A Course With No Name…Yet

The developer of Highland Meadows plans another course

Colorado AvidGolfer

In 2018, for the first time since the nine-hole Berthoud Golf Club closed in the early 1940s, residents of the Larimer County town won’t have to go to Loveland or Longmont to play golf. Hillside Commercial Group, which 12 years ago developed the Highland Meadows golf community in Windsor (above), has already begun moving dirt on an 830-acre parcel in the foothills just west of the intersection of Taft Avenue and U.S. 287.

The development—called Heron Lakes in honor of the birds that nest near the Lonetree, Welch and McNeil reservoirs overlooked by the property—is zoned for more than 1,200 homes of varying sizes and prices, a possible boutique hotel, and, naturally, a golf course and clubhouse. As he did at Highland Meadows, erstwhile Keith Foster protégé Art Schaupeter will serve as course architect.

“It will be a big, broad course with a lot of fairway and very few trees.” says Schaupeter, who first saw the property a decade ago. “It will have the same sense of adventure, excitement and fun as Highland Meadows. There’ll be cool stuff architecturally—a Biarritz green, a risk-reward like No. 10 at Riviera.”

Schaupeter says the location, some 17 miles southwest of Windsor, will have a much greater relationship with the mountains than Highland Meadows does. 

“There’s a definite wow factor when you approach from the east,” he explains. “You’re behind the ridge and see nothing to the west except a big water tank. Then you get over the ridge, and the entire site unfurls in front of you. You see foothills rising up and you’re looking directly at Longs Peak. Everyone I’ve brought here lets out these audible wows.”

The clubhouse will sit atop that ridge, staring right at the fourteener and overlooking a layout that can stretch to more than 7,900 yards. That length suggests Hillside is courting more than just the average golfer. But those details—as well as the official name of the course and what Hillside VP of Real Estate Emily Kupec calls a “special partnership”—will remain undisclosed until this month’s groundbreaking ceremony.

Whether the course will be private or public, Kupec says, “depends on the development’s absorption rate.”

The Berthoud course looks as if it will be the first new layout to debut in the state this decade. The only other in the pipeline is the Fred Funk-designed RainDance National, located 15 miles northeast in Windsor and developed by the team behind Pelican Lakes Golf & Country Club.

More info: 970-204-9393

This article appeared in the May 2016 issue of Colorado AvidGolfer.

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Colorado AvidGolfer is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. It publishes eight issues annually and proudly delivers daily content via www.coloradoavidgolfer.com.