If you live inside the gates at White Columns, you probably know your country club has a new owner. What you may not know is why the clubhouse still looks the same fourteen months later, or where the actual construction crews have been working instead. The answer isn't at 300 Clubhouse Drive. It's a short drive away in Crabapple, where the visible transformation this year has nothing to do with golf.
The paperwork changed hands in June 2025
Arcis Golf, the second largest owner and operator of golf facilities in the United States, acquired three nationally recognized clubs: The Country Club of the South in Johns Creek, The Manor Golf & Country Club in Alpharetta, and White Columns Country Club in Milton. The transactions closed on June 11, 2025, with Arcis assuming operations of all three clubs that same day. For members, the paperwork shift was almost invisible. The Tom Fazio-designed course kept playing the same, the clubhouse kept serving the same menu, and the tennis and pickleball courts stayed just as busy.
But the acquisition wasn't cosmetic. Arcis Golf plans to invest significant capital in golf course enhancements and lifestyle amenities across the three clubs it picked up in that deal. This was Arcis's 18th club acquisition in three years, giving the company 54 holes across three clubs in the Atlanta area alone. That's not a company buying one property to run it quietly. It's a company with a specific playbook, and that playbook is visible if you look at what happened to the other clubs Arcis has bought.
What Arcis's other clubs tell you about timing
Here's the part that actually matters if you're a White Columns member wondering when you'll see something new: Arcis doesn't announce sweeping renovations the week the ink dries. It runs a multi-year cadence, and the pattern holds across its portfolio.
| Club | Acquired | First visible renovation phase |
|---|---|---|
| Champions Retreat (Evans, GA) | 2023 | Phase one dining spaces completed April 2026 |
| The Woodlands (Houston, TX) | ~2025 | Tournament Course restoration finished spring 2026 |
| River Place (Austin, TX) | Earlier in Arcis's ownership window | Phase one completed June 2026 |
| White Columns (Milton, GA) | June 2025 | Not yet announced |
At Champions Retreat, phase one delivered new dining venues and culinary upgrades, with phase two golf course and practice facility enhancements targeted for fall 2026 completion, roughly three years after the club joined the Arcis portfolio. At The Woodlands, roughly a year after acquiring the club, Arcis had delivered on more than $30 million in investment, highlighted by a full restoration of the Tournament Course ahead of the PGA TOUR Champions' Insperity Invitational in May 2026. River Place's phase one, unveiling new dining, social, and fitness spaces, landed on a similarly extended timeline.
White Columns sits fourteen months into Arcis ownership as of this writing, with no capital plan publicly announced yet. Based on how the other clubs played out, that's not a red flag. It's the middle of the quiet window that precedes a phase-one reveal. If the pattern holds, members should expect the first concrete announcement sometime in the next year or two, not tomorrow.
"We look forward to investing in capital improvements and bringing our family-centric, lifestyle-driven model to these clubs," said Arcis founder and CEO Blake Walker when the acquisition closed.
That's a promise with a track record behind it elsewhere in the portfolio. It's just not one that's cashed out yet at White Columns specifically.
Meanwhile, the actual construction is five minutes down the road
While the club sits in its pre-announcement phase, Crabapple has been the part of the neighborhood actually changing month to month. On the first Thursday evening of every month, residents now gather for Crabapple LIVE, a family-friendly outdoor event that launched with its inaugural edition on May 1, 2025, running from 5 to 8 p.m. in the garden area behind Milton's Cuisine and Cocktails. Participating businesses for that first event included Painted Horse Winery and Vineyards, PlayWell Merch Co., Suite 200 sports grille, and two newer restaurants in Market District Crabapple, Vice Steak Bar and Smash Burgers by Vice.
That's a genuinely new addition to the neighborhood's weekly rhythm, not a rebrand of something that already existed. Crabapple residents can walk to the festivities, while others can drive and park nearby, with valet parking available as well.
Alongside that, the weekly farmers market has kept its steady footing. The Milton Farmers Market operates in the heart of downtown historic Crabapple, offering Georgia-grown produce, meats, baked goods, prepared foods, and coffee. It's the kind of Saturday-morning fixture that doesn't make headlines but shows up in how a lot of White Columns households actually spend their weekends.
What's actually new on the menu
The dining scene in Crabapple has kept adding names, and a few of the newer ones are worth knowing if you haven't been down there recently:
- Resto L'Antoinette, a French bistro bringing a taste of French cuisine to Milton, from the owners of Il Giallo, Leonardo Moura and Chef Jamie Adams.
- Playa Bowls, a newer addition to Crabapple Market offering acai, pitaya, coconut bowls, cold-pressed juices, and smoothies.
- Six Bridges Brewing, which is expanding its footprint to Crabapple Market.
None of these are chains parachuted in from outside the area. They're additions to a dining corridor that's been building for a couple of years now, and the pace hasn't slowed.
Circle October 3
Milton's most popular annual event, Crabapple Fest, falls on the first Saturday of October, which this year is October 3, in Milton's downtown. Festivities kick off at 10 a.m. and run until 5 p.m. The festival is Milton's signature art and antiques event, and it brings in over 30,000 attendees annually.
If last year is any guide for what to expect, the city closed Crabapple Road to set up vendor tents, and set up a Kid Zone in the City Hall parking lot featuring a pirate ship ride, bounce house, carnival games trailer, face painting, sand art, and balloon twisting. Whether every one of those specific attractions returns this year isn't guaranteed, but the general shape of the day, street closures, live music, a full day of vendors and food, has held steady year over year.
The takeaway for anyone living inside the gates
The instinct when a private club changes hands is to watch the clubhouse for signs of what's coming. Based on how Arcis has handled its other acquisitions, that's the wrong place to look right now. The company's pattern runs one to three years from acquisition to a first visible phase, and White Columns is still inside that window with nothing announced yet.
The neighborhood's visible momentum this year has come from Crabapple instead: a new monthly gathering that didn't exist before May 2025, a steady run of restaurant openings, and a festival that's kept its date, its format, and its crowd size. For a White Columns household, that means the more interesting question this season isn't what Arcis will eventually do to the golf course. It's what's already changed five minutes down the road, and whether you've actually been there to see it.
If the club's next chapter, or the next lease sign in Crabapple, has you thinking about what it might mean for your own address inside the gates, Cathy Adams knows this neighborhood block by block and is glad to talk it through. Schedule your complimentary market evaluation whenever you're ready.
