Say you spend a Saturday touring two homes in Winter Springs, and both listings promise the same thing: a lot that backs to a golf course. By the second showing you assume you already know what that means. Green fairway out back, maybe a stray ball in the yard once a season, a little more privacy than the house next door. Then you find out one of those "golf courses" hasn't had a golfer on it in roughly two decades, and the land behind it has been the subject of a development fight since 2012.
That is the situation facing anyone comparing move-up homes in Winter Springs right now. The city has two large parcels that get called "the golf course" in casual conversation and in listing copy, and they could not be more different in what they actually promise a buyer.
The Course That's Still a Course
Tuscawilla is the name most people mean when they say "golf course community" in Winter Springs. It's a private 18-hole club that has operated since the early 1970s, and it sits inside a much larger planned development that dates back to 1969 and now covers roughly 3,500 acres. More than 11,000 residents live across 28 separate subdivisions inside that footprint, each with its own homeowners association. One of the older sections, Country Club Village, was built starting in 1979 and finished in 1992 with 245 homes, many of them sited directly along the fairways.
Buying "on the golf course" in Tuscawilla means buying into something with dues, a management company, and an HOA structure with actual teeth. The club itself charges for membership if you want to play. The subdivisions around it charge separately for landscaping standards, common area maintenance, and architectural review. None of that is a knock on the neighborhood. It's simply what "active golf course" costs in practice, and it's worth knowing before you assume the view comes free.
The Course That Isn't
Across town, in a neighborhood called The Highlands, homes also sit along what used to be a golf course. The former Winter Springs Golf Club closed at the start of a wave of course closures nationwide, and a developer named Arman Rahbarian bought the land in 2006 with plans that never materialized. The course never reopened.
What makes this parcel different isn't just that it sat idle. The Oviedo Community News reported that 133 acres of it have been under a public conservation easement since 1984, originally set aside with an eye toward future parkland. Development of the parcel has been on the table repeatedly since at least 2012.
The most recent serious attempt came from Pulte Homes in 2023, with a proposal for 492 units split between townhomes, bungalows, and cottage homes, plus roughly 12 acres of commercial frontage along State Road 434. The Pulte Homes proposal presentation pitched open space, promising 44 percent of the site left undeveloped against a 5 percent city requirement, with the conservation area kept as a passive recreation zone owned and maintained by an HOA rather than the golf club. Residents pushed back, and Commissioner Victoria Bruce has since confirmed that Pulte withdrew the plan.
That didn't end the conversation. By January 2026, city commissioners were discussing the parcel again as part of a broader project to redraw the city's future land use map, and residents in the Highlands were showing up to ask that the conservation easement stay intact. One homeowner wrote in a Facebook post, as reported by ClickOrlando: "My house actually backs up to the easement, and I cannot imagine businesses and apartments being my literal backyard."
By summer, the fight had escalated to the city charter itself.
"Our residents bought their homes believing that they were going to be living on a golf course."
The quote above comes from a July 2026 ClickOrlando report, in which Mayor Kevin McCann explained why he was asking the city's Charter Review Committee to raise the bar for releasing any conservation easement or annexing land inside the county's rural boundary. His proposal would require four of five commissioners to agree, instead of a simple three-vote majority, before the city could act. If the committee and commission move it forward, the earliest voters could weigh in is 2028.
Seminole County voters already showed an appetite for this kind of protection. In November 2024, they approved two similar county-level charter amendments covering rural land and natural areas, with about 84 percent and 82 percent support respectively. Whether Winter Springs residents get the same chance at the city level, and whether state legislation working through Tallahassee might preempt local control before that vote ever happens, is still an open question as of this fall.
Why This Matters More Than the View
A golf course lot usually sells a buyer on two things: privacy, and the assumption that nothing gets built behind you. In Tuscawilla, that assumption rests on a functioning private club with a financial incentive to keep operating. In The Highlands, it rests on a conservation easement that has survived multiple development attempts through resident pressure.
Neither situation is bad on its face. But they carry different kinds of risk, and a buyer comparing two similarly priced homes needs to know which kind they're underwriting.
| Tuscawilla | The Highlands | |
|---|---|---|
| Course status | Active private 18-hole club | Closed for roughly two decades |
| What sits behind the fence | A functioning golf operation with paying members | 133 acres under a public conservation easement |
| What you're financially exposed to | HOA dues, and club membership if you want to play | No golf dues, but land use uncertainty |
| What's in motion in 2026 | Normal club operations | A proposed city charter amendment requiring a supermajority vote to release the easement, with an earliest ballot date of 2028 |
What the Median Price Doesn't Tell You
Winter Springs as a whole has kept appreciating. Homes sold for a median of $435,000 over the three months ending June 2026, up 4.8 percent from the same period a year earlier, though they're now taking a bit longer to find a buyer, an average of 32 days on market compared with 22 days the year before. A broader six-month tracking of 278 closed sales across the city, current as of August 2026, put the median closing price at $416,641, with the middle half of those sales spanning $314,000 to $565,000.
That spread is the part worth sitting with. A quarter-million-dollar range inside one city's median means the citywide number tells you almost nothing about a specific address. Inside Tuscawilla itself, September 2026 listings carried a median asking price around $442,000, with homes spending closer to 50 days on market, itself a signal that even inside the golf community, condition and subdivision matter more than the golf course label on the listing.
Two homes can land at nearly the same price per square foot, one backing to an active fairway with predictable dues and maintenance, the other backing to a legally contested parcel whose next chapter depends on a commission vote, a charter amendment, and possibly a state legislature. The price doesn't distinguish between those two futures. You have to.
Before You Write an Offer on a "Golf Course" Home in Winter Springs
- Ask directly whether the course behind the lot is operating today. Don't rely on the listing's language alone.
- Find out which HOA actually governs that address. Tuscawilla alone has 28 separate associations with different rules and different dues structures, so request the HOA's budget before assuming what you're paying for.
- If the home sits in The Highlands, ask how close the parcel is to the 133-acre conservation easement and whether any part of the lot touches it directly.
- Check the city's current future land use map process and upcoming commission agendas rather than assuming today's zoning holds for the next decade.
- If privacy from future construction is part of why you want the lot, treat that privacy as a variable tied to an ongoing legal and political process, not a permanent feature, and price your offer with that in mind.
A Few Questions Worth Asking
Is Tuscawilla's golf course at risk of closing too? There's nothing in current reporting suggesting that. It operates as a private club with paying members, which is a fundamentally different position than a course that's already sat closed for two decades.
Will the Highlands land ever actually be developed? Nobody can say with certainty. The parcel has drawn proposals on and off since 2012, one serious plan was withdrawn after resident opposition, and the city is now considering charter protections that wouldn't reach a ballot before 2028 at the earliest. State-level legislation could also change what local officials are able to protect, regardless of how a city vote turns out.
Does buying near the closed course automatically hurt resale value? Not automatically. Citywide, Winter Springs values are still moving up. What it does mean is that you're buying some uncertainty that a Tuscawilla buyer isn't, and that uncertainty deserves its own conversation before you decide what the home is worth to you.
If you're comparing homes across Winter Springs and want someone who actually tracks which parcels carry this kind of history, that's exactly the conversation worth having before you tour house number three. Brenda Feliciani works these neighborhoods block by block, not just by median price, and can walk you through what a specific address is really backing up to. Reach out to request your free home valuation and start the conversation with the full picture in hand.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
