An Ivins master-planned resort
Living at Black Desert Resort.
Roughly 600 acres of black lava on the eastern edge of Ivins, where green fairways cut through the basalt, a working resort hums at the center, and the newest homes in town, resort condos today, estate ground to come, share the view with Red Mountain and Snow Canyon's walls.
I am Scott Buehler, a Southern Utah resident of 20-plus years and a licensed REALTOR and lender. This is the honest version of what Black Desert offers, what it costs, and what owning inside a working resort actually means before you buy or sell here.
New to the area? Start with the Ivins guide, then come back for the lava.
Current listings
Homes for sale at Black Desert Resort.
Fed straight from the MLS and gathered across the whole master plan: the Villages condominiums, the resort-core residences, and every Black Desert listing on the Ivins and Santa Clara sides in one search. This is a new market where developer releases and resales trade side by side, so read each listing's product type before its price.
No homes available? Be sure to check out all Ivins listings.
Want the map view? Open the full Black Desert search. Selling instead? Start with what your home is worth.
Listing information comes from the local MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
On this page
Life on the lava
A working resort for a front yard.
Nothing else in Ivins looks like this. The town's west side hides its houses in the desert; Black Desert put a resort on top of it. Green fairways run through black basalt, the hotel and its restaurants hum at the center, and the residences stack along the lava with Red Mountain on one side and Snow Canyon's sandstone on the other. The contrast is the brand, and in person it earns it.
Daily life here runs on the resort's rhythm. Breakfast is a walk, not a drive. The spa, the pools, and the practice greens are downstairs or down the path, and on tournament weeks the place fills with galleries, cameras, and the best players in the world at the end of your street. The rest of Ivins is quiet desert town; this corner of it is deliberately not.
The honest trade: you are buying into a resort that is still building, where construction is part of the view in places and the product is condos and suites rather than yards and garages. For the buyer who wants a lock-and-leave on the lava with a working resort attached, there is exactly one address in town, and this is it.
Inside the master plan
Three products under one name.
Black Desert is a roughly 600-acre master plan with about 1,050 residences planned at full buildout, and it sells in phases rather than plats. What matters to a buyer is the product split, because the three kinds of ownership here price, live, and resell differently. Here is the honest map; every one of them feeds the single Black Desert search above.
Product 01
The Villages at Black Desert Condos
The Villages is the condominium heart of the residential plan and the product most buyers actually transact: resort condominiums built from 2020 onward, running from compact suite-scale floor plans up to multi-bedroom residences, sold furnished-ready for lock-and-leave use. Recorded sales have clustered in the $600,000s with list prices from the high $500,000s to about $1.15 million, and the final release of phase one is underway, so developer inventory and resales are trading side by side.
Product 02
Resort-core residences & suites
Closest to the clubhouse, the restaurants, and the spa sit the resort-core units, the ones that live most like a hotel you happen to own. The resort itself operates nearly 800 rooms and suites, and owner units in and around that core vary building by building in how they can be used: some suit full-time living, others are structured around personal use plus the resort's rental programs. This is the product where reading the specific building's terms matters more than the floor plan.
Product 03
Single-family estate lots Planned
The master plan carries roughly 32 single-family estate homesites, the rarest product on the property: custom-scale ground with lava-field and fairway frontage inside a resort that otherwise builds attached. Releases follow the developer's phasing, so availability comes in windows rather than a steady stream. If detached-on-the-lava is what you are waiting for, this is the product to watch, and worth telling me early so I can flag a release before it moves.
The master plan reaches toward the Santa Clara line, so some Black Desert listings record on the Santa Clara side, and phase names shift as the developer releases new buildings. Do not let the naming intimidate you: every product feeds the one Black Desert search above, and I will tell you plainly which building and which terms a listing actually carries.
Golf & the Tour
Weiskopf's last course, on lava.
The golf course is the reason the world knows this address. It is Tom Weiskopf's 73rd and final design, 19 holes, the bonus par-3 settling bets on the way in, routed through black basalt with the red cliffs standing behind every green. Golfweek has ranked it the number-one course you can play in Utah and among the top such courses in the country, and it plays as dramatic as it photographs.
