Heritage Palms Golf & Country Club

The driving range at Heritage Palms points out over water. It's an aqua range, set into the community's 38-acre lake, and the main clubhouse looks across the same shoreline. After a bucket of balls, the Grill Room & Patio serves burgers, salads and fresh pizza all day and a fuller menu after 5 p.m., plus a full bar and an enclosed patio warmed by a gas fireplace. The Palms Dining Room next door, with tall windows onto the lake, is kept for the season's special events and themed dinners.

Across the community is a second hub, the Oasis: a pool and spa, the remodeled Oasis Grill & Tiki Bar facing the pool and the course, and four turf bocce courts under canvas shades, lit for games after dark. Nobody pays cash at either end, since members charge meals, golf and purchases to a house account. Around both, 1,662 homes fill 814 acres behind a staffed gate off Six Mile Cypress Parkway in Fort Myers, between Colonial Boulevard and Daniels Parkway.

How much golf, tennis and pickleball is there?

Thirty-six holes, as a pair of 18-hole courses by Azinger & Lewis that opened in stages between November 1998 and 2000. Putting greens sit beside the aqua range, and the club's PGA professionals run lessons, clinics, tournaments, leagues and social golf from the Golf Shop.

Racquets get a complex of their own. Eight lighted Har-Tru courts host tournaments, social play, clinics and charity matches, with a Racquet Sports Shop and teaching pros on site. From November to April they stay open until 8 p.m. Monday to Thursday. Of six pickleball courts, four are LED-lit and open until 10 p.m.; the other two take first-come open play in rotating doubles.

What else fills a day inside the gate?

Pools, a gym and a lot of sidewalk. There are nine pools across the community, including the Clubhouse and Oasis pools, open dawn to dusk. The Cabana snack bar beside the clubhouse pool does breakfast sandwiches, light lunches and drinks every day, and aqua aerobics meets in that water.

The Activity Center holds cardio machines, weights, an aerobics studio and locker rooms, and your member card opens it from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. Group fitness classes come with membership. Outdoors, 45 lakes and ponds and 179 acres of preserve wrap the fairways and the homes, and sidewalks line about 6.5 miles of main road. The club asks walkers and joggers to stay on them, off the street.

How far is it to Bell Tower, downtown and the beach?

Errands are close by. From the Six Mile Cypress entrance, a Publix at the Shops at Village Walk is about three minutes, Gulf Coast Medical Center about seven and Bell Tower Shops about ten.

Downtown Fort Myers, at First and Hendry streets, is about 14 minutes outside rush hour. Southwest Florida International Airport's terminal is about 19. Times Square on Fort Myers Beach is 14.6 miles, roughly 26 minutes on a light-traffic day. Season traffic adds to every drive.

Terrace, Veranda, villa or house: what does each cost?

Four kinds of home share the gate, and they trade as separate markets. By the club's count there are 660 Terrace condominiums in four-story buildings, 544 two-story Veranda homes, 170 twin villas and 288 single-family homes. Sixty-nine of those houses are custom estates in the Enclave, which has a second gate inside the main one. Homes first went on sale in 1998, on what had been cattle pasture and a vegetable farm, and the developer sold its last one in 2006.

Terraces and Verandas are two-bedroom, two-bath homes, some with a den. By the club's floor plans, Terraces run 1,194 to just over 1,414 square feet and Verandas 1,333 to 1,661, while single-family homes run 2,000 to just over 3,300 and Enclave estates 2,800 to 5,000. Sold between April 2025 and October 2026:

• Terrace condominiums from the $190,000s to around $360,000
• Veranda homes from the $210,000s to around $500,000
• Villas from the $430,000s to around $600,000
• Single-family homes from the $690,000s to around $1.4 million

Golf comes with the house, so what is due at closing and each year?

Buying the home is how you join. In the club's own phrasing, "Heritage Palms is a gated and bundled golf community where membership and golf privileges are included with every home purchase." Club and master homeowners' association are one organization, run by the owners since 1 October 2005, and there's no golf tier to choose.

Golf is bundled, yet a resale buyer still owes the club money at closing: a capital assessment of about $7,500, put toward new capital items for the community, plus a transfer fee of about $500. Those are the club's 2026 charges, and the seller covers the estoppel fee.

The club's yearly dues and fees for 2026 come to about $9,400 per home, made up of master association dues, cable and internet, and a capital improvement program line. On top of that, each home must spend about $500 a year on food and drink at the club or is billed the shortfall on 31 December. The club resets these figures every January.

Then there's a second layer. Each home belongs to one of 41 neighborhood associations, handled by five management companies, and each one bills separately. Those fees aren't published and vary by association, so the club's total is never the whole bill. Ask the management company what your particular building or street charges.

What are the rules on leasing and on changes to a home?

No lease can be shorter than 28 consecutive days, and a neighborhood can set a tighter rule for its own homes. A tenant uses the club only through a transfer membership, which carries a fee of about $500 and puts the owner's own club use on hold while it's in force. Without one, the tenant comes in as the owner's guest.

Repainting, a new roof, hurricane shutters, a pool cage, pavers or a generator: all of it goes to the club's Architectural Review Committee before work starts.

What should a Terrace buyer ask for?

The building's latest structural inspection and reserve study. The Terraces are four-story condominium buildings dating from 1998 onward, old enough that Florida law requires periodic inspections and properly funded reserves. Whatever the last report found, and however much the association has put aside, will decide whether a Terrace fee holds or the owners face an extra bill. Club dues are identical across all 1,662 homes. This part of the cost is decided by each building's own association.