It’s ball or nothing at Panther National, Palm Beach County’s first recent golf and lifestyle community in 20 years.
The Florida development is the brainchild of Dominik Senn, a celebrated alpine ski racer from Switzerland. Senn, with developer Centaur Group, got down to create the trendy, luxury golf and lifestyle community after he visited a number of others across the Sunshine State and located they didn’t rise to the caliber he was in search of.
Panther National arrives in Palm Beach Gardens at a time when golf is on the upswing. The game is more popular than ever in america with the American Golf Industry Coalition reporting in 2023 that roughly one in seven Americans played the yr prior. Add to that the heightened demand for luxury housing and the Panther National development is an ace in the outlet.
Frank Weed, CEO of Panther National, said the team got down to create a distinct type of golf community, from the course to the clubhouse to the 218 modern, single-family homes and 24 smaller residences conceived by Miami-based Strang Design.
The fresh approach might be particularly evident within the 55,000-square-foot clubhouse, Weed said. “This isn’t your grandfather’s golf club,” he said. “There’s no ballroom. This is meant to be a spot of youth.”
Club memberships currently start at an initial $500,000 with an annual fee within the low $30,000s. Homeowners inside Panther National’s gates currently receive a slight abatement, to an initial $400,000, with similar annual fees, Weed said.
The clubhouse will include a gym, a professional shop, indoor golf, spa facilities with locker rooms and spots for gathering indoors and outdoors. It’s going to also include 4 dining concepts, including one inspired by Senn’s friend, Andreas Caminada of three-star Michelin restaurant Schloss Schauenstein in Fürstenau, Switzerland. Members, nevertheless, may have to attend until fall 2026 for the clubhouse’s anticipated debut. There will even be a further lifestyle club with a spa, a community pool and a lap pool, and a performance center that may break ground in October 2025.
For play, there’s the 18-hole, links-style Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course, which the retired golfer designed in collaboration with PGA Tour player Justin Thomas. It opened in November 2023. There’s also a nine-hole, par-3 course, a 1-acre putting course, a practice area and facilities for training and fitting.
The property was “flat as a pancake” when the team acquired it, Weed said. Now, “now we have 50-foot (plus or minus) elevations” on the golf course.
The community’s first properties hit the market in June 2022 with price tags starting from about $4 million to $6 million for homes sitting on half-acre lots. Weed said about 22 of 30 of the homes in Phase 1 have sold, with future phases including homes on third-acre lots in addition to home sites priced as much as $4.5 million where buyers can construct their very own custom properties with an approved builder. Including eight custom home sites, Weed said they’ve sold about $300 million in real estate thus far.
Among the many buyers are a handful of celebrities, though Weed declined to call names. The typical purchaser of homes in the event up to now is of their mid-50s, with the typical age of those purchasing only club memberships skewing younger, Weed said. Home prices at Panther National currently start at $4.5 million.
And never only do homes sit on the green, they’re green. Large overhangs within the roof designs provide shade, which keep the homes cool, requiring less energy. The grounds throughout the property will include all native plantings and can implement solar and water filtration programs.
“I don’t need to use the word ‘sustainable,’ since it’s not off the grid, but we’re using many efficient constructing systems and materials to make sure that this house lasts a lifetime,” Weed said.
The signature home models will range from 4,500 to over 10,000 square feet and include three to 5 bedrooms, two- to four-car garages with golf cart parking and electric automotive charging units, and personal pools. Custom home sites range from half-acre to an acre in size.
The 382 gated acres that Panther National sits on were once a part of Vavrus Ranch, which stretched 4,753 acres before its sale to Landstar Development Group for $20 million in 2013.
But when all that sounds just a little too artificial, Weed wants you to know that his eponymous plants are in abundance just round the corner. Neighboring the property is a 2,400-acre nature preserve, which attracted birds and other wildlife to the lakes.
“I saw on one in all our fairways yesterday we had wild turkeys walking across,” he said. “The golf course, might be among the finest in america and positively, in the highest three in Florida.”