Jeff Bezos is still not a member of Indian Creek Country Club, even after buying three properties on Indian Creek Island for a combined $234 million. The Amazon founder and Lauren Sanchez Bezos were seen at the club’s annual dock party in February as special guests, but that appearance did not move him onto the membership rolls.
That is the point of the search today: Bezos has put down deep roots on Indian Creek Island, yet the club remains closed to him. He paid $68 million for one property in 2023, then bought a roughly 19,000-square-foot home next door for $79 million and added a third property in 2024 for $87 million. Property ownership, though, is not a back door into Indian Creek Country Club.
The club sits at the center of Indian Creek Village, a roughly 300-acre island reached by gated bridge or boat and guarded by its own police force. Founded in 1929, it is built around an 18-hole golf course, clubhouse and other private amenities, and it has about 350 members. Admission is expensive before it is selective: the initiation fee is close to $1 million and annual dues are about $44,000.
Selection is where the door narrows further. Applicants need sponsorship from two existing members and letters of recommendation from five others before a six-person membership committee can even weigh the file, and nominees then go to a 15-member board for a vote. That structure explains why wealth alone does not decide the outcome, even in a place where the vast majority of the land belongs to the club.
Bezos is not the only high-profile figure left outside. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have not been admitted either, despite the money and attention drawn to the island. Zuckerberg paid $170 million for an unfinished estate there, and the previous owner, Aaron Rollins, reportedly spent years trying and failing to win club membership.
Bezos’s presence at the February dock party suggested interest, not acceptance. People who attended that event told the he was using the gathering to meet members and improve his prospects. Six months later, the answer was unchanged: he was still on the outside, and the next step depends on whether two sponsors, five recommendations, committee approval and a board vote ever line up in his favor.
