin lacked, a private amenity anchored in land the ownership group controls outright rather than one exposed to the kind of rezoning fight that played out at Badlands.
The Real Cost Stack, Separated
For a buyer trying to model total ownership cost, it helps to see the two transactions side by side rather than folded into one number.
| Cost Component | What It Buys | Who Pays It |
|---|---|---|
| Home price, golf-frontage premium | The view and proximity, paid once at closing | Any buyer of a fairway-facing lot |
| Amara initiation fee | Playing rights and clubhouse access | Only members, capped at 265 total |
| Initiation fee starting point | $250,000, rising every 50 memberships sold | General membership applicants |
| Monthly dues | Family access, including children up to age 25 | Active members |
| Villa purchase | One of 15 reserved memberships bundled in | Only the 15 club villa buyers |
The initiation fee's structure is worth sitting with. General membership is capped at 250, and the price climbs at every 50-member interval. That means the fee moves through roughly five pricing tiers before the general roster closes entirely. A buyer who closes on a Falcon Ridge home today, expecting to apply for membership after move-in, has no guarantee of catching the course at its starting price. The tier they land in depends on how quickly the first cohorts fill, not on when they bought the house next door.
What This Changes If You're Comparing Golf Addresses
Buyers cross-shopping The Ridges against MacDonald Highlands or Red Rock Country Club are often comparing apples that look alike from the street but are structured very differently underneath. DragonRidge, the golf anchor at MacDonald Highlands, has been operating for two decades with enrollment patterns that have had years to settle. Red Rock Country Club's membership has historically been optional rather than mandatory, and its resale market has absorbed that flexibility over a longer runway. Amara is doing something less common: closing on membership pricing before the course has hosted a single round for its private roster, which means the community is still discovering, in real time, how quickly the tiers fill and what the settled price ends up being.
That uncertainty cuts both ways. If demand runs hot once the club reopens this fall, buyers who secure membership early lock in a lower tier than those who wait. If it runs slower, the pressure to buy in immediately eases. Either way, the decision about the golf club is not resolved by the decision about the home, and treating them as one transaction is the mistake worth avoiding.
Before You Fall in Love With a Fairway Lot
A few questions are worth asking directly, in writing, before you assume a view comes with a locker:
- Does this specific listing include a bundled Amara membership, or only proximity to the course?
- If it is a villa purchase, is the reserved membership transferable to a future buyer, or does it expire with the current owner?
- What membership tier is open today, and has the seller or listing agent confirmed that directly with the club rather than repeating secondhand pricing?
- Is the home's asking price already reflecting a golf-fronting premium, and if so, against what access model, public or private?
None of these questions are answered by the square footage sheet. They are answered by a phone call to the club and a careful read of the HOA and villa documents, which is exactly the kind of verification worth doing before you write an offer rather than after.
The Ridges is still one of the most architecturally distinct addresses in Summerlin, and Amara's arrival is a genuine investment in the land behind the fence. What it is not, at least not automatically, is an amenity that comes free with the deed. If you are weighing a fairway-facing purchase against the timeline of a private club roster that is still filling, that is exactly the kind of local detail worth working through with someone who tracks it closely.
If you're comparing homes in The Ridges against other golf-anchored communities in Henderson or Summerlin and want the membership math laid out before you tour, Virtue Real Estate Group can walk you through what's bundled, what's separate, and what a specific listing actually includes. Get Your Instant Home Valuation to start the conversation.
