The Best Two Weekends On The Las Campanas Calendar This Month Don't Require An Invitation

As you drive in past the guard gate off Highway 599, note that membership and homeownership are separate arrangements. Membership at The Club at Las Campanas is granted by invitation, subject to approval by the Club's Board of Directors, and it has no residence requirement at all. You can own a home inside the gates without belonging to the club. You can belong without owning a home here.

Two regional art events offer public options near Las Campanas this September. No board review. No sponsor. Just a car and an exit off Highway 599.

Club Membership and Homeownership

The club's own description of membership distinguishes owning property in Las Campanas from belonging to the club that sits at its center. Buying a home here does not put you on a membership roster, and being on that roster does not require you to buy a home. The two systems run in parallel, joined only by geography.

That structure explains a texture of daily life here that outsiders often miss: a resident can live inside the gates for years without club membership.

The Clubhouse and the Multi-Year Project

The club's gathering spaces are among its renovation priorities. Several years ago, when the club first mapped out a long-range capital project it now calls Imagine Tomorrow, member surveys pointed to four priorities above all others: the Clubhouse and Torreon, the Fitness Center, the Log Cabin, and the golf operation. The club has continued to describe the initiative as a multi-year effort, delivered without additional assessments charged to members, meaning the cost of remaking those rooms is being absorbed by the club rather than passed along in a special bill.

Alongside that longer-term project, two of the region's best-known open-air art events are running in September.

Two Weekends on the Turquoise Trail

The Turquoise Trail Studio Tour has run the last two weekends of September for years, and 2026 keeps that pattern exactly: September 19-20 and September 26-27, both weekends from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is a self-guided drive along the scenic byway connecting Santa Fe and Cedar Crest, with more than 45 artist studios opening their doors along the way in Cerrillos, Madrid, San Marcos, Golden, and Sandia Park.

Here's what that actually looks like for someone starting from inside Las Campanas:

• No admission fee and no advance registration. Pick up a map at any participating studio and build your own route.
• The route runs almost entirely along a single road, so a short loop and a full-day drive are both realistic depending on how many stops you want to make.
• Painters, sculptors, jewelers, ceramicists, and glass artists are represented across the tour, working in studios that are also their homes for much of the year.

The tour's two weekends are only one opportunity to explore local art this month.

The Sculpture Garden Six Miles Down NM 14

One stop on that tour deserves its own mention, because it isn't just open for the two studio tour weekends. Origami in the Garden, the outdoor sculpture exhibition at Box Studio in Cerrillos, runs its full 2026 season from May 1 through October 30. That means by the time the second studio tour weekend wraps up on September 27, the garden still has roughly a month left before it closes for the winter.

This year's centerpiece is Painted Ponies, a set of sculptures built around the Year of the Horse theme, created through a collaboration between Santa Fe artist Kevin Box and origami master Te Jui Fu. For a community whose own equestrian center sits just up the road and whose homesites are built to accommodate horses on select lots, a sculpture garden built around the same animal, six miles down the highway, is close enough to feel local. Admission is by suggested donation rather than a gate fee.

What Still Happens Behind the Gate

The club still runs its monthly Yappy Hour at the community dog park, pairing off-leash time with cocktails and a coffee cart, and it remains one of the more reliably social fixtures on the calendar for members who want an evening that doesn't require leaving the gate at all. A short drive further, the Santa Fe Railyard Farmers Market runs its regular Tuesday and Saturday schedule, giving residents a familiar weekly routine.

Together, they show how readily Las Campanas connects with the wider region.

Las Campanas and Nearby Arts Events

Las Campanas has guarded entries, approved architecture, and a club whose membership is granted rather than assumed. The open studio tour and sculpture garden offer public outings a few miles outside the gates.

Ten miles from the Plaza, Las Campanas is close enough that the wider Santa Fe art world is never really a separate thing from daily life here.

If you're weighing a move to Las Campanas, or trying to understand how a private club community actually functions day to day before you commit to it, that's exactly the kind of on-the-ground detail worth knowing before you tour a single home. Mark & Chase Rochester at Summit Group have spent years walking these neighborhoods with buyers who want the real version of a place, not the brochure. Reach out when you're ready to talk specifics.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.