Tehama Golf Club vs Santa Lucia Preserve: Two Clean Proximity≠Access Cases Above Carmel

Tehama is a compact, roughly 90-homesite gated community developed by Clint Eastwood around a single Jay Morrish-designed course (opened 1999, 6,506 yards) -- a prior draft of this comparison incorrectly attributed the design to Jack Nicklaus; Morrish had worked for the Nicklaus design organization years earlier but designed Tehama independently. Santa Lucia Preserve is dramatically larger -- roughly 20,000 acres with about 90% permanently protected under conservation easement, and roughly 297 homesites clustered to minimize footprint -- with a single Tom Fazio-designed course, The Preserve Golf Club, at its center.

At Tehama, club membership (reported at roughly 300 members) is a separate, invitation-based process distinct from the homesite purchase; no fee schedule is publicly disclosed. At Santa Lucia Preserve, only Preserve property owners are even eligible to apply for Golf Club membership -- but eligibility to apply is explicitly not the same as automatic membership; owners must still apply and be approved. Santa Lucia Preserve's own membership page discloses a $150,000 initiation fee and roughly $11,200/year dues for Golf Club membership, plus a lower-cost, non-golf Ranch Club tier ($35,000 initiation, $4,750/year) covering equestrian, fitness, and lake amenities.