CENTURY 21 Club Realty

Firerock Country Club

Located on 800 acres south of Shea and Fountain Hills boulevards, Firerock Country Club is expected to be a world-class addition as the community's first private club.

Plans call for a proposed 30,000 square-foot, two-story clubhouse, as well as an 18-hole golf course.

Residents will have a selection of home choices available, including 390 spacious custom homesites and 288 luxury attached. Developers have taken special care to ensure the natural character and beauty of the property is preserved as much as possible.

Red Rock Mountain stands as a majestic landmark at the southern outskirts of Fountain hills. In the setting sun, the mountain lives up to its name, glowing a deep burnt orange.

FireRock Country Club, located at the southern intersection of Shea Boulevard and Fountain Hills Boulevard, brings to Fountain Hills an unequaled level of style and luxury. It is a place where spacious custom homesites have been strategically located along the ridgelines of rolling canyons, resulting in maximum privacy and spectacular views. Where the richly appointed private club- house will appear to have been forged from the rugged terrain. And where panoramic views from the golf course enable players to see landmarks - including the East Valley skyline, Four Peaks and Red Mountain - from various sites along  the course.

"For years, residents in Fountain Hills and people interested in moving to Fountain Hills have expressed a desire for a private golf country club," said Greg Bielli, project manager. "FireRock Country Club answers that need."

Among the features of this 800-acre private, gated community are a mixture of custom homesites and luxury attached residences, an 18-hole golf course designed by award-winning Architect Gary Panks, a ruggedly handsome 29,000-square-foot, two-story clubhouse and a gated entrance for extra privacy.

And, to preserve the spectacular desert environment that makes FireRock so special, particular care has been taken to maintain a feeling of natural open space.

While enjoying the serenity of the desert panoramas from FireRock Country Club, it's difficult to believe that all the modern conveniences of everyday living are just minutes away in Fountain Hills or the nearby communities of Tempe, Mesa and Scottsdale.

 "FireRock Country Club offers the best of both worlds," Bielli said. "It's nicely secluded, vet it's close to all the conveniences of urban living." 

The style of the FireRock Clubhouse is difficult to define, according to architect Michael Marsh of Denver's Marsh & Associates, Inc.

Unhampered by trendy titles, the style incorporates elements of an old abandoned stone structure, with a low-slung patina copper roof - evocative of our region's copper mining heritage - and an old-world antique stucco and stone exterior. The FireRock Clubhouse's look is part Southwest, part prairie, part northern Italian and part Native American. In a word, it exemplifies a style all its own, simply: FireRock.

In creating the clubhouse outline, designers borrowed from local Native American tradition in which a fortified village always dominated the hilltop, providing a sense of power. Such as it is with FireRock. From high atop its hilltop perch, the prominent two-story clubhouse "stands guard" over the 18-hole championship golf course, the boulder- covered hills and the mountains beyond.

"The site is such a unique and rustic one, we really wanted to maintain its character in the design of the clubhouse," Marsh said. "That's why we planned the clubhouse to look as though it was forged from the land itself. We wanted it to seem a little bit weathered and part of the earth, rather than something shiny and new that was imposed on the landscape. We will achieve this by using materials such as earth-colored stucco, antique wood, mortared rubble walls from which the plaster finish appears to have worn off hundreds of years ago, and slate flooring incorporating colors of the copper patina and desert rust."

Inside, the 29,000-square-foot clubhouse will feature an inviting living room/foyer decorated with cozy, overstuffed chairs and two massive stone fireplaces. Men's and Women's locker rooms, private access to a lagoon pool and a fitness center will be located on the clubhouse's lower level.

Meanwhile, the main level will be occupied by a formal dining room and covered terrace with panoramic views, and a pro shop.

When it comes to designing golf courses, architect Gary Panks is no stranger to breathtaking sites. Among his many accomplishments are the award-winning Sedona Golf Resort, Desert Highlands Golf Club in Scottsdale and Chaparral Pines in Payson.

That must be why he feels so at home at FireRock Country Club. The first thing a visitor to the FireRock Country Club golf course will notice is its stunning panoramic city and mountain views, in addition to the tremendous amount of native vegetation, including vast amounts of ironwood and mesquite trees, stately saguaro cacti and numerous natural rock outcroppings. With such a variety of view corridors and landscape surprises, it's a wonder a person can concentrate on his golf game.

But fear not. The new course will offer plenty to keep a golfer's attention, Panks promises. In Panks' traditional and classic style, each hole takes on its own character and personality. "The course has what we call great balance," Panks said. "By that, I mean that the holes play in a variety of directions and invite players to use a number of clubs for various distances and shot options.

The greens will have subtle movement that will both challenge the golfer and be fair at the same time." Strategic bunkering will also put a premium on shot selection, but will never be too penalizing to the player.

So loosen up those golf swings and keep practicing those putts. When the golf course opens later this year, you'll definitely want to he ready!

If the cacti and other native plants that mark the FireRock Country Club community look like they've been there for hundreds of years, it's not surprising. They probably have.

That's because in planning the landscape design, developers took special care to minimize disturbance to the site, and to use as many of the existing shrubs, trees and cacti as possible.

"Plants in the path of the developed improvements have either been designed around and left untouched, or moved to an on-site nursery, where they will be cared for until we transplant them back into the community," said Paul Vecchia, of NeilI/Vecchia & Associates, who is heading up the landscape efforts.

"All landscape materials which are being utilized throughout the site are native to the area or integrate effectively with it." The end result will be a landscape palette that will provide a rich variety of texture, color and seasonal change to accentuate the mystique of this desert community.