Bear's Best Is Becoming Amara, a Gated Club Inside The Ridges

"First and foremost we wanted to protect our community and this development from suffering a similar fate as Badlands." Andrew Pascal said that to the Las Vegas Review-Journal in April 2025, explaining why he and his partner Mike Mixer bought Bear's Best Las Vegas. According to the same report, the course in The Ridges was zoned residential, as Badlands had been. Badlands was the shuttered course whose redevelopment fight dragged on in court for years, until the city settled for hundreds of millions of dollars after losing several times.

The owners told the Review-Journal they plan to invest $300 million in the property. The plans Clark County approved in July 2025 show where that money goes. The course isn't just going private. Amara is set up as its own guard-gated enclave inside The Ridges, with a separate entry off Flamingo Road, a clubhouse designed for full days, and 15 homes of its own. It keeps the land as golf by building a small private community around the fairways.

Why the owners bought a public course

Bear's Best opened in 2001 as a public course. It covered more than 200 acres just west of the 215 Beltway and built its identity on replicas of Jack Nicklaus' favorite holes. GolfPass lists replicas drawn from Old Works in Montana, Castle Pines in Colorado and the PGA West Tournament Course in California.

The buyer of record was Las Vegas-based Mulligan Holdings Inc., which paid $30.5 million, according to property records cited by the Review-Journal. The two principals are neighbors. Pascal founded PlayStudios and previously served as chief operating officer of Wynn Resorts. Mixer co-founded the Las Vegas office of Colliers International. "And both Andrew and I live in The Ridges," Mixer told the Review-Journal, "so we really see this as an opportunity to create something special for the western side of Summerlin."

The county's zoning record shows the risk they were describing. In the Clark County Planning Commission packet, the golf course and clubhouse complex are zoned R-1a, R-D and R-2, all residential designations, even though the land was "originally approved as a public golf course." The land use plan lists the site as Summerlin South open space. The owners' answer was to keep the golf course, turn it private, and develop only a small part of the land.

Public play ended in June 2025. In early 2025, the owners told members they would take public tee times until June 22, and GolfPass later reported that the course closed that month. GolfPass also described the shift in competition: Amara will no longer compete with daily-fee courses like TPC Las Vegas. It will compete with TPC Summerlin and The Summit for members.

A gate inside the gate

The county approved this as a single package under file 25-0423, which went before the Planning Commission on July 15, 2025 and received final action that day. The planning packet lists six pieces of work across 201.8 acres:

1. Build 15 new single-family homes
2. Demolish the existing clubhouse and build a new one
3. Run a temporary clubhouse during construction
4. Add comfort stations on the course
5. Build a new maintenance building
6. Build a guard house

The access plan shows the enclave idea most clearly. A new private street 48 feet wide will run off Flamingo Road, with a guard house in its median. Past the gate, the road narrows to 25 feet and serves the clubhouse and both groups of homes. Employee and service traffic will use a second entry off Granite Ridge Drive. The plans also include gates for golf carts at several points across the course parcels.

To make room, a minor subdivision map divides the 117.7-acre core of the golf and clubhouse complex into three parcels. Lot 1 holds the new clubhouse, the maintenance building, the guard house and the rest of that parcel's golf course. Lots 2 and 3, north and south of the clubhouse, hold the homes.

The 15 homes are close together by design

In their April 2025 interview with the Review-Journal, the owners called the residential part "15 planned boutique villas" and targeted completion for December 2027. The county filing describes them as single-family homes and gives the dimensions:

Each floor plan has 3 to 4 bedrooms, 4.5 baths and a 3- to 4-car garage. The approved setbacks are tight. The living area can sit 4 feet from the back of the sidewalk, where the earlier standards required 10, and interior side setbacks drop from 5 feet to zero. The approval also allows retaining walls up to 9 feet high, where Title 29 sets a 3-foot maximum. The applicant's stated reason was to fit the lots and homes onto parcels carved from the existing course while keeping the golf course playable.

The tradeoff is clear. Out of more than 200 acres, the residential part is just two clusters on either side of the clubhouse, and the plan packs them tightly so the rest can stay fairway. Of everything Amara's plans show, these compact lots answer the Badlands worry most directly.

The clubhouse, level by level

The new clubhouse is two stories and 58,000 square feet, plus a basement. The county approved a height of 45 feet, where 40 feet had been allowed under the community's earlier approval. The floor program describes a club built for whole days, with golf as only one part of it:

The two member suites match what Pascal told the Review-Journal in 2025 about hospitality suites for members visiting from out of town. The parking numbers show how many people the building is meant to hold. The code requires 48 spaces for the clubhouse, and the plan provides 193: 120 in the basement and 73 on the surface.

The exteriors use limestone slat panels, split-face limestone veneer and low-energy glazing, on the clubhouse and the homes alike. The comfort stations on the course use the same split-face limestone, so the whole property shares one material palette.

While the permanent clubhouse is built, a single-story temporary clubhouse will stand in part of the current parking lot. Its plan includes a restaurant, member services lobby, pro shop and golf simulator rooms.

Where the timeline stands this fall

The owners' 2025 schedule had three steps. They would close Bear's Best in the summer of 2025, begin redevelopment that September, and "hopefully reopen as a private course in October 2026," with the homes to follow in December 2027. The first step happened on time, and the October 2026 reopening target has now passed. On July 27, 2026, Summerlin's golf overview described Amara Golf Club in The Ridges as "undergoing a transformation that will reintroduce a premier private golf experience to the community," with residential villas still planned.

The county's records show the work under way. Clark County's active dust-control permit list, current as of October 1, 2026, includes permit 59568-1 for "Amara Golf Course" at 11111 W. Flamingo Road. It covers 21.6 acres, lists Landscapes Unlimited as the company, and runs through August 25, 2027. Amara's own site, amaragolf.com, says "that experience is coming soon" and has a membership interest form. Its careers page is hiring for golf operations, including an Outside Services Lead, under the line "We are building something rare."

Jackson Kahn Design is the golf architecture firm working with the owners on the course. When it reopens, Amara will join a Summerlin roster that the community counts at ten golf destinations, including TPC Summerlin, the two Arnold Palmer courses at Red Rock Country Club, and The Summit's Tom Fazio course. Unlike those, Amara grew out of a former public course already inside The Ridges' gates. Its approved plans give it a guard house of its own on Flamingo Road, a clubhouse designed for full days on site, and 15 homes set close to the fairways.

If you own near the Amara fairways or are weighing a home within view of them, Gianni Sammarco can walk you through how this club and its 15 new homesites fit into The Ridges market as construction moves forward. Request a private market consultation and valuation.