Frontier Club Michigan: Gil Hanse's $32 Million Destination Clubhouse Near Ann Arbor
Lodi Township filings put an 18-hole Hanse–Wagner course, a 12-hole short course, a two-level clubhouse, and 11 guest cottages on 333 acres south of Ann Arbor.
The owners of 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, southwest of Ann Arbor.
Wayne Jones and his son-in-law, Scott Kovanda, of Ann Arbor-based Jones and Jones Leasing LLC, are the applicants on the township cover sheet. The land covers 13 parcels. Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner are the course architects. Hanse Golf Course Design lists “Frontier Club, Ann Arbor” under Original Design Projects, On the Drawing Board, alongside Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach and Hogan Gully in Arrowtown, New Zealand.
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. Later reporting has also named Fred Perpall’s Beck Group on the cottages and clubhouse. Until the township set is revised, Brook Architecture remains the architect of record on the filed drawings.
What the $32.19 million program actually includes
The filing is not a course-only application. It is a destination campus:
an 18-hole championship course
a 12-hole short course
a two-level clubhouse sited off the first tee and 18th green
a driving range
11 guest cottages
a wellness cabin
a Himalayas-style putting green
a maintenance facility
Township documents put groundbreaking in the fall of 2026 and an opening in April 2028. The budget breaks as 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.
The two-level clubhouse 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 the wellness cabin would sit around the Himalayas 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.
Membership prices were not included in the site plans.
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A destination club hidden in cornfields
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. Golfweek’s Tony Paul, writing on August 20, compared that model to Kingsley Club near Traverse City — Michigan’s existing template for a national membership that arrives, plays, sleeps on site, and leaves.
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 from the road. It is closer in spirit to Oakmont’s 1904 Scottish farmhouse, which Henry Clay Fownes asked Edward Stotz to hide in the farmland, and to Augusta National’s converted Fruitland farmhouse, which still reads as a house first and a shrine second.
The closest capital-stack peer already covered 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. Frontier is smaller, quieter, and more lodging-driven: 11 cottages instead of a residential grid.
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Why Hanse took the land
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.
Golf Digest later published a first-person account from Hanse of the first drive onto the property: rolling, heaving farmland, two prominent ridges with a valley between them, wooded sections, and big fields with folds he used for the routing. He told the magazine he sees the course as a smaller-scale Crystal Downs and said, “I know, in my heart of hearts, this will be one of the most special places we’ve ever built.” Design partners Ben Hillard and agronomist Russ Myers are credited in that account with locking the routing. Golf Digest also named James Housler, a longtime friend of Kovanda’s and a Michigan native, as a co-founder, and reported that 50 founding members have already met on the project.
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. The same firm restored Baltusrol and Oakmont — two of the clubhouses this site has already walked — which is why a new Hanse original in Washtenaw County is not a regional footnote. It is a national routing arriving in a township of about 6,400 people.
What Lodi Township still has to decide
Lodi Township 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 the original reporting date 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 that 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.
Until the permit is granted and the drawings are updated, the authoritative record remains the August filing: $32.19 million, 333 acres, 13 parcels, a two-level clubhouse, 11 cottages, a wellness cabin, a 12-hole short course, a 300-member cap, and an April 2028 target.
The same Hanse Golf Course Design desk is also designing The Trail, a walking-only private club Ryan Hanks of Madison Capital is planning near Charlotte for a 2028 or 2029 opening.
Key details
Club: Frontier Club
Location: Lodi Township, Michigan (south of Pleasant Lake Road, between Alber and Zeeb roads, near Ann Arbor)
Course architects: Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, Hanse Golf Course Design
Clubhouse architect of record (township cover sheet): Brook Architecture LLC / Beau Brooks, AIA, Birmingham
Civil / landscape: Hubbell, Roth & Clark / Mosher Design Co
Applicants: Wayne Jones and Scott Kovanda, Jones and Jones Leasing LLC
Site: 333 acres across 13 parcels (later reports have used 350 acres)
Program: 18-hole course, 12-hole short course, two-level clubhouse, driving range, 11 guest cottages, wellness cabin, Himalayas putting green, maintenance facility
Budget: $32.19 million ($25M buildings, $7M site, $400K landscape)
Membership: capped at 300; filings say at least 80% from outside the area
Target opening: April 2028
Status: preliminary site plan / special-use permit under township review
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