Amenitized is not a word in the dictionary, but it is used from time to time in golf-industry circles, and its meaning isn’t difficult to construe. It refers to a club’s relationship to non-golf extras — the services, attractions and experiences that add to a property’s allure.
Expectations around amenities have changed over the years. Swimming pools and tennis courts, upscale perks of the past, now come so standard they barely merit mention. Even comfort stations with restaurant-worthy cuisine no longer count as novelties — not in an age when drones can air-drop drinks to foursomes on the course.
In a highly competitive market, what counts as the country’s most amenitized club? That’s hard to quantify. But a new development in Texas is making a strong case.
Loraloma at Thomas Ranch is a private resort community, situated in Hill Country, outside Austin. For golfers, its main attraction will be a championship course by Bandon Dunes designer David McLay Kidd, his first project in the Lone Star State. True to Kidd’s reputation for a lay-of-the-land work, the course, which is slated for completion in the fall of 2024, seizes on the contours of rollicking terrain.
Golf architects, Kidd says, “love working with edges, especially when those edges happen to be water.” His routing at Loraloma has plenty of those, with half of its holes running along the Pedernales River, where it feeds Lake Travis, on a site studded with live oaks and rock outcrops, and rippled with gulches, ravines and ridges, which give way to unspoiled views. The course, Kidd says, “is meant to be an exploration of a compelling landscape.”
About those amenities, though. Like the course, they are inspired largely by their surrounds. In a community that covers some 2,200 acres, more than half the land will be devoted to open space, including 40-plus miles of hiking and biking trails, and more than two-miles of riverfront, within minutes of homeowners’ doorsteps. Swimming pools? Sure. But also a classic swimming hole called Limestone Gulch, replete with rope swings and wooden rafts. This is Texas Hill Country, and Loraloma, which means “lore of the land,” aims to tease out the story of a community at one with nature. A fishing pond, stocked with a variety of local species, will be staffed by professional anglers, offering private lessons. A community farm and orchard, along with a greenhouse, will provide residences and restaurants throughout Loraloma with seasonal fruits, vegetables and herbs, year round.
Close ties to local culture are part of the story, too. A private amphitheater, tucked against a hillside, will serve as an extension of Austin’s thriving music and theater scene with a rich calendar of live performances and events. A state-of-the art recording studio, equipped with a writer’s room and listening lounge, will allow members to shape their sound.