Then there is the part almost no neighborhood anywhere can say: the Tour comes to your street. Black Desert hosted Utah's first PGA Tour event in decades in October 2024 and serves as both a PGA Tour and LPGA event venue, which means tournament infrastructure, television weeks, and world-class fields a short walk from the residences. For owners it cuts both ways, electric weeks and busy ones, and I would rather you know both before you buy.
Golf access for owners runs through the resort rather than automatically with the deed, and the terms vary by product and phase. Confirm the current arrangement for the specific residence you are considering; I will help you pin it down in writing.
19 holes on basalt
Weiskopf's final design threads green fairways through black lava, with a bonus 19th hole and the red cliffs behind every shot.
A Tour venue
Host to PGA Tour and LPGA events, bringing tournament weeks, galleries, and television to the resort's doorstep.
Ranked #1 in Utah
Golfweek's top public-access course in the state, ranked among the best you can play nationally.
Course conditions, tee access, and event schedules change; check the resort's current information before you plan around them.
Resort highlights
Six things only this address offers.
Every resort community makes promises. Black Desert can point at specifics: the course, the Tour, the working hotel, the newest construction in Ivins, the lava setting, and a product mix nothing else in town carries.
Green-on-black golf
Tom Weiskopf's final design, 19 holes through the basalt, ranked Golfweek's #1 course you can play in Utah.
The Tour at the door
A PGA Tour and LPGA event venue, hosting Utah's first PGA Tour stop in decades in October 2024.
A working resort downstairs
Restaurants, a wellness spa, pools, and nearly 800 rooms and suites operating on the property, not promised for later.
The newest homes in Ivins
Every recorded residence here was built in 2020 or later, the youngest housing stock anywhere in town.
Snow Canyon, six minutes
The state park entrance sits ~6 min up the road, with Red Mountain and the sandstone walls framing the whole property.
Lock-and-leave, rare in Ivins
Condos and suites in a town built almost entirely of detached homes, the one true lock-and-leave address on this side of the valley.
Homes & pricing
Resort math, not subdivision math.
Price this place like a subdivision and every number looks wrong. The condominium residences run compact, recorded floor plans have hovered around suite scale, and dollars per square foot land far above the Ivins norm, because you are buying the resort, the course, and the address along with the walls. Recent list prices have run from the high $500,000s to about $1.15 million, with recorded sales clustering in the $600,000s.
The market has two engines. The developer is still releasing phase inventory, final phase-one units are on the market now, while early owners resell alongside them, and the two price against each other. That is normal for a young resort and it rewards a buyer who reads both: a resale can undercut a release, and a release can carry terms a resale cannot. At buildout the plan calls for roughly 1,050 residences plus the estate lots, so this market will keep evolving for years.
Read every listing as product first, price second: which building, what floor plan scale, what view line over the lava and fairways, and what use terms attach. Confirm everything against the live listings, because in a phased resort market the freshest data is the only data that counts.
At Black Desert you are not buying square footage. You are buying a working resort with your name on one door of it.
Trails & outdoors
Red rock past the last green.
The resort holds the lava; the public land holds everything else. Snow Canyon's trail system starts six minutes up the parkway, Red Mountain stands over the whole property, and the Santa Clara River Reserve rounds out the menu to the southwest. Here is the honest tiering.
Resort paths (easy)
Paths thread the property itself, between the residences, the course, and the resort core, with the lava fields as the scenery.
Snow Canyon State Park (all levels)
About six minutes to the entrance: Jenny's Canyon, the Petrified Dunes, the lava-tube caves, and the paved Whiptail trail through the sandstone.
Red Mountain (hard)
The wall above the property. Routes onto the plateau are a genuine climb, with the whole lava field and the resort laid out below you at the top.
Santa Clara River Reserve (easy to moderate)
About nine minutes southwest: the Anasazi Valley petroglyph trail, Cove Wash, and miles of desert singletrack through the 6,500-acre reserve.
