4 minute read
Silver Sands Racquet Club
By Marilyn Ramos
Silver Sands Homeowners Association, also known as Silver Sands Racquet Club, (Silver Sands) is a beautiful, gated Palm Desert community. It was developed in the early 1980s and consists of 256 courtyard homes with related common areas and amenities on approximately 70 acres of land. An overall density of about four units per acre allows for ample green space. The main cross streets for the development are Country Club Drive and Portola Avenue with its manned gated entrance on Country Club. Amenities include a clubhouse, lighted courts (seven for tennis and four for pickleball), a fitness center and 15 pools/spas. During season (October-May), Silver Sands has a tennis/pickleball professional who offers private lessons, clinics and coaches both the men’s league and women’s league.
Silver Sands is conveniently located close to supermarkets (Ralphs and Bristol Farms), the Desert Willows Golf Resort, Marriott Desert Springs, El Paseo shopping district, and the McCallum Theatre.
Silver Sands has an interesting history. In 1979 Bob McLain, a Newport Beach developer, built the tennis courts and clubhouse as a weekend getaway for coastal Southern Californians. In the late 1980s, he brought Australian tennis pro "Rocket" Rod Laver to conduct tournaments, clinics and lectures, drawing potential buyers from all over the state. In subsequent years entertainers were also drawn to live in Silver Sands, including singers Jack Jones, Connie Stevens, and Jerry Vale, and actor Gavin McLeod. Over time the clubhouse evolved from a simple one-room hub for court activities to the greatly enlarged social center. The clubhouse is now the center for many community activities – coffee time, a lending library, meeting spaces (including for crafts, yoga, bridge, mahjong, etc.), happy hour, movie night, the tennis/pickleball office, fitness center, kitchen and outdoor barbecues. The outdoor patio is the perfect venue for watching tennis and chatting with friends and neighbors.
Homes at Silver Sands offer a choice of seven floor plans consisting of both duplex style and free-standing homes with two or three bedrooms and two or three bathrooms with double garages. The size of the homes ranges from 1,080 sq. ft. to 2,050 sq. ft. All the homes have private courtyards as well as patios overlooking common area lawns and pools.
The architectural style for Silver Sands can best be described as modified California Spanish. Residential characteristics include a single floor, low pitched tile roof, stucco siding and stucco courtyard walls. In 2012, the colors of the building structures throughout the community were changed from Navajo White with brown trim to a palette of desert colors. Community signage has been refurbished with the same style of white and blue tiles used in the original construction.
Sales prices inside Silver Sands range from $245,000-$495,000. Regular assessments will be $616.00 as of March 1, 2021. That not only includes the numerous amenities, facilities and activities mentioned but also the maintenance of roofs, exterior walls, courtyard walls and landscaping outside the courtyard walls, common area streets, common area landscaping, common area pool/ spas, and the entry/exit gates.
Many members are proud to live at Silver Sands and are known to brag about their community. Here are some testimonials: “There’s no place like Silver Sands...it’s all about the private courtyards and views across the green belts to the mountains and did I mention the amazing location?” “For me, it’s the sense of community. We are low density, so small enough to know one another.” “We have a strong sense of community based on our shared interest in tennis and pickleball.”
Of course, happy communities don’t run themselves. The five-member board is very active, and the association has an extensive network
of volunteers who participate in 16 committees including architectural, governance, social, emergency preparedness, finance, security and pickleball and tennis. The association is hopeful to get back to their active social scene very soon.
In addition to a competent board of directors, competent management is instrumental. The association contracts with Associa Desert Resort Management. Their community manager, Sierra Carr, CMCA, AMS, said, “Silver Sands has some of the most helpful and knowledgeable homeowners I’ve had the pleasure of working with, and I’m so glad to be their community manager!”
In its ongoing attempts to be environmentally friendly and proactive, Silver Sands is a consumer of recycled water for its common area irrigation and has been actively involved in programs to reduce water usage for more than two decades. In the early 2000s, a program was initiated to convert all of the common garden beds to desert landscaping. In 2015, the community embarked on the development of a landscape master plan in consultation with a professional landscape architect. As funds become available the landscape recommendations are being implemented.
The association is proud to partner up with CAI-CV business partners including Sunshine Landscape, Guralnick & Gilliland, BRS Roofing, AMS Paving, Securitas, and Union Bank.
If you would like more information about Silver Sands, please contact Sierra Carr at (760) 346-1161 or the association board president, Linda Kluy, at lskluy.ssrc@gmail.com. Our thanks to Silver Sands board member Linda Stevens for her assistance with this article.
Marilyn Ramos is a paralegal for Guralnick & Gilliland, LLP. She can be reached at (760) 340-1515 or by email at MarilynR@gghoalaw.com.
