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Thermal might not be the most glamorous part of California’s Coachella Valley – that honour belongs to Palm Springs, about half an hour up the road – but it is home to the world’s first country club for petrolheads.

For the uninitiated, the country club scene is huge in America. Those with deep enough pockets buy a second, third or even ‘I’ve lost count’ property within a private club, where tennis, golf or spa sanctuaries are on your doorstep. At the Thermal Club, your multi-million dollar luxury villa has one of three race tracks practically at the end of its driveway.

It’s never been done before. Which is possibly why multi-millionaires are flocking in their Lear jets and helicopters, shrugging off the $3 million-plus joining costs as if it were parking change in the ashtray of their Bentley.

The 400-acre country club with a difference, where a concierge team can take care of members’ every whim, is the idea of Tim and Twanna Rogers. It was born out of their love of cars. Actually, it wasn’t. It was born out of them making many hundreds of millions of dollars, first by selling and distributing fuel to 7-Eleven stores all over America, then by starting their own line of convenience stores and gas stations, under the Tower Energy Group brand, which claims to turnover $5bn a year.

If you want to have three private race tracks at your disposal, plus all the hospitality and entertainment of a top-end country club – guest accommodation, a spa, pools, tennis courts, restaurant, bar and sports facilities – you have to become a member. There are two types of membership available: family or corporate. The former is $85,000 and as the title suggests allows the member to have as many of the family as they please present. Alternatively, a $200,000 corporate membership can be divided among four, unrelated individuals, a little like a timeshare. Both those include a 70% refundable deposit should you leave the Thermal Club. A monthly fee of $1200 applies to the family membership, and each individual that’s part of the corporate membership must pay $1200 a month. Sounds expensive, right? Wrong. That’s just the start. Where Tim Rogers struck gold was to go one step further than any other venue selling ‘private pavement’ and stipulate that members must buy a spec villa or purchase a plot and build their own – even using Thermal Club’s architects and builders.

You can lie in bed with your first coffee of the day, peer out of floor-to-ceiling glass doors, admire the perfectly presented racing circuit directly below and see who is on track and what they’re driving. After taking breakfast on one of the terraces overlooking the track, why not head downstairs, to the vast integrated garage, choose from one of your fleet of sports cars and go play?

The properties that Detour toured are awash with marble, the bedrooms have towering beds that would look at home in The Princess and the Pea, bathrooms are decorated with ornate fixtures and out of every window – and in whichever direction you peer – the surrounding mountain ranges loom in the distance.

However, arguably the pièce de résistance when it comes to bragging rights is the garaging. Unsurprisingly, most Thermal Club members have impressive car collections, part of which they keep at their club residence. In one 7,000sq ft villa the garage is separated from the kitchen by a vast glass wall running the length of the room. Exotic cars sits beyond the glass, beckoning like Sirens to sailors.

Hopefully, though, with all the professional driver training you desire, and live telemetry to delve into, there’s nothing to fear from answering the urge to hit the track.

Words James Mills Twitter | Instagram

Photography James Lipman

Here’s how you can experience the tracks at Thermal Raceway for yourself