Lake Calero
Shoreline walking trail off Camino Del Lago Dr; home to the Gnome Trail detour.
Recreation & community
Three lakes, two golf courses, and a carnival every year.
This is the part that's hard to describe until you've lived it — how much of daily life here happens outside, on the water, or at a park five minutes from home.
Lakes
Three lakes, with one for swimming.
Lake Calero and Lake Chesbro are for walking the shoreline — quiet, oak-lined, and mostly empty on a weekday morning. Lake Clementia, ringed by homes right at the water's edge, is the one you're actually allowed to swim in. The Cosumnes River has its own swimming beach a short walk from Clementia, and it's the more popular spot most summer afternoons.
Lake Clementia
Open for swimming, ringed by homes.
Lake Chesbro
The quietest of the three; a paved walking loop.
Parks & courts
Three favorite parks, plus courts and fields spread across the neighborhood for basketball, baseball, pickleball, and tennis — most within a short golf cart ride of any front door.
Stonehouse Park
Home to the weekly food trucks and the annual Summerfest carnival.
Riverview Park
Playground, tennis courts, and a shaded picnic path.
The Greens Park
Picnic tables, grills, and a playground near the golf course.
Golf & ballooning
Two 18-hole courses, split by the actual river.
The Rancho Murieta Country Club's North and South courses are divided by the Cosumnes River itself, along with six lighted tennis courts, pools, and its own equestrian center — more on the club just below. Sky Drifters, launching out of Stonehouse Rd since well before most residents moved in, still runs sunrise hot air balloon flights over the foothills most mornings.
Sky Drifters Hot Air Ballooning
Murieta Equestrian Center
Golf & the Country Club
Two courses, forty years of Champions Tour history, and a clubhouse the size of a small hotel.
The North Course opened in 1971 and got an Arnold Palmer redesign in 1986; the South Course, built by Ted Robinson in 1979, plays a little friendlier. The Cosumnes River itself splits them. From 1987 to 1995 the club hosted the Champions Tour's Gold Rush Classic — George Archer won it three times, Tom Kite closed it out in its final Rancho Murieta year.
The 40,000-square-foot clubhouse holds the Parasol Room and the 19th Hole Bar, alongside six lighted tennis courts, two lighted pickleball courts, a fitness center, a driving range, and both a recreational and a lap pool. It's members-only — the way in as a non-member is a golf package booked directly through The Murieta Inn & Spa, or as a member's guest — but plenty of the culture spills out past the gates anyway: this is a big reason golf carts are the default way around the neighborhood, not a novelty.
There's a hotel here, too
The Murieta Inn & Spa — 83 rooms, a full-service spa, and the pool everyone forgets is public-ish.
Easy to overlook since it sits quietly on Murieta Dr among the shops rather than announcing itself as a resort, but it's a real 4-star property: 83 guest rooms and suites, a full-service spa doing massages, facials, and body treatments, an outdoor pool and hot tub, and a 24-hour fitness center. It's where out-of-town family stays when the guest room's already full, where a non-member books a round of golf, and — via ResortPass — where anyone can buy a day pass to the pool without staying the night. The Gate, its restaurant and bar, is covered on the Eat & Shop page.
themurietainn.com →Once a year
Summerfest turns Stonehouse Park into an actual carnival.
Running since 1999, Summerfest is the second-biggest event on the calendar behind only the 4th of July — a Ferris wheel, a Zipper, a beer and wine garden, and live music, run almost entirely by neighbors volunteering their own time. Proceeds fund youth and recreation projects around the community.
Concerts & the 4th of July
Summer evenings at the amphitheater, and fireworks over the lake.
ETC — Entertainment, Theater, and Culture — has run a summer concert series at the Lake Clementia Amphitheater since 2002, open to residents and their guests: a blanket, a picnic, and real touring acts under the stars. Each 4th of July, the Rancho Murieta Association puts on a fireworks show at Laguna Joaquin, too — it's an open lawn rather than fixed seating, so most families bring chairs and a picnic dinner and settle in early, since the show runs long after dark.
etc-rm.org →Groups, associations & churches
Most of what happens socially here is run by neighbors, for neighbors — a nonprofit putting on concerts, a service club chartered decades ago, a Bible study meeting in someone's living room. Two churches serve the community directly.
ETC — Entertainment, Theater, and Culture
"A nonprofit organization run by your neighbors…all about summer evenings by a beautiful lake — a blanket, a picnic and great music under the stars."
Kiwanis Club of Rancho Murieta
"A service organization…we work to improve the lives of children in our community and around the world while having fun doing it."
Growth Groups
Small Bible-study groups run by Rancho Murieta Community Church for anyone interested in studying together in a community setting.
Rancho Murieta Community Church
A nondenominational church holding Sunday worship, the Growth Groups above, and community outreach — one of two churches serving the neighborhood directly.
Pet-friendly guide
A dog park, a vet, a groomer, and a grocery store for the essentials — the basics are covered without a drive.
Stonehouse Dog Park
Fenced off-leash area at Stonehouse Park.
Ariel's Pet Salon and Boutique
Grooming and supplies.
Good to know
The RMA app
Text RMA to 59248 and you'll get a text back with a link to download the app — the fastest way to stay current on neighborhood news.
Facebook groups
Rancho Murieta Online is the largest general discussion group; Rancho Murieta Moms and Rancho Murieta Buy & Sell cover most of what you'd want to ask a neighbor.
Rancho Murieta Association
Have a question about the neighborhood? Call (916) 354-3500.
The Gnome Trail
Park near the Lake Calero trailhead on Camino Del Lago Dr, follow the shoreline path, and cut into the trees where the loop bends away from the water — about a 0.6-mile detour to a clearing full of gnomes residents have kept up for years.