Farther afield, Zion National Park is about an hour east, Sand Hollow's water is roughly thirty minutes, and Las Vegas is about two hours southwest. The wider outdoor picture for the area lives in the Ivins guide.
Trail details come from Utah State Parks, the BLM, and the Santa Clara River Reserve. Confirm seasonal access and conditions before you go.
Errands & drive times
The east-side advantage, in minutes.
Black Desert sits on the town's east edge, which quietly makes it the shortest Ivins commute to everything in Santa Clara and St. George. Dinner is downstairs, groceries are seven minutes, and the hospital run is the fastest in town. Times are measured from the resort entry off Snow Canyon Parkway.
| The errand | Where it happens | From the resort |
|---|---|---|
| Dinner out | The resort's own restaurants | On the property |
| Full grocery run | Lin's Fresh Market, Santa Clara | ~7 min |
| Town errands | Ivins City Center, 55 N Main | ~5 min |
| State park day | Snow Canyon State Park entrance | ~6 min |
| A show night | Tuacahn Center for the Arts | ~8 min |
| Trailhead | Santa Clara River Reserve | ~9 min |
| Healthcare | St. George Regional Hospital | ~15 min |
| Freeway on-ramp | I-15 at Bluff Street, St. George | ~14 min |
| Flights | St. George Regional Airport (SGU) | ~22 min |
Farther out, Zion National Park is about an hour east on I-15, Sand Hollow Reservoir is roughly thirty minutes, and Las Vegas and its international airport are about two hours southwest. The full day-trip map lives in the Ivins guide.
Schools & education
Schools, by the facts.
Black Desert Resort is part of the Washington County School District. The area is generally served by Red Mountain Elementary (grades K-5), which sits in Ivins at 263 East 200 South, then Lava Ridge Intermediate (grades 6-7) and Snow Canyon Middle (grades 8-9) in Santa Clara, and Snow Canyon High (grades 10-12). It is the same feeder chain that serves most of Ivins, and the resort's east-side position puts the Santa Clara schools among the closest in town.
Boundaries can shift as Ivins and Santa Clara grow, so confirm the current assignment for any home you are serious about directly with the district rather than guessing from a map. For independent school information, GreatSchools and Niche both publish data you can weigh for yourself.
I cover the bigger education picture for the area in the Ivins guide.
Resort ownership
What owning inside a working resort actually means.
This section exists because Black Desert is the one property in Ivins where the deed comes with a hotel attached, and that changes the questions a careful buyer asks. Owning here is closer to owning inside an operating hospitality business than inside a subdivision: the resort runs the restaurants, the spa, the pools, and the course around you, and your unit's paperwork, not the brochure, defines how you may use it.
The three things that vary most, building by building and phase by phase: how a unit may be used (full-time living, personal use, participation in the resort's rental programs), what resort and golf access attach to ownership and on what terms, and what the developer's remaining buildout will put next to your window. None of these are reasons to walk away. They are reasons to read before you sign, because two identical floor plans in different buildings here can carry genuinely different ownership.
And the calendar matters. Tournament weeks bring the PGA Tour and LPGA, with the crowds and road management that come with them; construction phases move around the property as buildout continues. Owners who love it here love exactly that energy. Owners who wanted silence should be honest with themselves before buying into a resort, and I will be honest with you about which buildings sit closest to the action.
What I pin down before you buy into the resort
- The specific building's use and rental-program terms, in writing, including whether Ivins' resort-zone short-term rules apply to that unit.
- What golf, spa, and resort access actually attach to the ownership, on what current terms, rather than what the marketing implies.
- The buildout map around the unit: which phases are planned next to it, and what your view line looks like at completion, not just today.
- How the unit's financing works, because condominiums inside an operating resort can carry different lending requirements than a standard home, and I wear the lender hat too when it helps to know early.
This is general guidance, not a legal reading of any building's governing documents or programs. Confirm the current terms for any specific residence with the resort, your own professionals, and me before you rely on them.
What locals know
The details I would slow down and check.
Black Desert rewards a buyer who reads it as a resort first and real estate second: the building, the terms, the calendar, and the buildout. These are the four things I would walk a friend through before they get attached to any one residence here.
