Stonehouse Golf Club

Mike Strantz, the former Tom Fazio protégé whose short career produced a cult following among architecture writers, designed Stonehouse Golf Club in 1996 in the Tidewater wilderness near the York River outside Williamsburg. Strantz approached the design with the stated goal of blending the course so seamlessly into the wild Virginia landscape that nature itself appeared to have carved the fairways. Golf Digest named it Best New Upscale Public Course of 1996 when it opened. 7,013 yards par-72 through virgin hardwoods thick with wild turkey, white-tail deer, mountain laurel, and American holly. The routing tumbles across dramatic rolling hills, unusual for Tidewater Virginia, with risk-reward angles and Strantz's signature bold green complexes. Golfweek Magazine later awarded it 'Best Public Access Golf Course in Virginia' in 2005. The course deteriorated by 2018 before new ownership (Stonehouse 2.0 LLC) rehabilitated greens, fairways, and tee boxes to restore the original conditioning. Peak green fee runs $75-125. Fits a Williamsburg trip as the 'wild-Virginia Mike Strantz' round next to the colonial-plantation atmosphere of Kingsmill and Golden Horseshoe.