For a decade, the Spanish Peaks member's week has had two centers of gravity. The Clubhouse on the 18th green, where mornings start with coffee and the pro shop, and Montage Big Sky a short walk downhill, where evenings run through Cortina or Beartooth Pub & Rec. That two-pole rhythm is about to become a three-pole rhythm.
The Aspire Lodge opens this summer. Once it does, the middle of the day, the shoulder hours between golf and dinner, and most of what parents and multigenerational groups actually want out of a mountain club stop happening at the Clubhouse or the Montage and start happening at Aspire instead.
The thesis, stated plainly
Aspire is not another amenity added to a long list. It is the first purpose-built family and fitness hub inside the club, and its program is deliberately different from the Clubhouse it complements. The Clubhouse is a golf-and-ski building with a dining room. Aspire is a recreation building with a restaurant attached. That distinction reshuffles where members spend the middle of a summer day.
The specifics of the program tell the story better than a description can.
What is actually inside
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Size and structure | A 28,000 square-foot mass timber building designed by Lake Flato |
| Materials | Premium-grade Douglas Fir glulam and CLT, all PEFC certified |
| Energy performance | Designed to be 70% more energy-efficient than traditional buildings |
| Aquatics | Cardio and weight room opening to a fitness courtyard with lap pool, plus hot tubs perched at the east end of the pool deck |
| Sport | A half-court basketball and sport court, with a climbing wall anchoring one end and clerestory windows bringing in balanced light |
| Dining | A restaurant, pizza kitchen, fitness studio, yoga studio, and more |
| Social heart | The Lodge Restaurant, with a commanding view of Lone Peak and an adjacent roof deck serving as the communal après-adventure gathering spot |
Read that table twice. There is a lap pool for people who swim laps, and there is a family pool. There is a gym for adults, and there is a climbing wall and basketball court for teenagers who otherwise have nowhere on the property to burn energy in the middle of a July afternoon. There is a sit-down restaurant with a Lone Peak view, and there is a pizza kitchen for the fifteen-minute lunch between a hike and a golf tee time.
The building solves problems the Clubhouse was never designed to solve.
Location does most of the work
Aspire sits near the Lewis and Clark chair and just upslope from Montage Big Sky. That placement is the quiet part of the story. It means the walking loop between the Clubhouse, Aspire, and Montage becomes the new member geometry of summer, with each building playing a different role at a different hour.
Built on a sloping brownfield site, Aspire is designed to uniquely fit its rugged mountain setting, capturing sweeping views while minimizing environmental impact through strategic reductions in embodied carbon, energy consumption, and water use. The building's orientation harnesses passive solar gain and optimizes on-site power generation, all while serving as a gateway and trailhead to the endless slopes and trails of the surrounding Rocky Mountain wilderness.
The word to sit with there is trailhead. The building is being positioned as the door to the trail system, not just a place to swim after a ride. If you already ride or hike the SPMC network, the practical read is that your morning ride ends at a shower, a coffee, and a pizza inside a single building rather than at your own kitchen. That is a change to the shape of the day, not just the map of the property.
The three anchors of a member summer week
Here is how the calendar rearranges once Aspire opens, laid out as a typical week rather than a menu of features.
- Morning at the Clubhouse. Golf still starts here. Walking off the 18th green into The Clubhouse, with its fine dining, lockers, fitness center, and outdoor pool and hot tubs, remains the routine for members playing the Weiskopf Signature course or Tom's Ten, the 10-hole Par 3 that opened in 2024.
- Midday at Aspire. Lap swim, a family pool session, an hour on the climbing wall with the kids, a yoga class, a lunch on the roof deck facing Lone Peak. This is the block of the day that had no obvious home before.
- Evening at the Montage. Cortina for the Northern Italian night. Beartooth Pub & Rec for the bowling-and-pizza night when the teenagers are running the plan. Alpenglow for a nightcap. The Wildflower Market for the grocery run before a night in.
- Off-property beats built around Fish Camp. Fish Camp, along the Club's private waters, featuring two sleeping cabins and an area to dine and relax, remains the quiet counterweight to a busier core.
- Wednesday markets in Town Center. The community-wide summer routine that most SPMC members already fold into their week.
The point is not that any single one of these anchors is new. The point is that the middle rung of that ladder was missing until Aspire, and members were solving for it either by driving down to Town Center for a swim at the community pool or by using the Clubhouse for a purpose it was never built to serve.
The Food and Wine Festival extends the summer past its usual close
The other 2026 development worth folding into the same calendar is the inaugural Big Sky Food & Wine Festival, running September 24 to 26, 2026, bringing together more than 40 Michelin Star and James Beard Award-winning chefs, Master Sommeliers, and wine and spirits experts against the backdrop of Big Sky's Lone Mountain.
The festival is anchored by Host Chef Ming Tsai of Big Sky's BāBā at the Yellowstone Club, and the SPMC angle is direct. The Thursday, September 24 opening night BBQ at The Barn features John Bates of InterStellar BBQ in Austin, Will Foden of Eglise Lodge in Big Sky, and Francesco Martinelli of the Tom Weiskopf Clubhouse in Big Sky, alongside additional chefs. A member does not have to leave Spanish Peaks to see one of their own kitchens on the festival stage.
Destination events drive shoulder-season demand. A late-September festival extends the calendar between summer and ski season. For a member, that means the summer routine does not close on Labor Day the way it used to. The property is still oriented outward, the restaurants are still staffed, and Aspire's first full season carries three weekends further than a normal Big Sky summer would.
What stays the same
The parts of the club that already worked are not touched by any of this. Direct access to Big Sky Resort, the Weiskopf Championship golf course, two tennis and two pickleball courts, and over four miles of private access on tributaries of the Gallatin River. The intimate Clubhouse still provides dramatic views of the Spanish Peaks range and offers exceptional fine dining, golf and ski operations, fitness, spa treatments, and youth programs.
Fort Peaks continues to run the kids' programs. The Sports Courts remain the tennis and pickleball home. The Montage side of the property still offers an 11,000 square-foot Spa Montage with restorative treatments and relaxation pools, plus a recreation center with bowling, arcade games, and curated activities for all ages. The five Montage restaurants keep their existing character, from Cortina to Beartooth Pub & Rec.
What shifts is not what the club offers but where the center of a family day sits.
The read for a resident
If you own at Spanish Peaks, three practical things follow from this summer's opening.
Your walking radius shrinks. The stretch of trail between the Clubhouse, Aspire, and Montage becomes the axis of a typical day, and driving out to Meadow Village for a swim or a workout stops being part of the routine.
Your calendar stretches later. The September festival and Aspire's first fall shoulder mean the club's food and beverage programming carries longer into the year than the traditional Big Sky summer ever did.
Your guests get a different pitch. Multigenerational visits that used to lean on the golf course and the Montage spa now have a middle-of-the-day answer that is closer, less formal, and better suited to teenagers and grandchildren than a fine-dining lunch would ever be.
The Clubhouse still opens the day. The Montage still closes it. Aspire is what happens in between, and for the first summer in a decade, that middle is no longer a gap a member has to fill on their own.
If you own at Spanish Peaks and are thinking about how the shift affects the value of your specific residence, or if you are considering a purchase and want to understand how Aspire access is written into different property types, reach out to Michelle Horning. Schedule a free consultation for a conversation grounded in the club's day-to-day, not just its brochure.
