Less than half an hour’s drive outside Las Vegas sits a 320-acre private artificial reservoir that offers rare waterfront community living near Sin City.
Approximately 15 miles southeast of the Las Vegas Strip is Henderson, the second largest city in Nevada.
Within Henderson is the exclusive gated community of SouthShore Lake Las Vegas. Known for its multiple gated communities, luxury homes, and the country club with the first Jack Nicklaus-designed championship golf course, the 3,592-acre masterplanned community was built out mostly in the early 1990s.
“At one point, it was very remote,” Tri Pointe Homes Las Vegas Division President Klif Andrews tells Realtor.com. “But today, it’s very connected to the rest of Las Vegas.”
The home construction company headquartered in Incline Village, NV is in the midst of creating a new luxury community within the gates of SouthShore.
Henderson, in Clark County, is not only the state’s second biggest city, but the third safest large city in the U.S., according to a 2023 study by MoneyGeek. That was behind only Virginia Beach, VA, and Honolulu, HI.
“It’s very secure and has a strong police force,” says Andrews. “It has a reputation for being a well-managed small city.”
Welcome to La Cova
The 15-acre La Cova, with 42 single-family homes starting at $1.5 million and capping out around $3 million, offers lakeside life with six different floor plans—three of which provide single-story living.
The smallest home is 2,813 square feet with three bedrooms, three baths, and a club room, office, powder room, beverage center, porch, and two covered outdoor living spaces.
The largest floor plan is 4,225 square feet, with four bedrooms, 4.5 baths, a game room, office, powder room, two upstairs decks, two covered outdoor living spaces, a covered porch, a courtyard, and two 2-bay garages.
All homes offer “Mediterranean and Tuscan influences” and a “modern European hillside aesthetic” with 38 of the 42 homes offering lake frontage.
“It’s serene but new and very accessible price-wise and easy to get to,” says Andrews. According to Realtor.com data, the median listing in the SouthShore private community’s ZIP code, 89011, is $538,950.
Andrews says the relatively accessible $1.5 million entry point for waterfront living within a renowned private community half an hour from one of the world’s busiest cities means that La Cova has been in hot demand. All of its 20 completed and 8 in-progress homes are under contract.
“The market has had a great response to the product,” he says. “The ability to have a fresh new home in ShoreShore Lake Las Vegas is very unique.”
In fact, he reveals many of the buyers already live within the SouthShore community. They don’t want to move out of it, but they do want a new home, as well as to have lake frontage. “They’re trading a view lot for a waterfront lot,” he says.
Out-of-state buyers tend to be migrating from California or the Pacific Northwest, seeking lower taxes and cost of living—as well as a lakefront home of the type that could easily cost them double in their home state.
Lake Las Vegas not only offers an array of water sports—including paddle boarding, e-foiling (using a powered standup paddle board), electric boating, and rowing, but a beach club where residents can swim.
“We’ve always sold to a strong contingent of relocation buyers,” says the builder, who worked in Orange County, CA for a decade before relocating to Las Vegas in 1997. Here, he was part of Pardee Homes, which was acquired by Tri Pointe in 2014.
“Las Vegas is a cyclical market, and we’ve seen our share of ups and downs,” Andrews told Builder magazine in February. “One of the most difficult challenges was maintaining a premium lifestyle brand during market downturns, when price per square foot becomes the only metric some buyers focus on.”
Who is buying in SouthShore
La Cova isn’t having any sales challenges. Thanks to those within the larger private community switching a view lot for a waterfront lot, and also those moving in from costlier states, 100% of built homes are currently in contract.
“We’re getting people who are retired or planning retirement,” he says. “They’re attracted to the low tax environment in Nevada, and they’re looking for their next chapter of living.”
He mentions several buying couples from the tech industry in Silicon Valley who have made the leap to Henderson. Then there are those escaping bad weather.
“Nevada is very livable for a lot of the year, and especially for people coming out of an area with long cold winters,” he says. “It’s attractive to people from places like in New York where they may be tired of it being gloomy and rainy in November.”
La Cova homes feature plenty of indoor-outdoor seamless living with courtyards, covered and uncovered decks, porches, and outdoor living spaces.
“Indoor-outdoor living is a very big thing here,” he says. “We don’t have bugs or rain, and in the evening, we push the doors open and sit outside.” He does admit the area sees the occasional scorpion.
Those who want retail can get to it in five minutes by golf cart. The Village, on the southern tip of the lake, offers shops, restaurants, salons, and events. There is at least one grocery store.
While La Cova doesn’t have a community pool—Andrews says at least 90% of residents will build one in their backyard—it offers a small communal park.
The major amenities aren’t within La Cova, but the larger community of SouthShore.
The primary amenity is the SouthShore Country Club, which not only boasts legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus‘s first signature course, but a 28,000-square-foot golf clubhouse, a 8,000 square-foot lake club, and sports courts and spas.
According to cost.golf, the initiation fee of this exclusive country club is estimated to be $100,000 and annual dues are estimated around $12,000. If you don’t want to shell out that kind of cash, you can still enjoy the ambiance of living near the country club, with its perfectly manicured golf turf spread all over the SouthShore community.
“That’s a lot of the attraction,” Andrews says of La Cova’s location essentially within the country club. “It’s easy to see yourself walking a dog around there. There’s the walkability of the neighborhood and then the connection to the larger neighborhood.”
Then there is the safety and privacy—the community offers “double-gated” security. The outdoor SouthShore gate is secured by guards and requires card access, and inside, there’s a second gate accessed by code or controlled remote.
“There’s a lot of privacy and quiet,” says the builder. “The quietness is pretty obvious.”
“And you shouldn’t see any strangers in there.”
