In October 2025, the median sale price for a home in Lake Sherwood sat at $2.2 million, down 35.6 percent from the year before. Five months later, in a March 2026 market report, the exact same figure showed up again: $2.2 million, down 35.6 percent year over year. Then, over the three months ending in May 2026, that median jumped to roughly $5.0 million on just nine closed sales. By June, a different data provider put the median list price at $4.45 million and the median sold price back down at $2.9 million.
None of those numbers are wrong. They're just describing a market too small to behave the way a normal median is supposed to behave. If you're cross-shopping Lake Sherwood against North Ranch, Westlake Village, or another Conejo Valley enclave, the price you saw on your last portal search tells you far less than you think. The number that actually matters right now isn't on any listing page. It's happening behind the gates, at the club.
Why the Median Keeps Contradicting Itself
Lake Sherwood is a genuinely small market. The community holds roughly 660 residences split across a guard-gated golf-club neighborhood, three additional electronically gated enclaves, and a run of lake-view homes along Lake Sherwood Drive. Local estates typically run from $2 million to $6 million, with premier properties exceeding $10 million, so when only a handful of homes close in any given month, one estate sale at the top of that range or one modest interior-lot sale at the bottom can swing the whole median by seven figures.
That's exactly what appears to have happened here.
| Snapshot period | Metric | Reported figure |
|---|---|---|
| October 2025 | Median sale price | $2.2 million (down 35.6% YoY) |
| March 2026 | Median sale price | $2.2 million (down 35.6% YoY) |
| 3 months ending May 2026 | Median sale price, 9 sales in May | ~$5.0 million |
| June 2026 | Median list price / median sold price | $4.45 million / $2.9 million |
The fact that the same $2.2 million figure, down the same 35.6 percent, showed up in reports published roughly five months apart is itself the tell. That kind of stability doesn't happen in a healthy, liquid market. It happens when a rolling "most recent median" sits frozen because there simply hasn't been a new closed sale to move it. Then a cluster of transactions closes in the spring, the median leaps past $5 million, and by the following month a different data source is already reporting something closer to $3 million again.
If you're using any single online estimate to size up what Lake Sherwood costs, you're reading noise, not signal.
The Club That's Actually Changing
While the median bounced around, something more durable was happening on the ground. In February 2026, developer Rick Caruso, the builder behind The Grove, The Americana at Brand, and the Rosewood Miramar Beach resort in Montecito, acquired the Sherwood Lake Club. The deal came together fast, following the June 2025 death of longtime owner David H. Murdock, the former CEO of Dole Food who had developed the surrounding Sherwood community decades earlier. Caruso told The Real Deal the opportunity landed on a Friday afternoon and the paperwork was signed the following Tuesday.
Caruso's team broke ground almost immediately. Plans call for an expanded 18,000 square foot clubhouse with an Italian-themed restaurant and bar, a refreshed gym, and a relocated pool designed to open up more outdoor space. By early July, Caruso had gone further than a renovation. The club was rebranded entirely, taking the name Miramar Lake Club, a direct nod to his Montecito property, and folded into the same membership ecosystem. According to Caruso's own newsroom, members of the Miramar Club in Montecito will also have access to the Sherwood property, and premium units in a planned eight-story luxury apartment building at the Commons at Calabasas are slated to come with a membership attached.
Caruso described the acquisition in terms that make the intent plain: he called the club's par-3 golf course "a little jewel" and said the entire Sherwood development, gates and all, is "really one of a kind."
That kind of investment is a different category of signal than a monthly median. It's a structural bet on the neighborhood's amenity infrastructure, made by a developer with a long track record of reshaping how a property is perceived before the appraisal data ever catches up.
Two Clubs, Not One
Local coverage of this deal has occasionally blurred two separate institutions that sit inside Lake Sherwood, and the distinction matters if you're evaluating a specific address.
- Sherwood Country Club is a private, invitation-only club built around a Jack Nicklaus championship 18-hole course, ranked California's 21st best course by Golf Digest for 2025-26. It has 12 tennis courts, a full spa and fitness complex, and roughly 375 golf memberships. It hosted Greg Norman's Shark Shootout through the 1990s and Tiger Woods's World Challenge from 2000 to 2013. This club was not part of the Caruso transaction.
- Miramar Lake Club, formerly Sherwood Lake Club, is the property Caruso bought. It centers on an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus "Bear's Best" par-3 course, one of only two such layouts in the world and the only one in the United States, along with tennis, a pool, and a private marina. In an early July interview, Caruso said his team was targeting a mid-August 2026 opening, which puts the relaunch right around now.
Two different clubs, two different ownership structures, two different membership pools. A listing that mentions "Sherwood's country club" could mean either one, and the amenities attached to a given property depend on which one it can actually access.
What Membership Has Actually Cost
Under its prior ownership, Sherwood Lake Club's membership structure was built around lot location. Class A memberships, capped at 185, were reserved for homeowners on lots directly bordering the lake. Class B memberships covered other properties within the Sherwood Estates boundary. The joining fee was $8,000, payable on an installment plan, plus pro-rated dues and a nominal stock purchase. The club's marina, on Fountaindale Road, has only 34 slips, and the waiting list has historically run multiple years.
Those figures describe the club as it operated before Caruso's purchase. Given that his team has already relocated the pool, rebuilt the clubhouse, and renamed the entire property, there is no guarantee those membership tiers, caps, or fees carry forward unchanged. Anyone weighing a purchase based on assumed club access should confirm current membership terms directly rather than relying on numbers tied to the old ownership structure.
What This Means If You're Comparing Neighborhoods
A single median price cannot tell you whether a $4 million Lake Sherwood listing is a fair-market home or an outlier skewing the whole dataset. In a community this size, with this few transactions, it almost never can. What actually separates a well-priced property from an overpriced one here comes down to specifics a portal search won't surface: whether the lot borders the lake and therefore qualifies for Class A club standing, whether it sits along the golf course fairway versus tucked into one of the three interior gated pods, and whether it can realistically access the amenities that are currently being rebuilt and rebranded a few hundred yards away.
The Caruso investment is a reasonable signal that the amenity floor for this community is rising. Whether that translates into a durable increase in home values, or simply a temporary bump in interest while renovations finish, is the kind of question that benefits from someone who tracks these transactions closely rather than someone relying on whatever median happened to populate a website that week.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Compare Listings
Is Sherwood Country Club the same as the new Miramar Lake Club? No. They are separate, independently operated clubs with different courses, different membership pools, and different ownership. Sherwood Country Club was not involved in the Caruso transaction.
Does buying a home in Lake Sherwood come with automatic club membership? Membership eligibility has historically depended on lot location, particularly for lake-adjacent Class A standing at the former Sherwood Lake Club. Confirm current terms directly with the relevant club rather than assuming a listing includes access.
Why do online estimates for Lake Sherwood vary so much? Because so few homes sell here in any given stretch, a handful of transactions can move the reported median by millions of dollars in either direction. Treat any single online estimate as a starting point, not a verdict.
If you're weighing Lake Sherwood against another Conejo Valley community and want a read on a specific property that accounts for the club situation, the lot type, and the financing angle, that's exactly the kind of conversation the Shari Schiff team has every week. Request your complimentary home valuation and we'll walk through what a given address is actually worth, not just what a rolling median says it is.
