Where Millstone at Little River Is Actually Playing Pickleball Right Now

Millstone at Little River already has a pickleball court. It came with the neighborhood, tucked in next to the pool and the tennis court that gave the community its swim-and-tennis identity when it was platted back in 2013. On paper, that should settle the question of where residents play. It hasn't, because almost everything that matters to the sport right now is happening outside the gates, and it's moving at three different speeds. One facility already closed. One private club got approved and still hasn't opened a single court. One public park expansion has finished blueprints and no money behind them. If you've been meaning to figure out where to actually show up with a paddle this fall, the answer depends on which of those three timelines you're willing to wait on.

The city saw this coming, twice

This isn't the first time Woodstock has had to catch up to demand. Back in spring 2022, the City of Woodstock Parks and Recreation Department temporarily closed the courts at Dupree Park on Neese Road so it could convert shared tennis space into courts built only for pickleball.

"We are very excited about the renovation of the courts at Dupree Park," said then-Parks and Recreation Director Michael Huffstetler at the time. "The project will provide dedicated courts for pickleball which has been a very popular program offered by the City of Woodstock and is in high demand."

That renovation gave Dupree six pickleball courts and two tennis courts, which is still what exists on the ground today. It also turned out to be a stopgap. Three years later, the city was back at the drawing board with a plan roughly ten times the size.

What actually closed this spring

If you were driving to 525 Industrial Drive to play indoors, that option is gone for now. 575 Pickleball, a six-court indoor facility, announced on its own site that it closed its location on April 30 this year. The message to its community was warm but final: gratitude for the members who came for open play, leagues, and lessons, alongside a note that the team is "actively looking toward the future and exploring opportunities to bring 575 Pickleball back in a new space." No new address has been announced. For a neighborhood used to having an indoor backup during a July heat spell or a rainy weekend, that backup doesn't currently exist inside city limits.

What's approved but still hasn't opened

On the other end of things, a new private facility just cleared its last regulatory hurdle. On November 17, 2025, the Woodstock City Council unanimously approved a conditional use permit for Rally Yard LLC to build The Winfield Dog Park and Pickleball Club at 7654 and 7664 Main Street, right at the Main Street and Ridgewalk Parkway intersection near downtown. The plan pairs six pickleball courts with a dog park, an 880-square-foot kennel offering day care, and a small commercial building with a bar and food truck service.

The approval came with real conditions, not just a rubber stamp. Because the site sits close to the Walker's Pointe community, the city required glass sound shielding along the southern portion of the courts and 34 additional feet of shielding on the east side of the court closest to homes, plus tree plantings to help absorb noise. Operating hours are capped at 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays, stretching to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. That level of detail tells you this is a serious, fully engineered project rather than a rumor. It also tells you it's a private, likely membership-based facility, closer in spirit to what 575 Pickleball offered than to a free public court. No opening date has been made public yet.

What's designed but not funded

The biggest number in this whole story belongs to Dupree Park, and it's the one still waiting in line. After two rounds of public input, one in June 2024 that drew 45 residents and a second that September, design firm Lose Design produced a master plan that the City Council approved unanimously on March 24, 2025. The plan would take Dupree's current six pickleball and two tennis courts and replace them with:

• Ten independent pickleball courts on artificial turf
• Four tennis courts with additional striping for four more pickleball games
• A 7,700-square-foot skate park and a BMX pump track
• A renovated playground, a nature playground, and a learning meadow
• A paved accessible walking loop around new open lawn space
• Lake shoreline stabilization and an interactive fountain
• Expanded parking, growing from the park's current 125 spaces to more than 300

The catch is the price tag: about $13.8 million, phased, with pickleball courts and the playground planned as phase one. Parks and Recreation Director Brian Borden told the council that no funding sources had been identified yet, because the city was still focused on finishing the projects tied to the 2023 parks bond referendum that Woodstock voters approved by 87 percent. That bond money is going toward Little River Park first, a 110-acre park along the Little River corridor that's currently mid-construction, with pile driving, boardwalk framing, and trail grading underway and funding appropriated in the city's fiscal year 2026 budget. In plain terms, Dupree's ten-court pickleball complex is designed and popular, but it's sitting behind a different, already-funded park in the queue.

Here's how the current options actually stack up:

So where does that leave your own court

With one indoor facility gone, one private club still under construction, and the city's biggest public expansion parked behind a different funded project, the court included in your Millstone at Little River dues turns out to be the one fixed point in an otherwise unsettled scene. No fee, no wait for a groundbreaking, no dependence on a budget line item clearing council. That's worth appreciating on its own terms.

It's also worth knowing what it isn't. If you want organized league play, the City of Woodstock runs men's, women's, mixed doubles, and 55-and-over pickleball leagues through Dupree Park's existing courts, not through neighborhood amenities. If you want the social pairing of a dog park and a bar with your game, that's the Winfield concept once it opens. And if you're chasing an indoor option for a rainy Saturday, that gap is currently open in the market for whoever moves into it next.

None of this changes what your neighborhood offers today. It does mean the rest of the picture around you is being redrawn in real time, and knowing which piece is open, which is under review, and which is still a rendering on a council agenda is the difference between a wasted Saturday morning and a good one.

If you're the kind of person who likes knowing what's actually happening around Woodstock before it shows up in a group text, that's the kind of local detail Mike Donovan tracks for clients and neighbors alike. Reach out anytime you want the real story behind a headline.