Why The Old Lake Club Gates Now Say Miramar, Not Sherwood

Drive down Williamsburg Way this month and the first thing you notice is the sign. For as long as most residents can remember, the entrance read Sherwood Lake Club, plain as the mailbox numbers on the fairway homes it sits behind. Now it reads something else. Construction equipment has been visible behind the fence for months as renovation work moves through the property. If you have been wondering what exactly is going up behind those gates, or whether it has anything to do with the golf course your own neighborhood is named for, the answer involves a billionaire mall developer, a Friday afternoon phone call, and a rebrand that is still missing one important detail: an actual opening date.

Two Clubs, One Address People Keep Confusing

Start with what has not changed. Sherwood Country Club, the private, invitation-only Jack Nicklaus championship course that anchors Sherwood Golf & Country Club Estates, is untouched by any of this. It still runs its own 375 golf memberships and 175 tennis memberships, still hosts its own calendar, still belongs to its own ownership group. If your address sits inside the gated Estates community built around that course, nothing about your club membership or your access has shifted.

What is under construction is a separate institution a short drive away at 341 Williamsburg Way. Sherwood Lake Club has operated for decades as its own thing, with an 18-hole par-3 course, tennis, a pool, and a clubhouse that opened its doors to a different, broader membership than the country club next door. For years it was owned by David H. Murdock, the former Dole Food Company CEO who built much of the surrounding Sherwood development. Murdock died in June 2025. Less than a year later, the Lake Club has a new owner, a new name, and a construction fence.

The Friday Call That Started It

The buyer is Rick Caruso, the developer behind The Grove, the Americana at Brand, and the Rosewood Miramar Beach resort in Montecito. Public records confirm his company closed on Sherwood Lake Club in February 2026, and Caruso has been candid about how fast it moved. He told The Hollywood Reporter the deal came together almost by accident.

"It was offered to me on a Friday afternoon, and we signed the paperwork on Tuesday."

Caruso has said he had never actually walked the Lake Club before agreeing to buy it, though he knew Murdock personally and trusted the quality of what Murdock had built. By July 7, 2026, Caruso's company made the purchase official with a press release unveiling the property under its new name: The Miramar Lake Club, a direct nod to the Rosewood Miramar Beach brand in Montecito.

What's Actually Getting Built

The renovation touches nearly every part of the property. According to Caruso's own announcement, the plans include:

• An expanded 18,000-square-foot clubhouse
• A signature restaurant concept, with the chef still to be announced
• A relocated, resort-style pool designed to open up more outdoor space
• A refreshed, fully equipped gym
• A wellness center overlooking the golf course
• Retained tennis courts

Some early reporting out of local coverage described the incoming restaurant as Italian-themed, but Caruso's own press materials stop short of confirming a cuisine, only promising an announcement in the coming months. Worth knowing if you hear a specific menu concept repeated as fact around the neighborhood before Caruso's team says so officially.

The golf course itself is the part locals may undersell. It is a Jack Nicklaus design known as a "Bear's Best" par-3 layout, and Nicklaus has only ever built two of them in the world. This is the only one in the United States. Caruso played it himself before the announcement and called it "a little jewel," noting he finished all 18 holes in about two and a half hours using just three or four clubs, a pace that stands out next to a typical four-hour round on a full championship course.

The Old Rule That Decided Who Got In

Here is the detail most coverage of the sale has skipped past. Under Murdock's ownership, access to Sherwood Lake Club was not open to every resident of the broader Sherwood community. Membership followed lot location. Class A memberships, the tier that came with full use of the club, were capped at 185 and reserved specifically for homeowners on lots that directly bordered the lake. If your property sat elsewhere in the neighborhood, including inside the gated Golf & Country Club Estates, your relationship to the Lake Club looked different than it did for your lakefront neighbors.

Caruso has not said publicly whether that lot-based structure survives the transition to Miramar Lake Club. His comments so far have focused on hospitality and design rather than membership mechanics, though he has mentioned that members of his existing Miramar Beach Club in Montecito, and eventually residents of a planned luxury apartment building tied to the Commons at Calabasas expansion, will share access to the new Sherwood property as part of what he calls his club ecosystem. Whether that widens or narrows the invite list for current Lake Sherwood homeowners is still an open question, and one worth asking directly if lake access has always been part of your daily routine.

So When Does It Actually Open

This is where the timeline gets genuinely confusing, and it is worth clearing up since it is the question most neighbors are asking. In a July interview, Caruso told The Hollywood Reporter his team was "slating mid-August to be open" and would "announce the official date soon." That interview ran alongside news that his Palisades Village project, damaged in the January 2025 fires, had a confirmed reopening date of August 15, 2026.

But Caruso's own official press release for the Lake Club, issued the same week, only commits to a fall 2026 opening, a noticeably softer target than "mid-August." As of today, no formal reopening date for Miramar Lake Club has been announced. If a neighbor tells you the club is opening this month, that claim is ahead of anything Caruso's company has confirmed in writing. The safest assumption right now is fall, with the exact date still to come.

For a community that has watched this property sit quiet for over a year, the wait is almost over, even if nobody outside Caruso's office knows exactly which week that means yet.

If you want to talk through what any of this means for your specific corner of Sherwood, or you are simply curious how the neighborhood's rhythms are shifting as the Lake Club comes back online, the Jaime Krupnick team lives and works in this community and is always happy to talk shop. Request a Private Consultation whenever you are ready.