La Valle Coastal Club’s $50 million upgrade aims for more casual, active and social experience

La Valle Coastal Club’s $50 million renovation is substantially complete, reimagining the club’s golf, social, dining and wellness facilities, with additional enhancements still to come.

Meriwether Companies, a private resort real estate and development firm, purchased the 225-acre Rancho Santa Fe property formerly known as Morgan Run in 2023 and set off on a complete transformation of the club. The response to the changes has been positive—in the last three years, they have nearly doubled their membership roll, growing from 900 to 1,700.

“We saw an incredible opportunity to honor what has made this property a special part of the Rancho Santa Fe community for decades while creating something that reflects the evolution of how people want to spend their time today,” said Dave Likins, partner of Meriwether Companies and Solana Beach resident in a news release. “La Valle is built around staying active, enjoying time outdoors and coming together. You can play 18 holes in the morning, meet friends for lunch, spend the afternoon at the pool or the Verde wellness center, and end the night over cocktails. It’s a club experience, but one that feels distinctly San Diego.”

The main clubhouse entry has a whole new look: Gone is the old clock tower, replaced with modern white and black. The main lobby was lightened up, the dark woods and leather swapped for white and natural wood with coastal-inspired light fixtures, furniture and artwork. The lobby welcomes both club members and guests checking in for the Guesthouse Hotel, the club’s 77-room boutique hotel that opened last summer.

The main entrance to La Valle Coastal Club. (Karen Billing)

Large scale murals have been added to the hotel and club exteriors. In one brightly colored Andy Davis original, the well-known surf artist depicted golfers and the property’s iconic palms.

The overall transformation reflects La Valle Coastal Club’s vision to move away from the “stuffier” conventions of the traditional country club toward a more casual, active and social experience.

“We took the ‘Country’ out of the name; we’re not like your old school country club,” said General Manager Fernando Fry. “We’re still a very, very elevated experience…but without the imposition of strict dress codes and rules that are not fun.”

One of the club’s biggest overhauls was on the 27-hole golf course, with improvements on every hole and expanded practice facilities.

The former East Course, now known as Olivos, was completely re-done with a new routing spanning an additional 20 acres, with new greens, fairways, bunkers and tee boxes. Cedros, formerly the North Course, got all new bunkers and Palmas, formerly the South Course, features new grassing, routing and a new signature hole where golfers play alongside a lake before reaching an elevated green, according to the news release.

The old driving range, prone to flooding due to its location near the San Dieguito River, was moved and replaced a new range with 40 hitting bays, new bunkers, target greens and fairway landing zone. They added a new 12,000-square-foot practice putting green and a 5,000-square-foot social putting green right off the steps of the clubhouse patio where families and friends can play around while enjoying food or drinks.

Inside the accompanying pro shop, members can shop both modern lifestyle brands and golf-centric brands—they are the only club to sell logoed Vuori gear.

Hidden behind a door in the pro shop that disappears into the plaid wallpaper wall is the speakeasy-style lounge and Swing Suite. Inside, there is a Full Swing golf simulator and member liquor lockers, where members can stash a bottle to enjoy in a more secluded spot and play virtual golf or other sports.

The club’s new restaurant Gather California Kitchen recently opened and has revitalized the space as a social hub, Fry said.

On a recent weekday afternoon, each of the restaurant’s dining experiences was buzzing with activity—post-golf and pickleball, members gathered at the bar and enjoyed a bite in the lounge and outside on the deck. A new, slightly more formal dining room separate from the lounge takes advantage of a previously underutilized space with a collection of tables with sweeping golf course views out of the large picture windows.

Among the club enhancements, Fry said he is very proud of how the new Verde Wellness Center turned out, with offerings in the gym, new Pilates and group fitness studios, and a new spa focused on recovery and longevity.

The spa used to be a grouping of smaller treatment rooms but they took that space and created something totally new—a traditional dry sauna and a contrast therapy circuit with cold plunges and infrared saunas.

The club also offers its members two Lumati wellness stations, one bed and one stand-up portal —the system uses multi-spectrum light therapy, vibration massage, hydrogen breath therapy and vagus nerve stimulation which can help treat inflammation, chronic pain, injuries and reduce stress. La Valle Coastal Club is one of only three venues in Southern California to offer the Lumati suite.

“I’m really proud of that because it’s so ahead of the curve in the market and it’s so good for your body,” Fry said.

Improvements are still underway at the club’s racquet sports building, near their eight-lit tennis courts, two Padel courts and 12 pickleball courts that are always in action with social play, private instruction, clinics and league play. The building, now under construction, will feature new locker rooms and an courtside indoor-outdoor bar designed like a “laid-back 1970s vintage So Cal pub.”

Later this month, construction will also begin on an upgrade of the club’s pool deck. Located near the Verde Wellness Center, there will be a new resort pool and family pool, maintaining lanes for swimming fitness.

The club also hopes to kick off construction by the end of this year on its residential element on a long vacant property on the edge of the Whispering Palms community. The development, originally entitled back in the 1980s but never built, will be nine casitas, each owned by four owners under a fractional ownership model.

For more information, visit lavallecoastalclub.com