"A flawless execution where structure, aesthetics and systems align perfectly." That is how one judge described the new clubhouse at Frenchman's Creek Beach and Country Club, according to Best Clubhouse's report, Golf Inc named the clubhouse the winner of its 2026 Clubhouse of the Year award in the new construction category this month. The clubhouse opened in 2024. The award arrived two years later, in the same month the club's golf course construction crews were packing up their equipment ahead of season.
Most of what gets talked about at Frenchman's Creek this time of year is the golf course. The par-3 9th hole on the South Course has a new lake, new bulkhead walls and a reshaped green. The driving range has been rebuilt from the ground up. Those are the changes members will walk past on their first round back. The award recognizes something else entirely, and it is not the ballroom or the dining room views that usually get the compliments.
What NMP Golf finished this summer
NMP Golf Construction spent the summer reworking two pieces of the South Course under the direction of golf course architects Fry/Straka. The signature 9th hole, which plays anywhere from 66 to 165-plus yards and sits just below the clubhouse mezzanine where diners can watch golfers come through, got a full rebuild of its green, tees and the lake between them. Darryl Bartlett, senior manager and chief development officer of NMP Golf Construction, put it plainly to Golf Course Industry: "There isn't a part of the hole that we didn't touch." His crew added bulkhead walls around the green and varied their height as they wind around the water, a detail he said was chosen partly for how it looks from above.
The driving range work was more functional than cosmetic. The range now has expanded capacity, a dedicated wedge range, an uneven lies tee for practicing off sloped ground, and a privacy berm. The short-game complex moved closer to the first tees so it fits into a warm-up routine instead of requiring a separate stop. William Schmit, the club's Director of Agronomy, was quoted in Hunter Public Relations' coverage as saying the work is finishing right as the calendar turns toward season: "the anticipation is building at the Club, and I can't wait to open the areas for our members to enjoy."
That timing matters. The work was documented in a September 15 article, and both men described the season opening as "in a few weeks" in their respective coverage. For a club whose members split time between Palm Beach Gardens and points north, that puts the reopened range and the redesigned 9th on the calendar for early-to-mid October, right as the snowbird return begins in earnest along the Prosperity Farms corridor.
The award skipped past the dining room
The clubhouse itself, a 124,450-square-foot building designed by Peacock + Lewis in a British Regency style, has been open long enough that most members have stopped noticing its clerestory towers and the natural light they pull into the lower and upper levels. The lower floor holds golf, tennis and fitness. The upper floor holds the dining rooms and event spaces, including the ballroom that hosted the vote approving the $74 million project back in 2022.
None of that is what the Golf Inc judges singled out. Their commentary centered on the parts of the building nobody sees from a dinner table: the structure is elevated 30 inches above grade specifically to reduce flood risk, and its stormwater system is designed to capture runoff during storms and store it for reuse in irrigation. The building has no basement walls, a choice that keeps moisture out of the structure and, according to the judges, also lowers the energy cost of climate control. Peacock + Lewis has been the club's design partner for 23 years, the same firm behind the Triple Stick clubhouse at PGA National, and its CEO Brian Idle said at the 2022 groundbreaking vote, as Best Clubhouse reported, that the finished building would become "the new standard by which amenities in other communities will be measured." An independent judging panel just put a number on that claim.
Why the invisible engineering matters in September
South Florida's hurricane season runs through the end of November, which means the building's flood elevation and drainage system are not decorative choices. They are the reason the clubhouse can sit this close to the Intracoastal and the club's private beach access on Juno Beach without the seasonal anxiety that comes with ground-level construction in a flood-prone stretch of the coast. The same logic explains why the 9th hole's redesign involved more than a prettier lake. Bartlett's team increased the hole's irrigation water storage capacity as part of the rebuild, meaning the reshaped lake does double duty as a water management feature during the wet months and a course feature the rest of the year.
None of this shows up on a scorecard or a dinner menu. It shows up in whether the clubhouse floods during a named storm, or whether the course's irrigation system has enough reserve capacity to get through a dry stretch without rationing. The award is a signal that the building was engineered for the climate it sits in, not just styled for it.
What the season will actually look like
When the gates reopen for season, members returning to Frenchman's Creek will find the practical changes first. The rebuilt driving range with its wedge range and uneven lies tee gives golfers a wider warm-up than the previous layout allowed. The reshaped 9th hole, visible from the clubhouse's outside mezzanine, turns the walk from the 8th green into something closer to a spectator moment for anyone eating lunch on the terrace. The short-game complex sitting closer to the first tees means less walking between the range and the tee box.
The dining side of the club has not changed this season, but it is worth remembering what is actually available across the property. The casual eatery near the clubhouse's center serves complimentary breakfast daily along with lunch and dinner, with both an indoor dining room and a screened outdoor seating area that functions as a gathering spot before or after golf. The steakhouse concept has an open kitchen and looks out over the stadium tennis court. The Sports Bar sits in the heart of the clubhouse with open-air seating and views of the golf course. Down at the Beach Club on Juno Beach, the dining room is decorated in coral and aqua tones with rattan furniture, serving seafood and local dishes for members who want the ocean rather than the fairway as their backdrop.
The construction crews are gone or nearly gone. What they leave behind is a golf course built to hold water better than it did last year and a clubhouse that a national panel of judges says was built to survive a storm better than most. For a club at the edge of the Intracoastal along the Prosperity Farms corridor, those two facts belong together, even if only one of them came with a trophy.
Chris Moody tracks projects like this across Frenchman's Creek and the surrounding Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter communities, because what a club invests in says as much about a neighborhood as any single listing does. Chris Moody — Let's Achieve Your Real Estate Goals.