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Products do not comp against each other. A suite condo, a multi-bedroom residence, and estate ground are three different markets wearing one resort name. Match the comp to the product before you trust it.
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The paperwork is the property. Use terms, rental-program rules, and resort access vary building by building. Two identical floor plans can carry different ownership; read yours before you fall for the view.
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Know the calendar's two faces. Tournament weeks are electric and busy in equal measure, with crowds and traffic management around the property. Visit during one before you decide which face you are buying.
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Buy the buildout, not the moment. Roughly 1,050 residences are planned at completion. Ask what rises next to your window over the coming phases, because today's open view may be tomorrow's neighbor.
Buy or sell here
The buyer side and the seller side.
Buying at Black Desert
Black Desert Resort spreads across roughly 600 acres of black lava fields on the eastern edge of Ivins, off Snow Canyon Parkway where Ivins meets Santa Clara. The Snow Canyon State Park entrance is about six minutes up the road, and the resort core, the golf course, and the residences all share the lava with Red Mountain and the red cliffs as the backdrop.
Resort product, not standard subdivision product: condominium residences in the Villages at Black Desert built from 2020 onward, suite-style units near the resort core, and a small number of single-family estate homesites planned as the master plan builds out. Floor plans run from compact suites to multi-bedroom residences, so define the product type before you compare prices.
Golf access runs through the resort rather than automatically with the deed, and the terms vary by product and phase. The course itself is 19 holes of Tom Weiskopf's final design, routed through the lava, and it hosts PGA Tour and LPGA events. Confirm the current access terms for the specific residence you are considering before you count on them.
Recent list prices have run from the high $500,000s to about $1.15 million across the condominium product, with recorded sales in the $600,000s, and the planned estate homesites will be their own market above that. Pricing per square foot runs well above the Ivins norm because this is resort real estate, so confirm against the live listings.
Black Desert Resort is part of the Washington County School District, generally served by Red Mountain Elementary (grades K-5) in Ivins, then Lava Ridge Intermediate (grades 6-7) and Snow Canyon Middle (grades 8-9) in Santa Clara, and Snow Canyon High (grades 10-12). Boundaries can shift as Ivins and Santa Clara grow, so confirm the current assignment for any home you are serious about directly with the district.
That is a per-building, per-phase question, not a yes or no. Ivins limits short-term rental activity to its resort-zoned areas, and Black Desert's buildings carry their own use and rental-program terms. If rental flexibility matters to you, verify the specific unit's eligibility and the current program terms in writing before you buy.
Ready to look? See what is on the market or tell me what you are after.
Selling at Black Desert
Separate your product before you price it. A suite condo, a larger residence, and estate ground do not comp against each other, and none of them comp against detached Ivins. Resort inventory also trades alongside the developer's own releases, so the comps that matter are the most recent ones inside the resort, read against what is releasing now.
List it with me, Scott Buehler, and your home is featured across Moving Utah, on this page, on the Ivins hub, and in the featured listings buyers browse on this site. The get featured page walks through exactly how that works.
I start with the most recent sales inside Black Desert itself, matched to the same building and product type, then adjust for floor, the view line over the lava and fairways, condition, and the phase's release pricing. In a new resort market the developer's current releases matter as much as resales, so I read both before naming a number.
Yes, but on a purchase I take one role only, never both. I can work as your real estate agent or as your lender, and the role is disclosed before we move forward.
Thinking about it? Start with your number or see how featuring works.
Keep exploring Ivins
Want a closer look at Black Desert?
Buying, I can pull the current resort inventory, releases and resales together, and pin down the building, the use terms, and the golf access before you compare a single price. Selling, I will position your residence against the right product inside the resort and time it against the developer's releases, not against detached Ivins.
Selling at Black Desert Resort
Want to sell your residence at Black Desert Resort? List it with Scott Buehler and get featured on Moving Utah.
No best-agent claims and no guaranteed-price promises, just honest pricing that separates suite condos, resort residences, and estate ground, and reads your resale against the developer's current releases.