Frenchman's Creek in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, takes first place among new clubhouses in Golf Inc's 2026 Clubhouse of the Year
Peacock + Lewis designed a British Regency clubhouse for Frenchman's Creek Beach and Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and raised it 30 inches against flooding. Golf Inc's judges have given the building first place among new clubhouses for 2026.
Frenchman's Creek Beach and Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, has taken first place in the New Clubhouse category of Golf Inc's 2026 Clubhouse of the Year competition. The building is the work of Peacock + Lewis, which handled both architecture and interior design, with Proctor Construction as contractor.
The project dates to 2022, when members approved a $74 million clubhouse to replace the club's previous building, a figure also reported in the club's GlobeNewswire announcement. The upper level held a grand opening in mid-December 2025.
Peacock + Lewis looked to British Regency architecture for the design, a choice that brings classical composure and a sense of order to a subtropical setting. Clerestory towers and advanced glazing pull natural light and course views deep into the interiors. The plan is organized across two main levels, with golf, tennis, and fitness on the lower floor and dining and event spaces on the upper, so the club's active life and its social life each have a floor of their own. Shaded loggias and colonnaded walkways ease the passage between indoors and out while letting daylight reach well into the rooms.
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Much of the design's intelligence sits where members will never look. The clubhouse is elevated 30 inches to reduce flood risk, and its stormwater system controls runoff during storms, then stores that water for reuse in irrigation. Waterproofing and the absence of basement walls keep moisture out of the structure, which Golf Inc notes also lowers the energy cost of climate control. In South Florida, that kind of quiet engineering matters as much as anything visible from the dining room.
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The judging panel paired Mark Melzer, chairman of MDR Architects & Planners, and Marjorie Feltus Hawkins, president and founder of FH Design, with Golf Inc's editors. Hawkins called the project "a flawless execution where structure, aesthetics and systems align perfectly." Frenchman's Creek topped a New Clubhouse field in which Summit Golf Club at Horseshoe Bay Resort in Texas placed second and Crownwood Club in Sweden placed third.
The clubhouse anchors a community built around two 18-hole courses, the North Course by Jim Fazio and the South Course by Robert Cupp, with the club's Beach Club set apart in the Town of Juno Beach.
Peacock + Lewis, whose Palm Beach Gardens portfolio also includes the Triple Stick clubhouse at PGA National, had been the club's design partner for 23 years when members approved the project. In the club's 2022 announcement of that vote, the firm's CEO, Brian Idle, said the finished building would become "the new standard by which amenities in other communities will be measured."
With this award, that claim now has an independent jury behind it. Frenchman's Creek replaced its old clubhouse outright, and the result treats tradition and resilience as a single brief: Regency proportions and light-filled rooms above, flood-conscious engineering below. That combination is what makes the building the new heart of the club, and what makes it worth studying for any Florida membership weighing what comes next for its own house.
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