Oldfield, Bluffton SC: A Private Riverfront Community on the Okatie River

The golf course is an 18-hole Greg Norman signature design, a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary. Our Oldfield Club golf page has the scorecard, the tees and the video of the course. Golf memberships are open to property owners and to non-owners alike.

The Outfitters Center is the club’s way onto the Okatie River and the land around it. Residents book fishing excursions, kayaking and paddle boarding from it, and it also runs group hunts and nature programs, plus charter trips with one of the club’s captains.

The Oldfield Sports Club has a free-form, zero-entry lagoon pool with a winding slide, fitness facilities and sports courts. The Equestrian Center welcomes riders and boarders, with a 12-stall barn, a riding ring, a jumps course, a round pen, acres of grass paddocks and riding lessons. Walking trails, a dog park and a playground round out the grounds, and there are men’s, women’s, wine and rod-and-gun clubs.

Magnolia Grill and the River Club are the club’s two dining rooms, and the season adds a pool cabana and oyster roasts. Dining is for members and their guests, so for a meal you can book yourself, our Bluffton dining guide lists the restaurants in Old Town and around town.

The River Club, among the moss-draped oaks beside the water, is Oldfield’s venue for weddings, corporate retreats and family celebrations. Because it is a private community, it hosts only a limited number of weddings each year, and a full-time Private Events & Lodging Director plans them, from formal weddings to oyster roasts and golf outings. Reviewers of the club, in the ones we read, mostly write about weddings, rehearsal dinners and the food. Compare other venues on our Bluffton wedding venues page.

The club offers golf memberships to property owners and non-owners, including options for young executives and corporate affiliations, and members get Troon Privé privileges and summer reciprocal play. Fees aren’t published on the club’s site, so ask the membership office on (843) 645-4600 for the current schedule.

Homes and cottages at Oldfield follow a Pattern Book of Lowcountry forms: deep porches, covered breezeways and tabby. The developer’s stated aim is quality over quantity, and house size isn’t the point, so the streets read as one place rather than a row of individual statements. The community calendar includes tournaments, summer camps, farmers markets, wellness seminars and farm-to-table events.

Our Oldfield homes for sale page has the current listings from the local MLS. Other gated Bluffton communities are compared on Bluffton real estate, and Colleton River is a larger private club community on the Colleton River.

The name is old. In 1732 the Lord Proprietor granted a parcel called “Old Field” to Governor Robert Johnson, and the club’s history follows the land through the plantation that came to be known as Wigg’s Bluff, its destruction in 1781 and its shelling from the river in 1862. In 1972 Robin Carrier farmed the tract and hosted weekend hunts. A Hilton Head developer ran it as a quarter horse farm from 1985, and the extensive system of fences he built is still among the property’s distinguishing features. Crescent Resources bought it in 1998, which began the modern Oldfield.

The community became a member-run and owned club and association in 2016. Since 2022 it has been managed by Troon Privé, and it is governed by the Oldfield Community Association and the Oldfield Club, with a full-time general manager.