Two homes come on the market in Spanish Peaks Mountain Club within a few weeks of each other, priced within $50,000 of one another. A buyer touring both assumes the decision comes down to finish level, square footage, and how the light hits the Spanish Peaks range from the deck. Then the offer gets written, the contract gets ratified, and a second bill arrives that has nothing to do with the price on the listing sheet. That bill is the club membership deposit, and depending on which category attaches to the deed, it can run $150,000 or $300,000 before a single annual due comes due.
This is the part of buying in Big Sky's private communities that rarely shows up in the comparison spreadsheet. The home price is real. The membership cost sitting beside it is also real, and it moves independently of the real estate market, on its own schedule, set by the club rather than by comparable sales.
The bill that isn't in the listing
Spanish Peaks Mountain Club publishes two membership categories: Social and Signature Golf. According to the club's most recently published dues sheet, dated December 2025, Social Membership carries a $150,000 deposit and $23,000 in annual family dues. Signature Golf carries a $300,000 deposit and $30,000 in annual family dues. A National Membership tier, at a $500,000 deposit, is listed on the same sheet but noted as not currently available.
Separate from either of those figures, the Spanish Peaks Owners Association charges its own annual dues of $3,750. This is not a rounding of the club fee. It is a different bill from a different board, covering roads, common areas, and design review rather than clubhouse access or golf privileges. A buyer who budgets for "club dues" as a single number and forgets the owners association line is already off by several thousand dollars a year before the mortgage payment enters the picture.
| Category | Deposit | Annual family dues |
|---|---|---|
| Social Membership | $150,000 | $23,000 |
| Signature Golf Membership | $300,000 | $30,000 |
| Spanish Peaks Owners Association | not applicable | $3,750 |
What changed in two years
The more useful number here isn't the current figure. It's how fast it moved to get there.
When CrossHarbor Capital Partners and Boyne Resorts took Spanish Peaks out of bankruptcy in 2013, new members joined with deposits of $40,000 for golf and ski access and $20,000 for social membership, with annual dues in the range of $9,500. By December 2023, those same categories had climbed to $200,000 and $100,000, with dues at $24,000 and $17,000. By December 2025, they stood at $300,000 and $150,000, with dues at $30,000 and $23,000.
That is a fivefold increase in the deposit line over roughly a decade, and a 50 percent jump in the deposit alone in the two years between the 2023 and 2025 sheets. This is not inflation catching up to a stagnant fee. It is the club repricing access to match what the surrounding real estate has done, which means the membership cost is not a fixed line item you can plan around once. A buyer who saw a dues sheet from a friend who joined in 2022 is working from numbers that are already out of date.
The Spanish Peaks Owners Association dues moved too, from $3,250 in the 2023 sheet to $3,750 in 2025, a smaller jump but confirmation that both boards adjust their numbers on their own timelines. Anyone comparing a listing today against a dues figure they saw even a year ago should ask for the current schedule before writing an offer, not after.
Four products, one gate
Part of why the math gets confusing is that Spanish Peaks isn't selling one kind of ownership. Custom homes on finished sites are what dominate the resale market. Design-build lots let a buyer control the build from the ground up. The Inn Residences at Montage Big Sky are sold as deeded one-quarter ownership interests in furnished three- and four-bedroom units, connected to the hotel by an underground pathway, with Montage access bundled alongside Spanish Peaks membership benefits. And there are custom homesites ranging from one to twenty-five acres for buyers building from scratch.
Each of these carries different membership mechanics, different resale behavior, and different rental economics. A quarter-share Inn Residence is the lowest-friction way to get inside the gate, but it is a fundamentally different asset than a five-bedroom custom home on its own lot, and the two should never be compared on price per square foot alone.
Moonlight Basin plays by a different rulebook
Moonlight Basin, on the north side of Lone Mountain, complicates the picture further. Ownership here does not automatically require club membership. Some properties, or specific membership positions attached to a title, convey club privileges. Others do not. That distinction has to be confirmed in writing with the club's membership office before closing, not assumed from the listing description.
