West Bay Club

Two buildings carry most of the week at West Bay Club, and just one sits behind the gate. That one is the Bay House, open to every resident: a resort-style pool, Aqua Café serving three meals a day indoors, outdoors and poolside, and an upper floor with a concierge, a demonstration kitchen and a lecture hall. The other is the Beach Club on Little Hickory Island, 13.7 miles away by road. There, attendants set out umbrellas and chairs while a valet parks the car.

The gate opens off the Tamiami Trail in Estero, in Lee County. Behind it, the club counts nearly 870 acres beside Estero Bay, about 500 of them wetlands and nature preserve, with the Estero River running through. Tennis is played around an eight-sided pavilion. Pickleball and bocce wait just past the entrance, and boats go in at a park on the river.

What is the golf course like?

Preserve, more than houses, lines the fairways. It's a Pete and P.B. Dye course laid over Southwest Florida wetlands, where osprey, herons, cranes and tortoises turn up along the way. Eight sets of tees change the length, and the greens add up to just over four acres. Fry/Straka reworked the course in 2018, a project the club puts at about $4 million.

The West Bay Golf Academy runs clinics and socials with the club's PGA and LPGA professionals. The calendar also runs to oddities: themed Party of Fore tournaments, a Superintendent's Revenge obstacle course, and invitationals where members bring guests.

Golf members get the Golf House, renovated in January 2021. Its terrace of fire-pit tables faces the course at sunset, and the dining room serves à la carte and wine dinners. The Signature Bar plays jazz from a grand piano in front of more than 400 wines. Over a bridge, The Niblick grille has a covered deck above the closing hole and a Friday happy hour.

What is there apart from golf?

Next to the Bay House pool, a 3,500-square-foot fitness building holds Technogym equipment and a staff of trainers. Spin, Pilates and yoga happen in the motion studio downstairs. The locker rooms have steam rooms, and the massage rooms offer deep-tissue, Swedish and hot-stone massage.

The Net is the tennis pavilion, set among eight Har-Tru courts so each one gets a center-court view from its balcony, and four are lit. Nine league teams play out of it, and the club runs themed round robins, pro-ams and exhibitions. At the Sports Park by the gated entry, you'll find six pickleball courts with a monthly Dinks and Drinks social, two bocce courts with leagues and a Beer & Bocce night, plus shuffleboard and croquet.

Indoors, the week runs to bridge, trivia nights, book clubs and guest lectures. The West Bay Academy gives free classes from industry professionals on finance, travel, health, technology and the arts.

How do you get out on the water, and to the beach?

From River Park, on the Estero River. It has a private launch with a route to the bay and the Gulf, a day dock, and kayaks and canoes provided by the club. The club stores boats and kayaks there as space allows. Plan on a launch and a day dock, not a slip.

The Beach Club isn't inside the community, so a beach day starts with a 26-minute drive. Rebuilt, it reopened in March 2024 with a restaurant and bar, a deck of about 1,900 square feet, changing rooms, towels, beach attendants and valet parking. The club puts access this way: "Available to all residents of West Bay Club are our community restaurant, Aqua Café, and full-service restaurant at our Private Beach Club."

How far is it to Coconut Point, the airport and Naples?

Measured on clear roads from just outside the gate, on Broadway Avenue West:

• Coconut Point in Estero, 4.6 miles (12 minutes)
• Miromar Outlets, 5.3 miles (14 minutes)
• Southwest Florida International Airport terminal, 13 miles (24 minutes)
• Little Hickory Island and the Beach Club, 13.7 miles (26 minutes)
• Fifth Avenue South in Naples, 22.7 miles (40 minutes)

In season, expect longer.

What kinds of homes are there, and what do they sell for?

Nine neighborhoods hold homes built between 1999 and 2022. Jasmine Bay is two 21-story condominium towers, Indigo Shores and Turtle Pointe have condominiums in buildings of a few stories, and Nature's Cove has villa homes, many along the 17th hole. Larger custom houses fill Chapel Trace, Laurel Oaks and RiverBrooke, some overlooking the preserve. Turtle Pointe Cove has single-family houses near River Park, and West Lake Court, the newest, looks west over the 7th and 8th holes.

Sizes run from about 1,600 to about 6,250 square feet, with 2 to 5 bedrooms. In sales from April 2025 through October 2026, houses went for the $820,000s to around $3 million, and one more sold at about $4.5 million. Condominiums in the existing buildings went for the $480,000s to around $1.45 million.

The Island at West Bay Club is a third market. Kolter Urban is building this tower inside the community: 86 condominiums, four to a floor so each is a corner home, with three and four bedrooms plus a den. It gets its own rooftop pool, sports-simulator lounge and a lobby with round-the-clock staff. Its developer's FAQ, updated in February 2026, expected delivery in mid-2027 and priced the homes from about $2.7 million to about $10 million. Those are asking prices, not sales.

What does owning here cost?

Budget around $1,550 a month on a house and around $3,350 a month on a condominium in the existing buildings. Both numbers are pitched high, above what most owners are billed, so check the one for your address before you lean on it.

When a home changes hands, the club lists a Community Contribution of about $15,000 among the amounts due at closing, with two smaller charges adding roughly $450.

Does a home at West Bay Club come with golf?

No. "Our members only Golf Club is home to the Golf House, Signature Bar and The Niblick," the club says, and the developer of the new tower states that golf club membership initiation fees apply. The course and its three venues are a second purchase on top of the home, so you'll want the initiation and dues in hand before you price it.

One category the club advertises, Premier Member-in-Waiting, allows six afternoon rounds a month from December through April and golf at any hour from May through November. Troon manages West Bay through its Troon Privé division, which gives golf members reciprocal play at other Troon Privé clubs.