Kelly Greens Golf & Country Club

Range balls cost members nothing at Kelly Greens, so hit as many as you like from more than 20 grass stations, aiming at six target greens with bunkers of their own. After that comes the short-game area, for chipping and working out of the sand, and then a putting green of 9,000 square feet beside the clubhouse, looking onto the 15th and 18th holes. Out on the course, the carts carry GPS yardages.

Gordon Lewis laid out the course, 18 holes and par 72 with eight sets of tees, over 124 acres of palms and water. The homes were clustered so that the fairways stay open to lake views, and five miles of cart path wind between them with just one street to cross from the front nine to the back. A concrete perimeter wall wraps the whole thing off Summerlin Road in south-west Fort Myers: 939 homes on 300 acres, reached through four gates that only residents use.

Who runs the golf, and what can you join?

The pro shop. Its PGA professionals give private lessons, weekly group clinics and club fittings, and the same staff organize the club's golf associations and leagues, set the calendar of club tournaments, and look after regripping and club storage.

Between May and October the membership stretches beyond the gate, to a list of partner clubs around the region that changes each year.

What is there to do off the course?

Tennis, for a start. The central courts are Har-Tru clay, at the heart of Kelly Greens, and USPTA professionals run lessons and clinics there. Several neighborhoods also keep tennis and pickleball courts of their own.

Everything else gathers at the clubhouse. You can eat inside or out on the patio, and an Activity Center, a pool and a gym for fitness are joined to it in a single complex. The club's calendar runs from trivia nights and card games to aqua fitness classes.

And there's the wildlife. The club's nature gallery shows ospreys, bald eagles, roseate spoonbills, wood storks, ibis and herons, each one photographed around its own lakes and fairways.

How far is the beach from Kelly Greens?

Lynn Hall Memorial Park, on Fort Myers Beach, is 4.5 miles by road from the clubhouse, about an 11-minute drive outside rush hour. Lighthouse Beach Park on Sanibel is 8.7 miles away over the Sanibel Causeway, about 18 minutes.

Errands are closer. There's a Publix on San Carlos Boulevard about 1.5 miles off, roughly 6 minutes, and another on Summerlin Road about 1.6 miles away, roughly 5 minutes. HealthPark Medical Center takes about 9 minutes and Bell Tower Shops about 16. Downtown Fort Myers and the River District, like Gulf Coast Town Center, is about 27 minutes away, and the RSW terminal about 31. Those are clear-road times, and in season every one of them runs longer.

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

The club sorts its 939 homes into five kinds. Three are two-bedroom condominiums, 322 Verandas, 180 Manors and 210 Terraces, while the other two are houses: 117 single-family homes and 110 detached villas. The club describes them this way:

• Single-family homes have three or more bedrooms, some pass 3,000 square feet, and many have a screened pool.
• Detached villas have three bedrooms, two baths and a two-car garage, and their association takes care of the outside.
• Verandas each come with a garage of their own.
• Manors and Terraces share a building type, 30 homes to a building with elevators and covered carports, and the Terraces are the smaller of the two.

Some of the homes were built as early as 1987, and no more are being built, since the borders and the layout are settled.

Condominiums and houses sell in separate bands, and condominiums have sold from the $140,000s to around $400,000. Single-family houses mostly sold from the $250,000s to around $650,000, and one larger house sold well above that.

Is golf included when you buy at Kelly Greens?

Membership is, and that is what the club means by "bundled." A membership is deeded with each home, which opens the course, the courts and the clubhouse to a buyer from the day of closing without a waitlist. The homeowners own the club outright between them, each holding an equal share.

Rounds aren't free, though. Members pay a standard cart fee each time they play, and the only way around it is a nine-hole walk in the club's late-afternoon window. In the busy months tee times are handed out by lottery, which spreads the morning and afternoon starts across the membership. If a fixed morning time every day in season is the reason to buy here, understand the lottery first.

Then there's the entry cost. Buying in brings a new member fee, charged once and collected at closing, and the club puts that money toward capital improvements without publishing the amount. It's settled along with everything else at closing, so get the figure in hand before you bid.

What does owning a home here cost each year?

It comes in two layers. Every one of the 939 homes pays the same Master Association assessment, billed quarterly, which pays for upkeep of the private roads, the golf course and clubhouse, and all 300 acres, with part set aside in a reserve.

Each neighborhood then charges its own association fee, and here condominiums and houses part ways. Condominium fees cover things like the neighborhood pool, building insurance and exterior upkeep. Single-family owners insure and maintain their own houses and pay their sub-association little or nothing. Because the two totals are built so differently, find out both layers for the specific home from its associations.

Can you rent out a home at Kelly Greens?

Yes, for a month or longer at a time. Tenants follow the Master Association's rules and those of their own neighborhood association, and they can play the course as well, paying a combined golf and cart fee.

Those rules are set by owners. An elected Master Board of Directors runs the community, with owner committees on finance, amenities and long-term planning, and a professional General Manager runs the club from day to day.