Black Butte Ranch
Black Butte Ranch
If you've driven Highway 20 toward the mountains, you've passed the turn. Black Butte Ranch sits about eight miles west of Sisters at milepost 93, roughly 30 miles from Bend, which puts it at about a 35-minute drive door to door.
It's an 1,800-acre resort community at the foot of Black Butte, an extinct stratovolcano, surrounded by ponderosa and the Deschutes National Forest. The views are the whole point. On a clear day you're looking at the Three Sisters, Mount Washington, Black Butte, Broken Top, Three Fingered Jack, and Mount Jefferson from the same meadow. Elevation is around 3,350 feet, and the area averages roughly 160 days of sunshine a year.
Here's the part most people don't know: the Ranch is owned and managed by its own homeowners association, which is unusual for a residential resort this size. Brooks Resources developed it starting in 1970, then handed the roads, bike paths, and common areas over to the HOA in 1982, with the golf courses, Lodge, and utilities following in 1987. There are 1,251 homesites, with only about 20 lots left undeveloped.
The land has a much longer history than the resort does. Big Meadow was a lake, then a marsh, then the meadow you see now. A cache of bi-faced tools found near Paulina Springs and dated to about 1,000 years ago backs up Native American oral history that the springs were a campsite for early migration between the Great Basin and the coast. The Santiam Wagon Road's 1878 alternate route crossed Ranch property, and you can still find posts marking it near Lupine Lake and just west of the Glaze Meadow Sport Shop. The first house here was a log cabin built by Till Glaze in 1881.
What's actually there now: two 18-hole championship courses, Big Meadow and Glaze Meadow, plus a putting course. Five swimming pools. Seventeen tennis courts. Thirty-three miles of private roadways and 18 miles of paved bike paths. A full-service spa, stables, a general store, and restaurants including the Lodge, Lakeside Bistro, and Robert's Pub. The Lodge restaurant, golf courses, and stables are open to the public even if you're not staying there.
There's also a webcam pointed southwest toward North Sister and Black Crater if you want to check conditions before you make the drive.
Where to eat: The Lodge Restaurant
The Lodge is the one worth planning around. It came out of a recent lodge improvement project, and the new building is a 22,100-square-foot, two-story space with panoramic Cascade views, a second-floor lounge, a fireside room, a private dining room, and outdoor dining on both levels. It sits on Hawks Beard Road on the shores of Phalarope Lake.
The food is Northwest-leaning and built around locally sourced ingredients, served in what the Ranch calls relaxed but upscale — you're looking at Broken Top, the Three Sisters, and Mount Washington while you eat. Reservations are suggested for dinner: (541) 595-1260.
Upstairs is the Aspen Lounge, with its own menu, cocktail list, and wine list. If you want something more casual, Robert's Pub in the Big Meadow Clubhouse does Northwest-inspired pub food and Oregon beer, which is the obvious move after a round of golf. The Lakeside Bistro handles coffee, pastries, salads, sandwiches, and pizza, with an outdoor area that's hard to beat on a warm evening.
And here's the thing a lot of people don't realize: you don't have to be staying at the Ranch. The restaurants, golf courses, and stables are open to the public.
