Ask a longtime North Palm Beach resident about the Country Club and you will usually hear some version of the same thing: it is full, it is exclusive, and unless you already know someone, you are not getting in. That reputation is not entirely wrong. It is just aimed at the wrong door.
The Village-owned club on US Highway 1 is not one membership. It is five, bundled under a single name and a single 100-year-old address. Right now, in August 2026, four of those five doors are open to any resident willing to fill out paperwork. The fifth has a waitlist, and that one waitlist is doing all the work of the club's reputation.
One Address, Four Doors and a Line
The Village's own membership office lists five categories: Golf, Golf Plus (golf, tennis, and pool combined), Tennis Center, Pool, and Social Dining. As of the current fee schedule, Golf and Golf Plus are full with no openings, and anyone who wants in has to go through Member Relations Coordinator Lenore Dingle to join a waiting list. Tennis, Pool, and Social Dining memberships are open and being sold today.
Here is how the tiers break down for a resident applying right now.
| Membership | Status (Aug. 2026) | Resident Dues (Single) | What It Gets You |
|---|---|---|---|
| Golf | Full, waitlist only | $3,903/year | 18-hole Nicklaus Signature course, driving range |
| Golf Plus | Full, waitlist only | $4,605/year | Golf, tennis, and pool combined |
| Tennis Center | Open | Call for current rate | 10 lighted Har-Tru courts, clinics, private lessons |
| Pool | Open | Roughly $185/year by one longtime member's account | Olympic-size lap pool, splash pad, cabanas, snack bar |
| Social Dining | Open | Call for current rate | Access to The Clubhouse and Grill Room without a golf membership |
Those Golf and Golf Plus figures are for the 2025-2026 season, with family plans running $6,432 and $7,371. The Village's own fee schedule confirms the same five membership categories, though it does not itemize every dollar figure on its public-facing page. The pool number is not an official published rate. It comes from a public review by a member who described paying an annual pool assessment around that figure, which is worth knowing even as an estimate, because it puts the golf and pool tiers on wildly different financial planets.
Why Only One Line Has a Wait
The reason golf is closed and everything else is not comes down to a fixed number that does not scale: 18 holes, one tee sheet, one group every roughly 8 to 10 minutes. The course itself is the scarce asset. It is a Jack Nicklaus Signature design, one of only two municipal courses in the country he put his name on, a par-71 layout stretching 7,071 yards from the tips with a course rating of 74.8 and a slope of 140 on Bermuda grass. It also carries elevation changes that are unusual for a South Florida course, sitting on what locals call Seminole Ridge.
A course like that only has so many tee times in a day, and a membership roster only has so many seats before the tee sheet gets impossible to book. Ten tennis courts and an Olympic-size pool do not hit that ceiling nearly as fast, which is why those memberships stay open while golf does not.
There is a second door into golf that most residents overlook entirely: you do not need a membership to play. Non-members can book tee times up to 10 days in advance based on availability at posted walk-in rates. You will not get the flat member pricing, but you also do not need Lenore Dingle's waitlist to play a Nicklaus municipal course two miles from your front door.
To get any resident rate at the club, the Village's own rules require proof you live here: a deed or tax bill for owners, or a 12-month lease for full-time renters. Part-time residents qualify too, as long as they can document it.
That last part surprises people. You do not have to own to get resident pricing. A full-time renter with a signed year lease qualifies the same as a homeowner.
The Same Trade Two Miles Away at Anchorage Park
This is not a one-off quirk of the golf course. It is how the Village runs its scarce amenities generally. At Anchorage Park, the municipal marina a short drive from the Country Club, the pattern repeats almost exactly. Boat storage, both wet and dry, has a waitlist that is currently full. The boat ramp itself does not. A resident-only ramp decal costs $100 plus tax per year, and residents can use the ramp, trailer parking, and washing station without ever touching that storage waitlist.
Put the two together and a real pattern emerges: in North Palm Beach, the Village's marquee, capacity-limited assets (golf membership, boat storage) run full with a queue, while the everyday assets attached to them (tennis, pool, the boat ramp itself) stay open and comparatively cheap. If you assume "the club is full" or "the marina is full" because you heard about the waitlisted piece, you are missing the three doors sitting open next to it.
What August Actually Opens Up
The timing this month makes the open doors easy to test without committing to a membership at all. Through Resident Appreciation Month, the Village is offering free daily admission to the Country Club pool during recreational swim hours, every day from August 1 through August 31, 2026. You need a valid photo ID or other proof of residency at check-in, and if you are not sure your address falls inside Village limits, the Village points residents to the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser's site to check before showing up.
If you have been curious whether the roughly $185-a-year pool tier is worth it, this is the month to find out for free, before you pay anything.
Three Ways to Eat Here Without a Membership at All
The dining side of the club skips the membership question entirely. All three restaurants on-site are open to the public, member or not:
- The Clubhouse is the club's full-service dining room, now run by Lessing's Hospitality Group, the team behind Pelican Club in Jupiter. It replaced the previous tenant, Farmer's Table, and Lessing's took over the culinary program about two years ago. The current menu leans on dishes like Faroe Island salmon with paella-style risotto and a bistro burger with cheddar and bourbon bacon-onion marmalade, plus a $25 prix fixe lunch Monday through Saturday and a Sunday brunch.
- The Grill Room, next door, is the casual counterpart, with wings, an all-American burger, and a lobster roll. Diners at either restaurant can order from both menus.
- The Snack Shack serves the pool deck directly, for anyone who is there for a lap swim or a lounge chair rather than a sit-down meal.
Michael Lessing had passed on the space back in 2018, when his group was still new to the area with Pelican Club. Talking to Jupiter Magazine about finally taking it on, he said simply, "We were aware of the property for years." Whatever the reason for the wait, the result is a public restaurant with a real chef's menu sitting inside a municipal golf clubhouse most residents assume they cannot walk into without a member card.
The Weekend in April Nobody Watching Golf Saw
The club marked its 100-year milestone with four days of programming from April 30 through May 3, 2026, and the golf headline obscured how much of the weekend had nothing to do with golf at all. Yes, there was a charity exhibition with local pros Michelle McGann, Allan Bowman, Craig Lindsey, and Chris Dachisen, with residents following along by golf cart. But the same weekend also included a swim team exhibition and relay races at the pool, a glow-in-the-dark tennis session with themed appetizers, and a kids' fishing derby on holes 16 through 18 with the West Palm Beach Fishing Club, poles provided. Mayor Lisa Interlandi and Vice Mayor Orlando Puyol welcomed guests alongside General Manager Peter Ayoub and head pro Allan Bowman, and the weekend closed with fireworks.
The club's centennial press treated golf as the centerpiece, the same way most residents talk about the club today. But three of the four days of programming belonged to tennis, the pool, and the dining room, exactly the parts of the club that are open right now with no waitlist attached.
If you live in North Palm Beach and have written off the Country Club because you assumed it was closed, the closed part is smaller than its reputation. Golf has a line. The pool, the tennis courts, and three restaurants do not, and one of them is free to residents through the end of this month.
Robert Floyd Realty spends most of its time helping people find the right home in North Palm Beach and the towns around it, but a neighborhood is more than its listings. If you or someone you know is weighing a move here and wants a straight answer about what daily life actually looks like, from the club to the water to the streets in between, Let's Connect.
