Forest Glen Golf & Country Club

The week at Forest Glen has a shape. In season, Monday opens with duplicate bridge and a 9 o'clock water aerobics class in the clubhouse pool, and it ends with happy-hour dining in the Main Dining Room. Wednesday brings mah jong in the afternoon and bocce league on the clay courts until 9. Friday repeats the pool class and the mah jong tables, then the dining room opens again for club dining. Through all of it, the fitness center stays open around the clock.

Behind the calendar sits the golf course, 18 holes by Arthur Hills and Steve Forrest, reworked by Ron Forse Design in 2024, on land the club says was a pine forest and a hunting preserve before it was built. The club gives the site as 630 acres east of Collier Boulevard in East Naples and counts 799 residences on it. One road leads in, Forest Glen Boulevard, turning east off Collier Boulevard, with gates a short way along it. The club describes Forest Glen as "a gated, membership-inclusive community", which by the club's account means golf membership comes with living here rather than being bought separately.

How does the Forest Glen course play?

It measures 6,820 yards from the championship tees, and it has been reworked twice since 1999. Gordon Lewis laid out the original course when the club opened in 1999. Arthur Hills and Steve Forrest redesigned it, and their course opened on December 1, 2008.

The 2024 work, in the club's 25th year, renovated that course; it isn't a new one. Ron Forse Design reshaped the layout and changed the grasses, putting TifEagle on the greens, TifGrand on the surrounds, and Sea Isle Supreme paspalum everywhere else. The practice area was updated too, with a large putting green, a dedicated short-game area and several hitting bays on the driving range.

Plan summer golf around Mondays, because from May through October the course, the golf shop and the clubhouse all close that day.

What is there to play besides golf?

Pickleball has four dedicated lighted courts, with loaner paddles and balls kept beside them and open play every day. A USPTA-certified professional gives clinics and one-to-one lessons. The club also enters teams in two divisions of the East Naples Pickleball Inter-League, on top of its own in-club competition and social mixers.

Bocce is played on clay, with the equipment left courtside. From 4 to 9 in the evening, Sunday through Wednesday, the courts are held for league play, drinks are served, and each year ends with playoff winners. The club runs a tennis program as well.

Away from the courts, the calendar is cards and crafts. Duplicate bridge fills Monday mornings from November to April. Mah jong meets on Wednesday and Friday afternoons all year. A fiber arts group knits, crochets and quilts in the Tee Room, a book club works through a published season schedule, and there are card games besides. For a walk, a run or a bike ride, a paved path winds through the preserve.

Where do you eat at Forest Glen?

There are two places to eat, and they don't keep the same nights. The Main Dining Room, inside a clubhouse enlarged in a renovation finished in October 2008, serves dinner on Monday and Friday evenings from October through April. Monday is billed as happy-hour dining and Friday as club dining. From May through September the nights move to Tuesday and Friday.

Eagles Nest, the outdoor restaurant, sits between the 9th and 18th holes, right beside the clubhouse. In season it serves lunch every day from 11 and dinner every evening. In summer it shuts on Mondays along with the course and the clubhouse.

How far is Forest Glen from the beach and downtown?

There's no beach in Forest Glen. The closest Gulf beach by road is at the Naples Pier, about 9.4 miles from the Forest Glen Boulevard entrance, roughly 18 minutes with no traffic. Other drives from the same gate:

• Physicians Regional Medical Center on Collier Boulevard, about 3.3 miles, around 7 minutes
• Fifth Avenue South, about 8.6 miles, around 16 minutes
• NCH Baker Hospital downtown, about 9 miles, around 17 minutes
• Mercato, about 14 miles, around 22 minutes
• Tigertail Beach on Marco Island, about 16 miles, around 30 minutes
• Southwest Florida International Airport terminal, about 31.5 miles, around 39 minutes

Those times assume free-flowing roads, and season traffic adds to every one of them.

What can you buy at Forest Glen, and for how much?

The club lists executive homes, estates, twin villas, coach homes, garden homes and condominiums. The condominium buildings come in two sizes: low-rise blocks of up to three stories, and mid-rise buildings of four to seven. The earliest homes go back to 1999, the year the club opened.

What sells is mostly condominiums and attached villas, from about 1,150 to about 2,200 square feet with 2 to 3 bedrooms. The executive homes and estates barely appear among those sales, so that size range describes the condominiums and villas, not the largest houses in Forest Glen.

Prices split by building type. Mid-rise condominiums sold from the $240,000s to around $450,000. Low-rise condominiums from the $280,000s to around $650,000. Attached villas and detached houses from the $470,000s to around $800,000. The bands overlap, with the villas and houses beginning roughly where the condominiums stop.

Who runs Forest Glen, and what should you budget each month?

The club and the community are one organization here. Its mission statement calls Forest Glen a "common interest country club community", and a master set of documents sits over separate documents for what the club calls its individual enclaves. So most buyers answer to two bodies: the club-run master body, and a neighborhood or condominium association for their own enclave. Ask for both sets of documents before you commit, not just the club's.

For planning, budget around $1,300 a month in association charges. It's a figure drawn from the upper end of the charges homes here carry, not the middle, so most owners pay less and some pay a good deal less. Treat it as a budget line, not a quote for any one address.