Two homes inside Spanish Peaks can share the same square footage, the same architect, the same ski-in ski-out orientation, and land within a rounding error of each other on price. One of them costs the next owner about half a million dollars more to actually use. That gap does not appear on the listing sheet, and it is not a negotiation error. It is the club.
I walk buyers through this every season, and the pattern is consistent: people arrive focused on the deed and leave focused on the membership. The membership is where the economics live.
The number that is not on the listing
Spanish Peaks Mountain Club publishes two membership categories, Social and Signature Golf. The club's own dues schedule lists the current terms:
| Category | Deposit | Annual dues (family) | Semi-annual dues |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signature Golf | $200,000 | $24,000 | $12,000 |
| Social | $100,000 | $17,000 | $8,500 |
Those numbers are the entry price to the amenity set most buyers assume they are already buying when they tour a home. For context on how far this bar has moved, when CrossHarbor Capital Partners and Boyne Resorts took the club out of its 2011 bankruptcy in 2013, new-member deposits were $40,000 for golf and ski and $20,000 for social, with annual dues of $9,500 and $6,500 respectively. In roughly a decade, the deposit line has grown fivefold. That is not inflation. It is the club repricing access as the surrounding real estate has appreciated.
Treat those figures as a floor rather than a ceiling. Clubs at this tier commonly reserve the right to levy capital contributions and special assessments, which is why a serious offer packet asks for both the current dues schedule and the club's most recent capital plan.
The deed and the club are two different assets
Here is the friction that catches new buyers off guard. Owning a home inside Spanish Peaks does not automatically grant you the full amenity set. As the club's own public materials on skiing and golf access make plain, one home does not grant access to the golf course. Access is a separate contract, and it is priced separately.
That distinction matters in three practical ways.
Category mismatch. A Social Membership includes the clubhouse with ski-in ski-out access to Big Sky Resort, hiking and mountain-bike trails, tennis and pickleball, youth programs, guided activities, concierge service, and access to Montage Big Sky. What it does not include is unrestricted golf. Under Social, golf is limited and comes with a fee. If your buying thesis is built around summer rounds on the Tom Weiskopf Signature 18 or the Tom's 10 Par 3, Social membership will not deliver the year you are imagining, and the upgrade to Signature Golf is a six-figure decision.
Transferability. Club membership is contractual and often voluntary unless the recorded documents for that specific parcel make it a condition of ownership. Some Spanish Peaks properties carry a membership requirement baked into the CC&Rs. Others leave it optional. Two neighbors on the same cul-de-sac can hold entirely different obligations, and the seller across the table from you may not know which category their own home falls into until title pulls the recorded documents.
HOA overlap. Most Spanish Peaks parcels sit inside an HOA and also interact with the club. The HOA collects mandatory assessments for roads, common areas, and design review. The club collects deposits, dues, and capital calls for amenities. They are governed by different documents and different boards. A well-run diligence process pulls both sets in parallel, including the HOA's CC&Rs, budget, reserve study, delinquency report, and the last twelve to twenty-four months of meeting minutes, alongside the club's membership agreement, category schedule, transfer rules, and any published capital plan.
The product mix is doing work the price tag is not
Spanish Peaks sells four fundamentally different products under one gate, and each carries its own club logic.
Custom homes on existing sites. These are the properties dominating the resale MLS. As of late June 2026, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices listed nine Spanish Peaks homes at an average price of $4,787,667. That average sits well above the broader Big Sky median list price of just over $3 million reported at year-end 2025, which is exactly what you would expect from a gated club community.
Design-build homesites. Highlands West and Powdercrest are the current lot inventories. A representative Highlands West parcel, Lot 2, runs 1.70 acres on gently rolling terrain within a short walk of the clubhouse, the two Weiskopf courses, and the coming Aspire Lodge member amenity building. Buying a lot means underwriting three things at once: the land, the eventual build cost at Big Sky material and labor rates, and the club deposit. Skip any one of those in your model and you will misread the total commitment by a wide margin.
Finish-package builds. Inspiration Point is the middle path. The offering pairs a designed home with three finish packages and available furnishing packages, which compresses the design timeline and lets a buyer close on a defined product without running a custom build.
Fractional deeded interests. The Inn Residences at Montage Big Sky are sold as deeded one-quarter ownership interests in fully furnished three- and four-bedroom residences. An underground pathway connects the building directly to Montage amenities, and the ownership form carries Montage Residential access plus Spanish Peaks membership benefits. This is the lowest-friction way into the club footprint. It is also a fundamentally different asset than a single-family home, with different resale dynamics, different rental economics, and different membership mechanics.
What the current market is quietly rewarding
The Gallatin Valley is in the middle of the most pronounced power shift local practitioners have seen since 2019. The June 2026 update from a Berkshire Hathaway team in Bozeman reported 792 active listings in that submarket, with mortgage rates holding in the 6.4 to 6.9 percent range and homes routinely sitting for weeks where they once cleared in a weekend. Big Sky's luxury segment is not Bozeman, but the psychology travels up the canyon.
What that means at Spanish Peaks: buyers finally have room to run diligence at their own pace. Two years ago a full club-and-HOA document pull could feel like a deal killer. In the current market, sellers with clean documents will accept a longer inspection and due diligence window because their alternative is a lower price. Use the time.
Before you write the offer
The specific items I ask for on any Spanish Peaks transaction:
- Confirmation from the club, in writing, of the membership category tied to the property and whether it transfers automatically at closing or requires application and approval.
- The current deposit and dues schedule, plus any pending capital assessments or special calls the club has voted on but not yet billed.
- The residence-specific rules for spouse, children, and extended family use, and for guest privileges when the owner is not on property.
- For Montage-adjacent interests, the exact scope of Montage access, room rate discounts, and priority booking windows.
- HOA package with CC&Rs, articles, bylaws, adopted budget, reserve study, delinquency report, and twelve to twenty-four months of minutes.
- Title work confirming any recorded easements or declarations that tie club rights to the parcel itself.
- For any home with rental history, a management agreement and revenue detail that separates owner-use nights from rented nights.
That list is longer than what a standard Montana purchase requires, and that is the point. The extra pages are where the real price lives.
Questions I hear most often
Is Signature Golf worth the extra deposit? Only if your household will use it. The upgrade is roughly $100,000 of deposit and $7,000 of annual dues over Social. If you will play twenty rounds a season on the Weiskopf courses with immediate family, the math tightens fast. If golf is occasional, Social plus per-round fees is often the more honest choice.
Can I buy at Spanish Peaks without joining the club at all? Sometimes. Membership requirements are recorded on a parcel-by-parcel basis. Some homes carry no obligation. Others tie membership to ownership through the CC&Rs. Do not assume either way until title confirms.
How does the fractional interest at The Inn Residences compare on carry cost? Fractional ownership spreads the deposit, dues, taxes, and management fees across four owners per residence, which lowers the per-owner annual carry substantially. It also caps your use to your fractional share, and it changes the resale market you are underwriting.
If you are working through a specific home, lot, or fractional interest inside Spanish Peaks and want the club math run against the deed math before you write an offer, reach out to Callie Pecunies for a personalized Big Sky market valuation and a walk-through of the current inventory that fits your use case.
