Out of the Ashes

Private clubs are a popular lifestyle choice on the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau, especially for families. Trillium Links and Lake Club’s tagline is “Where Families Belong,” and it has followed that north star over the last three decades, carving out its unique space as a multi-generational home-away-from-home for seasonal and full-time residents.

In the mid-nineties, visionary Rusty Culbreth knew he wanted to build a unique private club community when his friend, Dan Rice, alerted him to a one-of-a-kind tract of land that became available just north of Cashiers, NC.  Culbreth moved quickly to acquire the land and formed a partnership with Rice and professional golfer Morris Hatalsky to develop it. It was a partnership with a passion for creating the kind of club and community they all wanted to live in. Trillium began with that initial purchase of 600 acres that spread from Lake Glenville into the surrounding mountains. This initial purchase included some existing homes, a private restaurant, and docks on Lake Glenville. With the purchase of additional land in 2001, Trillium added The Ridges section, bringing the development to its current 750 acres, comprising Trillium’s three current sections (The Village, The Links, and The Ridges).  The size of the Trillium property and the variety of homesites available position it well for new construction projects, and new club members.

Hatalsky, a longtime golfer on both the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour, set about designing a topographically challenging, true mountain golf course, while Culbreth and Rice built the club facilities with incredible views of the surrounding mountains. As for their private-home real estate strategy, they hired neighborhood design specialists         DPZ CoDesign. Back in the mid-nineties, this trend-setting firm pioneered a cutting-edge community-development approach that pushed back against suburban sprawl. DPZ advocated enhancing walkability, creating a front-porch lifestyle that nurtures neighborly interaction and reconnects people with nature. This return to a family-friendly neighborhood design blended perfectly with the Appalachian old-world ambiance that draws so many to our region.

The Trillium vision was creating a special place, a club community centered on a challenging and stunning mountain golf course, with direct access to Lake Glenville. The Club is accessed through a non-equity membership model that includes generous privileges for extended family. By allowing both children and grandchildren, along with a member’s parents, to enjoy full membership, four generations of any family can gather to enjoy Trillium’s many planned events and amenities. The financial value of this model is clear, but it also helps keep families in the club for generations to come. That sort of continuity is invaluable to many club-minded homeowners seeking activities, holiday celebrations, and the welcoming atmosphere of a private club.

According to Membership Services Manager Stetson Taylor, social events among neighbors and family-inspired gatherings rank highly with Trillium residents, along with the wide array of club amenities.  The amenities at Trillium have always been robust and have evolved over the years to reflect members’ interests. They include two full-service restaurants: The Landings, situated right on the lakeshore, and The Clubhouse, a high-elevation restaurant featuring views of the golf course along with dramatic elevation changes and iconic long-range mountain and lake views.  Trillium facilities host an activity calendar chock-full of daily events throughout the season.  For kids, the club’s many summer activities are exciting, especially when friends meet up for the first time since last summer. A schedule of club golf tournaments, as well as local non-profit tournaments and other organizations’ events, is popular with residents, many of whom enjoy active civic lives in the area. Trillium croquet players stay busy with a twice-weekly event, Wine and Wickets, as well as with many croquet tournaments throughout the summer. Indoor and outdoor racquet sports are busy as well, with tennis clinics, pickleball matches, and a variety of interest-based community clubs that offer something for everyone  with plenty of options for those with hectic schedules. With the construction of the new lakefront facility, the number of docks available to members on a first-come, first-served basis has been even more paramount. Trillium also maintains a small fleet of members-only rental boats, including four pontoons and a wake boat that includes a professional driver.

In 2016, Culbreth transitioned management of Trillium’s future to his daughter and son-in-law, Collins and Jared Zimmer. The Zimmer family not only lives within the Trillium community but also has been working through extensive plans to improve the club.  Eventually, they plan to continue the family tradition of passing the club on to the next generation.

One of those long-term club improvement plans was an eventual renovation of the amazing but aging Landings complex on the lakefront that included a full-service restaurant, marina, and event space.  However, fate had other plans when everything changed overnight. On June 9th, 2023, an electrical fire tore through the building, leaving a jagged scar on the pristine lake’s shoreline. Trillium’s owners faced both a major problem and a huge opportunity, but they were also determined to deliver a spectacular result with the land, setting Trillium apart from other private clubs in the area. Once the new Landings complex is complete, Trillium will be the only club offering a full-service restaurant, lakefront pool and hot tub, arcade, marina, and a resort clubhouse on Lake Glenville, the highest lake east of the Mississippi River in the heart of one of the planet’s most biodiverse environments.

Atlanta-based architectural firm Kuo Diedrich Chi (KDC) was brought in to design the new three-story club centerpiece with a restaurant, a special events space, a swimming pool, a hot tub, and an entire floor dedicated to youth activities. As a club and resort specialist, KDC is renowned for generating great ideas and building consensus among club members on new designs. They also brought well-developed project management expertise for taking a project from the drawing board to completion. Macallan Construction, a frequent KDC collaborator, was selected as the builder.

The Trillium team has been hard at work, building this large project in record time, and is targeting a grand opening this Summer. That leaves plenty of time for Trillium’s members to make the most of a front row seat to Lake Glenville’s lively summer and fall recreation. And next year, Trillium members will celebrate Independence Day and Lake Glenville Community’s fireworks over the water with the premiere of their exclusive annual watch party that promises to be a highlight of the area’s summer season. Prospective home and land buyers can tour the lakefront facilities prior to completion as Trillium’s Member Services Director plans to host weekly evening tours to keep construction crews focused and uninterrupted as they near completion.

Trillium has shown remarkable resilience over its three decades of patient and determined growth. Despite economic downturns and even a pandemic, home and land values have continued to rise. The finite availability of Lake Glenville real estate has made its lakefront and lakeview land highly desirable. For potential Highlands-Cashiers Plateau homebuyers, the family-owned vs. equity membership club model offers unique advantages worth considering. Lower initiation fees, coupled with an on-site, dedicated owner/management team whose goals dovetail with those of their members, have proven to be a successful formula for this family-friendly, uniquely Western North Carolina destination. Trillium’s soon-to-be-completed Landings lakefront facility promises to be a highly visible and iconic landmark along the lake, ushering in a new era for the Trillium Founders’ dream.

The future of Trillium is bright, and this new facility provides Trillium members with a “lakeside seat” from which to watch the Highlands-Cashiers Plateau continue to flourish.