A membership benefits breakdown published by the club lists two tiers, Signature and Sports. Signature membership includes access to The Reserve golf course, Ulery's Lake and its amenities, Moonlight Outfitters, the Moonlight Lodge, the members lounge, reciprocity with Spanish Peaks Mountain Club, and access to the private Jack Creek Road. Sports membership includes Ulery's Lake, Moonlight Outfitters, the Moonlight Lodge, and the members lounge, without the golf course access or road privileges that come with Signature.
That means two homes listing at nearly the same price in Moonlight Basin can carry very different memberships attached to the deed. One buyer gets golf at The Reserve and reciprocal access at Spanish Peaks. Another gets the lodge and the lake, and nothing more. A public dollar figure for either tier isn't reliably current enough to quote here, which is itself the point: buyers need to request the live schedule and confirm exactly which position transfers with the specific property, rather than relying on what a neighbor paid a few years ago.
Where none of this applies
Meadow Village and Big Sky Town Center sit outside any club structure entirely. This is where the highest concentration of full-time residents actually live, within walking distance of Roxy's Market, the Wednesday farmers market, and the Community Park with its climbing wall and skate park. Homes here range from condos above retail space to single-family houses backing the golf course, and none of them carry a club deposit or category to research. The tradeoff is that ski-in, ski-out access requires a shuttle or a short drive rather than a walk out the back door.
This split also explains something odd about Big Sky's headline price numbers. Because Meadow Village condos, Town Center townhomes, and multi-million-dollar club properties all sell in the same small market, and because so few homes close in any given month, the reported median can swing sharply from one reporting period to the next. A buyer using a single median figure to judge whether a specific Meadow Village listing is priced fairly is applying a number that was just as likely driven by a Spanish Peaks or Moonlight Basin sale that has nothing to do with their price range. This is exactly why the club and HOA numbers in this piece matter more as a planning tool than any single median price does. Deposits and dues are published on a schedule and confirmed in writing. A monthly median in a market this size is closer to noise.
The diligence that catches this before it catches you
A thorough review of any private-club property in Big Sky pulls two separate document sets in parallel. On the HOA side, that means the CC&Rs, the adopted budget, the reserve study, the delinquency report, and the last twelve to twenty-four months of meeting minutes. On the club side, it means the membership agreement, the current category schedule with its effective date, the transfer rules, and any capital plan the club has adopted but not yet billed.
The specific questions worth asking before writing an offer:
- What membership category is tied to this specific property, and does it transfer automatically at closing or require a separate application and approval?
- What is the effective date on the dues sheet being quoted, and has the club announced or voted on any capital assessment that hasn't been billed yet?
- Are club dues and owners association dues (or, in Moonlight Basin, HOA dues) being budgeted as two line items or accidentally combined into one?
- For a fractional or Inn Residence-style purchase, exactly what Montage access, room-rate benefit, and priority booking window comes with the interest?
None of these questions show up on a listing sheet. All of them change the real cost of ownership by tens of thousands of dollars a year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does every home in Big Sky come with a club membership? No. Meadow Village and Town Center properties carry no club structure at all. In Moonlight Basin, membership is separate from ownership, and whether it conveys with a specific property has to be confirmed with the club directly.
Are club dues and HOA dues the same bill? No. At Spanish Peaks, the club dues and the Spanish Peaks Owners Association dues are billed by different organizations for different purposes, roads and common areas on one side, clubhouse and amenity access on the other. Both apply, and both should be budgeted separately.
Can membership costs change after I've already purchased? Yes. Spanish Peaks membership deposits rose 50 percent between the December 2023 and December 2025 dues sheets. Clubs at this tier typically reserve the right to levy capital contributions or special assessments beyond the standard annual dues, so the schedule a buyer sees during a tour is a starting point, not a locked-in number.
If you're weighing a property in Spanish Peaks, Moonlight Basin, Meadow Village, or anywhere else in the Big Sky market and want the real math before you write an offer, not after, Carissa Maus can walk through the current dues schedules, the HOA documents, and what each membership category actually attaches to a specific listing. Schedule a free consultation to get the full picture before the second contract shows up.
