The Grove vs. Troubadour: What College Grove's HOA Fees Don't Tell You

Pull up a closing statement for a home in The Grove and you'll find a homeowners association fee somewhere between $237 and $376 a month, averaging around $264. It reads like a number you could budget around without thinking twice. It is also, for most buyers who end up living there, the smallest recurring cost tied to the address.

That gap between what the HOA fee says and what the community actually costs is the real story in College Grove right now. Two master-planned communities, The Grove and Troubadour, sit inside the same unincorporated stretch of southern Williamson County, roughly 30 miles from Nashville and about 15 minutes from Franklin. Both sell to buyers who could write a check for $2 million and keep shopping. But they're not selling the same thing, and the HOA line item is where that difference hides in plain sight.

The Fee Covers Less Than It Sounds Like

At The Grove, that $237 to $376 monthly fee, based on a sample of 50 closed sales, pays for grounds maintenance, gated entry security, and upkeep of common areas. That's it. Golf membership at the community's Greg Norman Signature Golf Course, the only one of its kind in Middle Tennessee, is billed separately. So is access to the spa. The equestrian center, resort pools, and fitness facilities carry their own cost structures depending on how a resident chooses to use them.

This matters because the HOA fee is the number that shows up cleanly in a listing sheet, and it's the number most buyers mentally file as "the cost of living here." The club dues that actually shape a household's monthly outflow live somewhere else entirely, negotiated directly with the club and rarely printed next to the home price. A buyer comparing two $3 million listings on HOA fee alone is comparing the wrong line.

Two Communities, Built on Different Bets

That last row isn't a gap in this research. It's part of the argument. The Grove's dues structure shows up reliably because golf-anchored communities of this type get modeled the same way across the industry, club fees quoted separately from HOA dues, and enough closed sales exist to average the number with confidence. Troubadour is newer and built around a different amenity logic, one tied to wellness programming and a live-music venue that nods to the Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival's presence in this part of the state. Its cost structure hasn't been standardized in the same public way yet. A buyer touring both communities will find one where the true monthly number is easy to look up and one where it isn't, and that asymmetry is itself information worth having before you assume the two are interchangeable because they share a zip code.

What the Golf Premium Looks Like in the Sales Data

The Grove's numbers over the past two years tell a story about what buyers are actually paying for when they choose golf-course membership over open acreage. The median sale price in 2025 reached $3,012,014, up 6.0 percent from $2,842,700 in 2024. Price per square foot climbed from $507 to $545 over the same stretch, a 7.5 percent gain. As of early May 2026, the trailing 12-month figures push the median higher still, to $3,181,937, with 50 closed sales, up from 45 in the prior period.

The top of the market moved even faster. In 2025, the highest recorded sale in The Grove closed at $7,995,000 for a 10,647-square-foot estate on Solstice Drive. By April 2026, that record had been broken by a sale at 8312 Solstice Drive, a 10,085-square-foot home that closed at $7,999,900, pushing the price-per-square-foot ceiling to $793. Solstice Drive, the community's newest development phase, sits on golf course frontage, and its premium over other streets in the same gated boundary is the clearest evidence that buyers here are pricing in proximity to the club, not just square footage or lot size.

The community also hosted LIV Golf Nashville in June 2024, drawing major champions including Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, and Bryson DeChambeau to the course. Local coverage described it as Nashville's biggest golf event in more than 80 years. Whether or not a buyer cares about professional golf, that event is part of why the club carries the weight it does in the local market. It's a credential that gets referenced by builders and buyers alike when explaining why homes here command what they do.

Troubadour Is Selling a Different Kind of Belonging

Troubadour's pitch runs in a different direction. Instead of a golf course and equestrian center, the community centers on an outdoor adventure center and wellness facilities, with an on-site live-music venue built to echo the cultural identity that Pilgrimage brought to this corner of Williamson County. With 375 homesites, it's a smaller footprint than The Grove's 1,100 acres, and it's still filling in.

That difference in scale and amenity philosophy means a buyer choosing between the two isn't really choosing between two versions of the same lifestyle at slightly different price points. They're choosing between a club built around golf and horses, with membership economics that are well documented because the model is decades old across the industry, and a club built around wellness and music, where the cost structure is newer and less standardized. Neither is a better answer. But treating them as directly comparable because both sit in College Grove and both start north of $2 million skips the part of the decision that actually determines a household's monthly budget.

Questions Worth Asking Before You Compare Two Listings

A few things worth confirming directly with a builder or the community's sales office before assuming two College Grove listings cost the same to live in:

• Is golf, spa, or wellness club membership mandatory for ownership, or optional?
• What is the current initiation fee and monthly dues structure for that club, separate from the HOA?
• Does the HOA fee include landscaping and irrigation on the lot itself, or only common areas?
• How is equestrian boarding priced, if that's part of what drew you to the community?
• Are dues subject to periodic increases tied to amenity expansion, and how has that played out historically?

None of these show up on a standard listing sheet. All of them show up on the first monthly statement after closing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is College Grove part of the city of Franklin? No. College Grove is an unincorporated community in Williamson County, roughly 15 minutes from Franklin, but it isn't within Franklin's city limits.

Do I have to join a club to buy a home in either community? Membership structures vary by community and sometimes by specific home or builder. The Grove's golf and spa access is billed separately from its HOA fee rather than bundled automatically into every purchase, so this is a question to confirm directly rather than assume.

Why does Solstice Drive command a premium over other streets in The Grove? It's the community's newest development phase and sits on golf course frontage, which is reflected in both the record sale prices and the highest price-per-square-foot figures recorded in the community.

If you're weighing a move into College Grove and want to understand what a specific HOA fee actually covers before you tour, or how club dues at either community compare to what you're used to, The Milam Group can walk through the real numbers with you. Schedule a personalized market consultation and we'll help you separate the sticker price from the actual cost of belonging.