When BIGHORN Golf Club set out to rebuild its clubhouse from the ground up, the result had to be worthy of one of the country's most acclaimed private golf communities. Glasswerks was there to make sure the glass was.
Glass at Elevation
A thousand feet above the Coachella Valley floor, BIGHORN’s 80,000-square-foot clubhouse doesn’t compete with its surroundings — it converses with them. Designed by Swaback Partners of Scottsdale, Arizona, the structure draws its language from the desert itself: organic arcs, a signature swooping roofline that cuts against the sky, and an envelope defined at nearly every turn by glass. Floor-to-ceiling glazing frames the mountain panoramas. Curved curtainwall wraps the Jewel Box — the club’s oval pro shop boutique — in a cylinder of deep blue-tinted IGUs. Glass railings trace the terraces and staircases without interrupting a single sightline.
It took 16 months to build. It took the right fabricator to make the glass work. Glasswerks supplied the full scope of architectural glass for this project — from the high-performance exterior IGUs engineered for the desert’s thermal demands, to the custom interior glass and mirrors that give the clubhouse its polished, resort-caliber finish. The glass railing panels — each weighing approximately 450 pounds — required precise fabrication to exacting tolerances, functioning both as safety elements and as deliberate architectural features. Nothing here was off-the-shelf.
Our Scope of Work
- Delivered a full-building glass package — exterior IGUs, curved and flat curtainwall, glass railings, interior glass, and custom mirrors — across an 80,000-square-foot, three-story clubhouse perched 1,000 feet above the Coachella Valley
- Fabricated the curved IGUs forming the iconic oval glass cylinder of the Jewel Box pro shop — one of the clubhouse’s most visually distinctive architectural elements
- Supplied heavy-gauge glass railing panels for multi-level terraces, patios, and interior staircases — each a precision-fabricated unit where structural integrity and visual clarity were equally non-negotiable
- Delivered custom mirrors and interior glass throughout the clubhouse’s locker rooms, dining, lounge, and event spaces
- Coordinated the full fabrication scope to a compressed 16-month construction timeline — ground break to opening in a single build season
- Contributed to a facility that raised the bar for what a private golf clubhouse can be — a resort, an event destination, and a residential address, all under one roofline
“A building like this one doesn’t leave room for glass that just fills a frame. Every panel has a view behind it, a detail beside it, and a member looking through it. That’s the standard we hold ourselves to — and it’s exactly what this project required.”
Project Team
- Owner: BIGHORN Golf Club / R.D. Hubbard
- Architect: Swaback Partners — Scottsdale, AZ
- General Contractor: Lusardi Construction Company
- Interior Design: Blackbird Interiors
- Glass Fabricator: Glasswerks
