Martis Camp vs Lahontan vs Schaffer's Mill: Costs Beyond the Sale Price
October 1, 2026
October 1, 2026
Escrow closes. The wire clears. The buyer has a key to a home in Martis Camp, Lahontan, or Schaffer's Mill, three gated communities that sit side by side in the valley between Truckee and Northstar. Then a second process starts, one that has nothing to do with the mortgage. It is a separate club membership process, with its own price schedule and, in some cases, its own waitlist. The home and the membership that makes the address worth having are two separate transactions, priced by two separate logics, and almost nothing about the sale price prepares a buyer for what the second one costs.
That gap is the real story in Martis Valley right now. Not which community is more expensive on paper, but how differently each one prices the thing you actually came for.
In Martis Camp, club membership is separate from purchasing a home, and the two membership tiers are priced accordingly. A Social Membership carries a transfer fee of $125,000 with annual dues of $29,000. A Golf Membership requires a $300,000 initiation fee and $45,000 in annual dues. On top of either, every property sale in Martis Camp is subject to a conveyance fee, a cost that applies whether or not the buyer joins the club at all.
Lahontan prices the same choice differently. A Social Membership there runs about $70,000 in initiation with roughly $13,900 in annual dues. Golf membership does not have a fixed initiation fee. It trades on the open market at roughly $200,000 or more, and new owners may be placed on a waitlist for facility access, including a golf membership. HOA dues run around $5,800 a year on top of whichever membership a buyer chooses.
Schaffer's Mill takes a third approach entirely. Its club has a modest one-time enrollment fee and low annual dues. The club does not publish a rate card, so the exact figure depends on the current brochure at the time of purchase.
Three communities, three completely different pricing philosophies for the exact same thing: access to the golf course, the clubhouse, the pool. None of it shows up in the number a buyer sees on the listing.
As of the first quarter of 2026, Martis Camp home prices range from about $4 million for smaller cottage lots up to $25 million for estate properties, with January 2026 closings recorded at $6.2 million and $8.5 million. Lahontan typically trades between $3 million and $8 million. Schaffer's Mill spans roughly $1.5 million to $4 million, with new construction pushing toward the top of that range.
Read in isolation, those bands suggest a straightforward ladder: Schaffer's Mill is the value play, Lahontan sits in the middle, Martis Camp is the trophy tier. But layer the membership costs on top and the ladder gets less tidy. A buyer choosing a golf membership in Martis Camp is committing to $300,000 in initiation plus $45,000 a year before the first green fee. A buyer doing the same in Lahontan is paying open-market rates that move with demand, not a fixed schedule. A buyer at Schaffer's Mill is choosing a structure explicitly designed to avoid that kind of open-ended exposure.
The sale price tells you what you're paying for square footage and a lot. It tells you nothing about what you're committing to every year after that, and the size of that second number depends entirely on which club's pricing model you've bought into, not just which community.
There is a second mechanism at work here, and it has nothing to do with clubs. Martis Camp, Lahontan, and Schaffer's Mill all sit in Placer County, while most of downtown Truckee falls in Nevada County. That line running through the valley determines something buyers evaluating rental income rarely think to check until it's too late: which short-term rental cap applies to a given address.
Placer County and Truckee proper, under Nevada County, are subject to county-level short-term rental rules, which buyers should check for the specific address.
On paper, that makes Martis Camp, Lahontan, and Schaffer's Mill look like the better bet for anyone weighing rental income. In practice, the county cap is the outer boundary, not the deciding factor. Each community's own HOA and club rules sit inside that boundary and are frequently stricter than the county allows. The specifics vary by community and need to be verified property by property.
County-level permit availability does not by itself determine what a buyer can do at a specific property, so buyers weighing rental income should check both county and community rules.
In November 2025, Martis Camp Club completed its acquisition of the historic Mourelatos Lakeshore Resort on Lake Tahoe's North Shore, a 3.2-acre property with one of the lake's largest sandy beaches within a commercially zoned parcel. The resort had operated in Tahoe Vista since 1942, with the Mourelatos family running it since 1978, and the property had been listed for $29.5 million before the club stepped in, according to SFGATE's coverage of the sale.
The acquisition adds to a club that already operates the Beach Shack, its original North Shore lake access point running since 2014. Club leadership has been careful about the pace of change. Colin O'Hanlon, the club's Chief Operating Officer, said the immediate focus was "maintaining the integrity, hospitality, and welcoming spirit of this remarkable property," according to Sierra Sun's report on the completed acquisition. No redevelopment timeline has been announced.
The acquisition adds a North Shore property to the club's portfolio, but whether it is included in member access is not stated here. Lahontan also had a significant fitness center renovation slated to wrap by the end of summer 2026. These amenity developments are separate from the price of an individual home, so comparing communities on sale price alone may leave out details buyers will want to consider.
A few questions are worth asking directly, and answering them before an offer goes in rather than during escrow:
An estimated 20 to 25 percent of high-end transactions in the Truckee-Tahoe corridor happen off-market, arranged agent to agent before a property is ever formally listed. That means some of the clearest comparisons for what a home actually costs to own, membership included, never surface publicly at all. Getting those figures before making an offer usually requires asking someone who works this corridor directly, not reading a listing sheet.
Does buying a home in Martis Camp include club membership? No. Club membership is separate from the home purchase, and initiation fees and annual dues apply; every sale also carries a conveyance fee, whether or not the buyer joins the club.
Can I count on short-term rental income from a Martis Valley purchase? It depends on both the county and the specific HOA, and the two don't always agree.
Are the membership figures quoted here fixed? No. Club pricing changes, sometimes year to year, and Schaffer's Mill in particular does not publish a rate card at all. Confirm current figures directly with each club's membership office before finalizing an offer.
Comparing Martis Camp, Lahontan, and Schaffer's Mill by sale price alone answers the wrong question. The number that actually determines what you'll pay to live there, and what you'll be able to do with the property afterward, lives in the membership schedule and the HOA's rental rules, not the listing. If you're weighing these three communities and want the current membership figures, the county specifics for a property you're considering, and an honest read on what a total cost of ownership actually looks like, Lindsay Buchanan can walk through the numbers with you before you write an offer, not after.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
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