What is Club Wyndham Orange Tree Resort?
Orange Tree is a golf course first and a resort second. The course opened in 1957 as Century Country Club, which makes it one of the six oldest in the Valley. In the late 1980s, 160 one-bedroom suites went up along its fairways in two-story buildings. Today the suites are a Club Wyndham timeshare resort, and they are rented by the night to anyone who wants them.
The suites are the draw. Each one runs roughly 740 to 1,100 square feet, with a separate bedroom, a living room with a sofa bed, a private patio or balcony, a two-person whirlpool tub and a mini kitchen: microwave, full-size fridge and coffee maker, but no stove. Outside are pools with waterfall features, a hot tub, a fitness center, barbecue areas and the John Jacobs Golf School on the driving range. Parking is free.
Before you book, know the geography. The mailing address says Scottsdale, but the resort is in the City of Phoenix, at 56th Street just north of Shea Boulevard. That’s several miles west of Scottsdale Road, closer to Paradise Valley’s mountain estates than to Old Town. Kierland Commons is about ten minutes away. Old Town is more like 20 to 25.
Orange Tree suits golfers, snowbirds on longer stays and couples who want a suite at a fair price. It doesn’t suit anyone who wants nightlife within walking distance, a full kitchen or a dog along for the trip.
How to do Orange Tree right
Golf is the reason. The par-72 course plays up to 6,740 yards and rewards accuracy over power, which is a nice change from the long desert-target courses farther north. Reserve tee times when you book your suite, and if you want lessons, the John Jacobs school is on site.
Watch the calendar. Like most Valley courses, Orange Tree closes each autumn to overseed its fairways with winter grass. In 2026 the course and restaurant are closed from late September to mid-October. If golf is the point of your trip, aim for November through April.
Cook light. The mini kitchens handle breakfast, leftovers and drinks, not big dinners, because there’s no stovetop. Use the barbecue areas, or drive ten minutes to the restaurants around Kierland and the Shea Corridor.
Know the timeshare rules. Daily housekeeping costs extra, there are no cribs or rollaway beds, and check-out is at 10 a.m. The buildings have exterior corridors and no elevators, so ask for the ground floor if stairs are a problem.
Use the location. Being on Shea puts you between Scottsdale and Phoenix. Spring training at Salt River Fields is about 20 minutes east, the Mayo Clinic area is reachable via Shea, and Sky Harbor is about half an hour south.
Pets stay home. Only trained service animals are allowed, and emotional support animals are not.
A 1950s country club that became a timeshare
When Century Country Club opened in 1957, 56th Street and Shea was a long way from anywhere. Phoenix was spreading northeast in the postwar years, Scottsdale was still a small, newly incorporated town to the southeast, and the land between them was desert, citrus and the beginnings of the estates that would become the Town of Paradise Valley in 1961. Johnny Bulla and Lawrence Hughes laid out the course for a country-club market that was only starting to form. Today it ranks among the six oldest layouts in the Valley.
The course got its modern shape in 1977, when Jack Snyder redesigned it as a tree-lined parkland course. That was the same decade the big resort courses were rising around Scottsdale, from McCormick Ranch to the Lincoln Drive corridor, and Orange Tree took a different path. Instead of desert spectacle, it offered mature trees and a layout that punished wayward shots.
The resort came next. In the late 1980s, suite buildings went up beside the course, and the property came to be known as the Orange Tree Golf Resort. This was the timeshare boom, when Scottsdale’s winter visitors were buying weeks at club resorts instead of renting rooms. For years Orange Tree was sold through Shell Vacations Club, an independent vacation-ownership company with resorts from Hawaii to New Hampshire.
The corporate chapter followed the pattern our WorldMark guide describes. In 2012 Wyndham Worldwide bought Shell Vacations for about $102 million and took over management of its 19 resorts, Orange Tree among them. Wyndham’s timeshare arm later became Wyndham Destinations and then Travel + Leisure Co., and the resort now runs as Club Wyndham Orange Tree Resort, with Wyndham Rewards points and a 2026 suite renovation.
Orange Tree is also a reminder of how loosely “Scottsdale” gets used. The address and the marketing say Scottsdale, the land is Phoenix, and the neighbors’ mail sometimes says Paradise Valley. Our explainer on whether Scottsdale is in Phoenix sorts that out. For a visitor, the more useful fact is simpler: you’re sleeping on a fairway that has been in play since Eisenhower, ten minutes from Kierland.