Wilderness Country Club

Wilderness Country Club is 300 residences on a golf course off Goodlette-Frank Road in Naples, behind a gated entrance. All 300 are condominiums, not houses and not villas. Twenty-eight buildings, three stories each, stand in clusters around the course. Building ran from 1977 to 1979 and stopped there, so a resale is the only way in.

Eleven separate condominium associations run this community, named Wilderness Country Club I through XI, and each one bills its own owners. The consequence shows up at the offer stage: there's no community-wide fee to look up, and what one owner pays is no guide to the home next door.

What kind of home are you buying at Wilderness?

One of four original floor plans, in a three-story building with unit numbers running in the 100s, 200s and 300s. The four aren't evenly spread. Half the community, 150 homes, is the smallest of the four at about 1,530 square feet. Eighty-two homes take the next plan up, 46 the one above that, and 18 the largest, so the smallest plan is what usually comes up for sale. Homes have two or three bedrooms, and the plans run from about 1,530 to about 2,700 square feet. One home is about 3,480 square feet, the result of two units being combined, and no other home here is that size.

What have homes sold for at Wilderness?

Sales here start in the $210,000s. The top of the sold record reaches around $1.1 million, a span that describes what has changed hands rather than a ceiling on the community.

Which association bills the home you want?

One of the eleven, and which one follows from the building. Each association holds two or three of the 28 buildings and collects from those owners. So the money question has to be asked about a single address: which association covers it, what that association bills, and on what schedule. A figure quoted for another building in the community is not an answer to it.

What should you know about buildings from the 1970s?

They are close to fifty years old, which is why Florida puts condominium buildings like these on a cycle of structural inspection. All eleven associations completed that inspection in 2023, and the next one falls due in 2033. A completed inspection is not a clean inspection. It also says nothing about whether the money for the repairs is set aside. Ask for the report on the building itself, and ask what the association holds in reserve. A repair bill a board cannot meet from reserves becomes a special assessment, divided among that association's owners.

What is there to do inside Wilderness?

The course is eighteen holes and was designed by Arthur Hills. Five swimming pools are spread through the property instead of sitting together at the clubhouse. The clubhouse holds three separate dining venues, and there is tennis.

What should you settle before making an offer?

Five things, and every one of them is answered by the individual home rather than by the community:

• Which association the building belongs to, what it bills and how often.
• Whether club membership is required of an owner, and what joining costs.
• Any charge that falls on a buyer at closing, from the club or from the association.
• The 2023 inspection report on the exact building, and the money held against what it says.
• Pets and leasing, as that association writes the rules.

Five streets serve the community: Wilderness Drive, Wilderness Way, Clubhouse Drive, Clubhouse Lane and Tall Pine Lane. None of them carries traffic anywhere else, and no public road runs through. The buildings sit in clusters around the course, which accounts for about 150 acres of the property.