The Bear's Club's Median Price Is Hiding Three Different Markets

In April 2026, a spec estate at 228 Bears Club Drive became the most expensive home to go under contract anywhere in Palm Beach County that week, carrying a $39 million ask. Three months later, it closed for $33,767,000. The builder who took it there, Stuart Hankin, had bought the raw acre for $3.4 million in 2021, finished construction in 2025, and opened his asking price at $30 million in 2024 before raising it three separate times.

That sequence, land at $3.4 million, opening ask at $30 million, closing ask at $39 million, final sale at $33.767 million, is not a data point you can average into a neighborhood median and expect the number to mean anything useful. Yet that is exactly what happens every time a portal publishes a single median for The Bear's Club. The community has fewer than 100 total homesites split across resale estates built between 2001 and 2016, a small but active pipeline of builder spec homes, and now a brand new condominium product going up beside the clubhouse. Blend those into one figure and you get a median that describes no actual house a buyer could walk through.

One Address, Four Prices

Walk through the 228 Bears Club Drive timeline again, slowly, because the gaps between each number are the whole story.

Hankin paid $3.4 million for the one-acre lot in 2021. He built a six-bedroom, eight-full-bath home with a theater, a 1,600-bottle wine cellar, and a pool, finishing in 2025. He listed it at $30 million in 2024, before the house was even done, then raised the price three times as construction progressed and market appetite for the county's largest estates held firm. By the week of March 30 to April 5, 2026, it was asking $39 million and led all of Palm Beach County's pending luxury contracts that week, according to a report from Douglas Elliman's Eklund-Gomes team published by The Real Deal. It closed on July 15, 2026, at $33,767,000, about 13 percent below that final ask.

None of those four numbers, the land cost, the opening ask, the peak ask, and the closing price, would show up as a single line in a market report. But together they show how pricing actually gets set on a spec estate in this community. It is not comped against neighboring resales the way a typical existing home is priced. It is set by the builder, tested upward as the market allows, and then negotiated back down to whatever a buyer with the appetite and the liquidity for a $30 million-plus purchase is actually willing to close at. That negotiation gap, roughly 13 percent here, is the number a buyer touring new construction in The Bear's Club should be asking about, not the asking price on the sign.

The Median Only Works If You Know Which Bear's Club You Mean

As of August 2026, the community's median list price sits at $5,995,000, while the average sale price runs to $8,252,669, a gap that only makes sense once you realize how few transactions are feeding both numbers. With just six houses actively listed, ranging from $12.9 million to $52.9 million, a single closing at either end of that range can swing the median by seven figures in a single month.

That fragility shows up even within the same data source. A separate filtered view of the community's two-story homes puts the trailing twelve month median sale price at $1,612,500, down 67 percent year over year. That is not a market crash. It is what happens when a tiny sample of closings, likely a golf villa or club cottage sale mixed in with the estate data, gets treated as representative of the whole neighborhood. The Bear's Club does not have enough annual transactions for a single median to hold steady, and a new product line is about to make that truer, not less true.

Here is what that actually looks like broken out by segment:

A buyer comparing "The Bear's Club" to another Jupiter golf community on price alone is really comparing three separate markets stacked inside one gate.

Ninety-Five Days Isn't a Red Flag, It's the County Average

Homes in The Bear's Club spend an average of 95 days on market before selling, compared with a 56-day national average. On its own, that gap looks like a slow-moving neighborhood. It is not. The same week 228 Bears Club Drive went pending at $39 million, Palm Beach County's luxury contract report tracked 26 signed contracts totaling $198.4 million in asking volume, and those homes averaged 102 days on market before going under contract. The Bear's Club's pace is not an outlier inside its own price tier. It is close to identical to how every $3 million-plus listing in the county was moving that spring.

The reason is structural, not seasonal. Club membership is capped at roughly 100, and the neighborhood itself holds fewer than 100 homesites across its estates, villas, and cottages. That ceiling limits the pool of qualified buyers to a small, self selecting group willing to clear both a real estate transaction and a private club's membership process. A shallow buyer pool matched against a handful of listings does not produce a fast market. It produces a deliberate one, where 95 days is simply how long it takes the right buyer to find the right house, not a sign that a seller misjudged price.

A New Product Is About to Walk Onto the Comp Sheet

The next complication for anyone trying to read a single Bear's Club median is already under construction. "The Residences at The Bear's Club" is a six-unit condominium project going up directly beside the clubhouse, with views of the ninth hole on the Nicklaus Signature course. Peacock & Lewis designed it and Affinity Construction Group is building it, and one unit, C1, has been listed at $7.4 million.

Six closings will not move a neighborhood median much on their own, but they will introduce a product type that has never existed in this community before: a lower square footage, lower maintenance entry point at a price that sits well below the resale estate floor of roughly $12.9 million. Once those units start closing, anyone quoting a single Bear's Club median will be blending estate resales, builder spec pricing, and now condo pricing into one number that represents none of the three accurately. A buyer who understands the segments now will be reading that blended number correctly later, rather than being surprised by it.

What This Means Before You Tour

If you're comparing The Bear's Club against another Jupiter golf community using a headline median, ask which segment that median is actually drawing from. A resale estate, a spec build still under negotiation, and a pre-construction condo unit do not belong on the same comparison chart, even though a portal will happily average them together. The 228 Bears Club Drive sale is the clearest evidence available right now that asking price and closing price can sit 13 percent apart on the county's largest deals, and that gap is worth building into any offer strategy from the start rather than discovering it during negotiation.

Donna Hutchins works this segment of the Jupiter market directly, tracking how estate resales, spec construction, and new product like the clubhouse condominiums are actually pricing against each other in real time, not just how they're being summarized on a portal page. If you're weighing a purchase in The Bear's Club or comparing it against another gated golf community in Palm Beach County, Donna Hutchins can walk you through which segment's numbers actually apply to the property you're considering.

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A Few Questions Worth Asking First

Is club membership required to buy a home in The Bear's Club? Ownership and club membership are handled separately, and membership itself is capped at roughly 100 members with an application and approval process. Confirm current membership availability and terms directly with the club before assuming a home purchase guarantees access.

Why did 228 Bears Club Drive sell for less than its final asking price if luxury demand is strong? A strong market for $3 million-plus homes does not mean every ask closes at full price. The county's own luxury contract data from that week showed pending homes averaging 102 days on market, which reflects a negotiation process, not weak demand.

Will the new condominium units affect resale estate values? There is no closing history yet for The Residences at The Bear's Club, so it is too early to say how six new condo sales will interact with the existing estate market. What is clear is that once those units close, any published median for the community will be blending two very different product types.