Desert Mountain

Desert Mountain, Scottsdale AZ: An Honest Community Overview

Desert Mountain is a guard-gated, private golf community at the far north edge of Scottsdale, off Cave Creek Road east of Pima Road, bordering the Tonto National Forest. It covers about 8,200 acres with roughly 2,000 homes spread across more than 40 separate villages, and it’s been around for nearly 40 years. It’s one of the most highly regarded private club communities in the country, with seven golf courses, multiple clubhouses, and a large private trail system. It’s also expensive to get into, has a waitlist for full golf and is a long way from almost everything else in the Valley (some think that's a great thing!). This is one of our personal favorite golf communities.

The Club: Member-Owned, and Mostly Optional

The Desert Mountain Club has been owned by its members since the developer handed it over at the end of 2010. That matters. Unlike corporate-owned clubs, members control the club’s direction, dues, and spending through an elected board.

In most of Desert Mountain, club membership is optional. You can buy a home and never join. The catch is that owning property inside Desert Mountain is the only way to become a member at all, and not every home comes with a membership. Some listings include one, some explicitly don’t, and the newest village, Seven, requires some level of membership for every homeowner.

Golf, and What It Costs

There are seven courses: six 18-hole Jack Nicklaus championship courses plus Seven, an 18-hole, par-54 course.

Full Golf Membership gives you all seven courses and four practice ranges. A recent listing put the initiation fee at $200,000, on top of monthly dues. For context, the same membership was priced at $140,000 when members took over the club in 2010.

The waitlist: Full golf memberships have a waitlist that can run years. The way around it is to buy a home whose seller is transferring a full membership. At the end of 2025, about 80 homes for sale came with membership access. Expect to pay for that convenience in the home price.

Seven membership costs roughly two-thirds of a full membership. It includes unlimited play on the par-54 Seven course, all the restaurants and non-golf amenities, and up to six rounds a year on the other six courses as a member’s guest. You can upgrade to full golf through the waitlist.

Every membership requires an application and board approval, which takes about 30 to 45 days. Be sure to think about this when you're making an offer.

Amenities Beyond Golf

Members get multiple clubhouses with about 10 restaurants, the Sonoran Health and Fitness Spa, a tennis complex, and roughly 20 miles of private trails bordering the national forest. If you don’t join the club, you don’t get these. Your HOA dues cover the gates, streets, and common grounds, not club amenities.