For three summers, if you lived inside the gates at The Point and someone asked where to go for dinner on the water, the honest answer involved apologizing first. Queens Landing, the dock that used to anchor the north end of the lake with boat tours and wedding tents, went dark in the summer of 2023 and stayed that way. Neighbors who'd hosted rehearsal dinners there watched the building sit empty from their own docks. This year that changed, and it changed alongside something else: the clubhouse you already belong to added a practice facility that didn't exist the last time you played a member-guest round.
Neither of these is a grand opening in the traditional sense. One sits inside your own gates. The other is a boat ride, not a drive, from your own slip. Together they say something more specific than "the lake got better this year." They say the two things that actually needed fixing for people who live at The Point, the club itself and the stretch of shoreline just past it, both got fixed in the same season.
The Practice Facility That Wasn't There Last Year
Trump National Golf Club Charlotte sits at the center of The Point, and the club's own description of itself changed this year to include something new: a Fazio Five short game complex, added to a clubhouse that already anchors a community of more than 1,000 homes around an 18-hole course tracing Lake Norman's coastline. If you've belonged to the club for a few seasons, you know what used to pass for short game practice: a chipping area near the range, useful but limited. A dedicated Fazio-designed complex is a different category of amenity, built for the kind of repetition that actually lowers a handicap rather than just loosening up before a tee time.
This matters more for The Point specifically than it would for a public course down the road. Members here aren't choosing a golf club the way you'd choose a restaurant for a night out. The course is the reason a meaningful share of residents bought here in the first place, and a new short game facility is the kind of upgrade that shows up in how often you actually use the thing you're already paying dues for. It's a Tuesday afternoon decision, not a special occasion one. That's the quiet value of it.
The Dock That Went Dark in 2023, and What's Replacing It
The bigger story for anyone who spends summer weekends on a boat is what's happening at 1459 River Highway. The former Queens Landing site is becoming Vitale Lakeside, a roughly 9,000 square foot restaurant with an expansive patio, a floating bar on the water, and 38 boat slips, backed by more than three million dollars from Charlotte-based Vitale Hospitality Group. Owners Gennaro and Susan Vitale, who also run Dilworth Social and Midtown Tavern in Charlotte, targeted a May opening, and the menu is built for exactly the crowd that's been missing a reason to point the boat north: burgers, steak, pizza, and seafood, the kind of family-friendly menu you can actually get four generations to agree on.
Above the restaurant, the second story is becoming Bonnie & Clyde's Lounge, a roughly 6,000 square foot cocktail bar with floor-to-ceiling lake views, velvet drapes, and a dedicated DJ booth. It's the Vitale group's second location under that name, following one already established on Providence Road. The pairing is deliberate: family dinner on the water downstairs, an adult night out upstairs, both without leaving the same dock.
For residents of The Point, the significance isn't just that a new restaurant opened. It's that the specific gap on the water, the one everyone navigated around for two years by driving south toward Cornelius or Birkdale instead of taking the boat out, has closed. If your slip faces north or west, you now have a reason to actually use it after dark rather than just for the afternoon.
That said, Vitale Lakeside isn't the only dock worth knowing about if you're already in the habit of boating for dinner. Eddie's on Lake Norman, on Williamson Road, brought back its patio and lagoon bar this spring, which is worth mentioning only because it shows the difference in scale. Eddie's reopening a patio is a nice seasonal refresh. Vitale Lakeside reopening an entire dead property is a different order of event, and it's the one that actually changes where The Point's boat traffic goes on a Friday night.
A Tee Time That Does Something Beyond the Scorecard
If you're looking for a reason to get out to the club this fall beyond a standing tee time, the calendar has one. On Monday, October 19, Trump National Charlotte hosts the seventh annual FORE! Child Abuse Prevention golf tournament, a Captain's Choice event with a 10 a.m. shotgun start, benefiting Pharos Parenting's child abuse prevention work across Iredell County. The tournament funds one-on-one coaching, parenting classes, and intervention support at no cost to the families who use them.
There's a version of this list that treats a charity tournament as a footnote next to a new restaurant and a new golf facility. That undersells what it actually is for a community like The Point. A club calendar that includes a philanthropic event alongside member-guest rounds tells you something about how the community functions socially, not just recreationally. It's a Monday in October where showing up for a round of golf does something for families in the same county who never set foot inside the gates.
What Actually Changed This Year
None of these three things happened because someone decided The Point needed rebranding. A short game complex, a reopened dock, and a charity tournament date aren't the ingredients of a marketing campaign. They're the ordinary, specific upgrades that happen when a private club invests in its own facility and a hospitality group decides a dead property on a good stretch of shoreline is worth three million dollars to bring back.
But taken together, they answer the question that's been sitting under two years of "where do we go around here" conversations at The Point. The club got better at the thing you already pay for. The lake got a destination back that had been missing since 2023. And the calendar has a reason to show up that isn't just another round of golf. If you've been meaning to take the boat out toward River Highway, or you've been putting off a short game lesson because the old chipping area never seemed worth the trip, this is the season both of those excuses ran out.
If you're weighing what a home at The Point is actually worth, on the course, on the water, or on the resale market, that's the kind of neighborhood-level detail that doesn't show up in a listing description. SERHANT. North Carolina works Lake Norman's golf and waterfront communities year-round, and we're glad to walk through what a property here is really worth once you factor in what's changed. Request Your Free Home Valuation & Marketing Plan and let's talk about it over a real conversation, not a form.
