Sunrise Company Communities in the Coachella Valley: Complete Guide

Sunrise Company’s Coachella Valley work can be read as a 50-year progression: an early Palm Springs second-home experiment, a high-volume condominium breakthrough, large country-club communities, destination resorts, luxury private clubs and, eventually, the acquisition of an existing project.

This guide organizes the company’s local portfolio by place and explains what each development added to the larger Sunrise formula. It also separates original development from later ownership, because a familiar developer name does not tell a buyer who controls a club today.

How to Read the Sunrise Portfolio

The word built can hide several roles. Sunrise planned land, acted as general contractor, built homes and amenities, sold residences and sometimes operated clubs during development. Those roles changed over time, and they did not always continue after the last home sold.

The chronology below uses Sunrise Company’s published milestones as its organizing spine. When an independent club history provides a different date, the article explains what each date represents. This prevents an opening year, construction start, sales period and ownership transfer from being treated as the same event.

Palm Springs: Learning the Second-Home Business

Deepwell Estates was the practical beginning. In 1969, Bone and the William Bone Company acquired the deteriorated Deepwell Ranch and created 130 homes around shared pools and tennis. The project sold steadily rather than explosively, teaching him that the market wanted the desert experience at a more accessible price.

Sunrise Villas supplied the breakthrough in 1971. Bone later said 236 homes were built, sold and closed in nine months. The development used repetition, lower prices and shared recreation to turn a fragmented second-home market into a production business. Its success also produced the Sunrise Company name.

The early record includes Sunrise East, Sunrise Alejo and Sunrise Tennis Ranch. These smaller Palm Springs projects belong to the company’s formative chapter, even though Sunrise’s public resort-development timeline begins with Sunrise Country Club.

Rancho Mirage: Proving the Complete Community

Sunrise Country Club

Sunrise assembled a 135-acre date plantation beside Thunderbird and planned a gated condominium community around Ted Robinson golf, lakes, pools, tennis and a clubhouse. The company timeline lists 1973; the club’s own history says construction began in 1974. Those sources can both be accurate if one marks the development milestone and the other marks physical construction.

The club’s history documents another essential transition: homeowners bought the club in 1981. That means Sunrise explains the original design, while current ownership and governance come from later member decisions.

Rancho Las Palmas

Rancho Las Palmas grew from the former Desert Air resort property. Sunrise removed and redesigned the course so homes could wrap around it, then combined 858 residences, 27 holes of golf, major tennis facilities, a resort hotel and commercial space. The project demonstrated that the community, hotel and retail environment could reinforce one another.

Palm Desert: Building a Country-Club Corridor

Sunrise’s largest geographic concentration sits in Palm Desert. Monterey, The Lakes, Palm Valley and Indian Ridge alone account for 4,450 homes in the company’s published figures. Add the JW Marriott Desert Springs, and the portfolio explains much of the visual rhythm along and near Country Club Drive: fairways, walls, gates, lakes, clubhouses and mature landscape.

Monterey Country Club

Monterey arrived in 1978 with 1,206 homes, 27 holes of Ted Robinson golf and extensive tennis facilities. It took the Rancho Mirage formula into Palm Desert at a scale large enough to begin changing the surrounding corridor.

The Lakes Country Club

The Lakes followed in 1982 with 902 homes, 27 holes of golf and major tennis and clubhouse facilities. A later Palm Springs Life profile describes a moment when residents presented Bone with a plaque after completion—an anecdote that matters because earlier Sunrise projects had also produced homeowner disputes. The company was learning that long-term satisfaction was part of the product.

Palm Valley Country Club

Palm Valley expanded the model again in 1984: 1,274 homes, 36 holes of golf, large racquet facilities, a clubhouse, fitness center and spa. For buyers, the important next step is the dedicated Palm Valley home buying study guide, which covers present-day ownership questions and market evidence.

JW Marriott Desert Springs

Opened in 1987, Desert Springs turned the Sunrise landscape into resort theater. Water, golf, tennis, restaurants and the large hotel created a destination at Cook Street and Country Club Drive. It also extended a working relationship that began with the Rancho Las Palmas resort partnership.

Indian Ridge Country Club

Indian Ridge shows the integrated model in unusually clear terms. Sunrise says it designed the 640-acre community, built 1,068 homes and the major amenities, partnered with Arnold Palmer on two courses and operated the club during development. Construction began in 1992, home sales concluded in 2002 and the club was sold to members in 2006.

La Quinta and Indian Wells: Championship Golf and Luxury

PGA WEST

Sunrise’s timeline places PGA WEST in 1985 and summarizes its scope as 1,500 homes and four championship courses. The wider PGA WEST community later grew beyond that snapshot, so the figure should not be read as a current total. What the milestone establishes is Sunrise’s role in bringing large-scale destination golf to what Bone recalled as the valley’s far edge. Buyers can continue with the PGA WEST home buying study guide.

Toscana Country Club

Toscana, launched in Indian Wells in 2003, represents the luxury version of the Sunrise system. The company paired Jack Nicklaus Signature golf with residential development, club dining, sports and spa facilities. The emphasis moved from attainable shared-amenity condominiums toward a highly serviced private-club experience. DOI’s Toscana guide examines that lifestyle and its ownership commitments.

Andalusia Country Club

Andalusia belongs in the portfolio with an asterisk. Sunrise acquired the existing La Quinta community in October 2018. The company therefore entered as owner, builder and steward of an established project. The Andalusia home buying study guide covers its homes, plans, costs and current buyer questions.

How Sunrise Worked: One Company, Many Disciplines

Sunrise describes a vertically integrated organization that handles planning, construction, sales, design services, warranties, finance and club operations. That structure helps explain the consistency readers can see across very different decades.

1. Study the buyer. Early pricing and plan choices came from close observation of second-home demand.
2. Control the site plan. Homes, views, fairways, water, courts and the arrival sequence were designed as one environment.
3. Repeat efficiently. Production plans controlled cost while landscape and siting preserved the feeling of a resort.
4. Open the lifestyle with the homes. Amenities and programming gave buyers an immediate reason to belong.
5. Operate during development. Sunrise could manage the club and sales experience while the community matured, then transfer ownership under project-specific terms.

The company also depended on outside specialists. Ted Robinson, Pete Dye, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and other golf designers shaped major courses. Hotel partners, city governments, architects, contractors and later homeowner boards all influenced the final places.

What This History Can—and Cannot—Tell a Buyer

Developer history explains the original logic of a community. It can reveal why homes share certain plans, how views were framed, why amenities are concentrated in a particular place and how ownership may have transitioned. It cannot substitute for current documents.

Ready to compare homes? Use Bloom Home Search for current listings, then return to DOI’s study guides for community history, costs and ownership context.

What the Portfolio Adds Up To

Sunrise Company’s local achievement was cumulative. Deepwell taught the market. Sunrise Villas proved volume. Sunrise Country Club joined production housing to golf. Rancho Las Palmas added hospitality and commerce. Palm Desert supplied a corridor. PGA WEST brought destination golf to La Quinta. Indian Ridge and Toscana pushed the model into luxury. Andalusia extended the company’s role into acquisition and completion.

The result is visible across the valley, but the communities should not be treated as interchangeable. Each reflects a different decade, buyer, housing type, club structure and stage in Sunrise’s evolution.