Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner's Frontier Club files a $32 million plan near Ann Arbor, with a two-level clubhouse and 11 guest cottages
Frontier Club near Ann Arbor files a $32.19 million plan with a two-level clubhouse and 11 cottages. Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner are on the routing.
The owners of the Frontier Club have filed a preliminary site plan with Lodi Township, Michigan, seeking a special-use permit for a $32.19 million private golf club on 333 acres south of Pleasant Lake Road, between Alber and Zeeb roads, near Ann Arbor.
Wayne Jones and his son-in-law, Scott Kovanda, of Ann Arbor-based Jones and Jones Leasing LLC, are behind the filing. The land covers 13 parcels. Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner are the course architects. The August 3, 2026 cover sheet received by Lodi Township lists Brook Architecture LLC, Beau Brooks, AIA, of Birmingham, as architect, Hubbell, Roth & Clark as civil engineer, and Mosher Design Co as landscape architect. Hanse Golf Course Design currently lists "Frontier Club, Ann Arbor" under Original Design Projects, On the Drawing Board, with Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach and Hogan Gully in Arrowtown, New Zealand.
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The program is an 18-hole course and a 12-hole short course, plus a two-level clubhouse, a driving range, 11 guest cottages, a wellness cabin, and a maintenance facility. Filings with the township put groundbreaking in the fall and an opening in April 2028.
Membership would be capped at 300. Site plans say at least 80 percent of members would come from outside the area, flying in for two- or three-day stays. In an August 20 report, Golfweek's Tony Paul compared that model to Kingsley Club near Traverse City. The closest capital-stack peer already on this site is Ocala's $63 million IronCrest sale, a 1,274-acre quarry club with a 37,000-square-foot clubhouse and 200 builder-ready homesites. Plans call for shuttle vans to Detroit Metro Airport, Willow Run Airport, and Ann Arbor Municipal Airport. The club would have no entrance signage. A berm at the front entrance and bordering cornfields are meant to keep the course off the road. That is the opposite of Baltusrol's 1909 Tudor Revival clubhouse, a building meant to be seen.
The two-level clubhouse, sited off the first tee and 18th green, is planned with men's and women's locker rooms, a kitchen, a bar, a large dining space, a wine cellar, and a pro shop. Guest cottages and a wellness cabin would sit around a Himalayas-style putting green. That is the same bet Harbour Town's 2015 Lowcountry clubhouse made: the building as the social center of a destination, not a bolt-on pro shop.
Township documents put the budget at $32.19 million: nearly $25 million for buildings and other structures, nearly $7 million for site improvements, and nearly $400,000 for landscaping. The club expects 40 to 50 employees, mostly seasonal, including management, ground crew, and caddies.
According to documents filed in late July, Jones began acquiring parcels in 1998, first for a personal residence, farming, and land preservation. He later asked Kovanda for a long-term plan. Kovanda described water and rolling hills that would not need much earthmoving, language the filings tie to the township's "green and pastoral landscape."
The same site-plan documents say Hanse "immediately fell in love with the property" and found it suited to a layout that uses existing natural features without moving a significant amount of land. That sentence is from the owners' filing with the township. It is not a quote Hanse has given to reporters. Golfweek reported that messages to Lodi Township interim supervisor Jacob Schaible and to Kovanda were not returned.
Hanse, working with Wagner, renovated Oakland Hills Country Club's South Course in Bloomfield Township. Golfweek said Frontier could be his first new build in Michigan. He has also been named architect of SkyFall, a planned course at Forest Dunes in Roscommon that has not broken ground.
Lodi Township, population about 6,400, listed a Frontier Club Application and Frontier Club Plans on the Planning Commission agenda for August 25, 2026, at township hall, 3755 Pleasant Lake Road. As of August 28, 2026, the township had not posted minutes or a recorded vote on the special-use permit. Golfweek, writing on August 20, said officials were expected to consider the proposal this month.
Washtenaw County already has private clubs including Travis Pointe Country Club, Barton Hills Country Club, Polo Fields Golf and Country Club, and Radrick Farms Golf Course, all in Ann Arbor. Golfweek said Frontier would be the first new course built in the county in recent memory.
Membership prices were not included in the site plans submitted to Lodi Township.
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