Picacho Hills Country Club

Picacho Hills Country Club sits at the base of Picacho Peak on the far western edge of Las Cruces, in Doña Ana County, anchoring a neighborhood of roughly 800 to 950 homes spread across a mix of gated and ungated subdivisions. The club has operated continuously since the 1970s under a series of owners -- most recently the Biad family for decades, then Spirit Golf Management Southwest, which took over club operations in March 2019 and finalized its purchase of the property on September 1, 2020 after a prolonged liquor-license process during the COVID-19 pandemic. (An earlier, unrelated 2018 report of a nonprofit-led purchase attempt did not materialize and should not be confused with the actual Spirit Golf Management Southwest acquisition.) As of this research, Spirit Golf Management itself was reported to have been acquired by The Sports Facilities Companies, adding another layer to the club's ownership chain worth independent confirmation by a buyer.

What makes Picacho Hills Country Club a genuine golf-residential anchor rather than an ordinary semi-private course with houses nearby is a documented, first-party-sourced bundling mechanism specific to new construction: the developer's own picachomountain.com states plainly that 'optional Picacho Hills Country Club membership benefits are available on all new estate lots and estate homes in Picacho Mountain,' reserved for the eventual resident-owner rather than a builder or investor, with no cash value that can be sold, traded, or deducted from the purchase price. This applies to Picacho Mountain's actively-marketed new-construction phases -- including the gated enclave 'The Willows at Picacho Mountain' and Phase II neighborhoods Las Estancias II, Stonegate, and Montecito -- but does not appear to extend to older, previously-built Picacho Hills subdivisions such as Fairway Village or Coronado Ridge, where multiple independent sources instead describe club membership as simply 'optional and not required to purchase a home,' the same open-to-anyone structure a buyer would find at any semi-private club.

As of January 1, 2026, the club also began welcoming limited public tee times after 10 a.m. (bookable up to seven days out), and opened its upstairs bar and restaurant to all guests -- a real, recent loosening of access that buyers should understand: Picacho Hills remains a dues-paying membership club with a real bundled-benefit mechanism for new Picacho Mountain construction, not a club that has gone fully public.