“This wasn’t about dressing up the locker room,” says Charlotte Jones Anderson, daughter of Jerry Jones and the EVP and chief brand officer of her father's prized Dallas Cowboys. “This was about establishing a connection with high school football and the community that could not be replicated. Sometimes, even in religion, you need the bricks and mortar to validate the why.”

The “this” she’s referring to is The Star, the newly finished world headquarters of arguably the most famous—and valuable—sports team on the planet. The Jones family reportedly invested more than $1 billion of their own money in the project, which stands, gleaming in the Texas sun, on 91 acres in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, a half-hour drive north from downtown.

The entire enterprise, “from handshake to opening ceremony,” as Jones Anderson, who oversaw every step of the design process, puts it, took just three years. Though one would never know it based on the facility’s quality of construction or sense of place in the community. “We do feel very much like this is our Disney World, but it’s not based on imagination, it’s based on authenticity,” Jones Anderson says of the complex, whose lead architect was Gensler .

A touchstone that players pass on their way to the outdoor practice fields. The inscription reads "It is a privilege, not a right, to play, coach and work for the Dallas Cowboys."

A central atrium in the office building features a light installation by Leo Villareal, Volume (Frisco) , that contains 19,200 lights embedded in 160, 40-foot-tall metal rods. Other artworks on display at The Star include pieces by Doug Aitken and Julie Mehretu.

To hear the Joneses talk about The Star—which replaces the team’s former longtime H.Q., the storied Valley Ranch, a lowslung collection of buildings that smacks, aesthetically, of a neglected office park—is to understand the organization’s commitment to local youth. Indeed, among its crown jewels is the Ford Center, where, when the Cowboys aren’t on the turf, eight high school teams practice and compete in a state-of-the-art, 510,000-square-foot, 12,000-seat indoor arena whose 2,270-square-foot video board, one of two, is the largest in high school sports. And when it opens in early 2018, the student athletes will, like the pro players, also benefit from the 300,000-square-foot Baylor Scott & White Sports Therapy & Research center for sports medicine next door. “It’s the safest place to play sports at the youth level,” says Jones Anderson of the Ford Center.

“It really is a great example of how professional football can be a big facilitator to the success of amateur sports,” says owner Jerry Jones, who, according to Charlotte, took more than a little convincing to start another massive project almost immediately after opening the team’s AT&T Stadium in Arlington in 2009. “You literally can have a quarterback of a high school team walk out there and basically see and maybe get a conversation with [Cowboys quarterback] Dak Prescott, who's walking off the field after practice,” he adds.

It will be a heck of a facility to come to work in every day.

The driving design concept behind the players-only spaces was to attract and retain the league’s top talent, which so far seems to be working. That means no expense was spared in building and outfitting the weight room, stadium-seated pre-practice meeting room, camera-ready locker rooms and adjacent TV studio, physical therapy and recovery areas, and even an elevated pitch next to the coaching staff’s office, so plays can be run on the fly without going back down to the fields. “My brothers and I very much saw the future, that this would be more than a practice facility,” Jones Anderson says.

Jason Garrett, the Cowboys’ head coach, is clearly pleased with the new complex, though there’s characteristic nostalgia for its predecessor. “Valley Ranch was such a great facility for the Cowboys franchise for so many years,” he says, looking back. Those memories are a common thread here: the walls are lined with photos of former MVPs and triumphant newspaper clippings, where even a stairwell wraps around translucent, suspended images of the legendary 1975 Hail Mary pass, when the team won in the final seconds against the Minnesota Vikings. (Charlotte says a preeminent design consideration was for current players, especially rookies, to be reminded at every turn of what they must strive for.) “We had such great memories of that place,” Garrett goes on. “You think about the great teams, the great coaches, and the great players who worked there. It was special and a privilege to be there, but everyone is excited about The Star. It will be a heck of a facility to come to work in every day.”

In addition to the Ford Center and player areas, the campus comprises more than 398,000-square-feet of office space, which houses the Jones family's own expansive executive offices. Lined up in a row, starting with Jerry (who commutes to work most days from his Highland Park manse via an $8 million white helicopter), the offices overlook the team’s two outdoor practice fields—one turf, the other natural grass. Charlotte’s markedly feminine office, with its abundance of white orchids and colorful artwork (Mel Bochner's It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This hangs above her desk), sits between the gentlemen’s-club-like lairs of her two brothers: Stephen, the team’s COO and go-to guy for Garrett and top players, and the younger Jerry, Jr., who handles marketing. Jerry’s wife, Gene, who some say is the true key-holder to the kingdom, makes her decisions from home. “Here’s the interesting thing about our family, which is truly great—it takes every member of us to make this, which is what I think is so valuable,” Jones Anderson says. “And my father has always been one about blurred lines—he wants us each to understand the whole picture.”

In the tower adjacent to the Cowboys' executive work space—connected by an atrium housing world-class art, including a 40-foot-tall, custom Leo Villareal light installation, Volume (Frisco) , that’s visible from the highway—offices are rented to friends and partners of the organization, where the field-facing exposure comes at a premium. A few pieces of the family’s collection, formerly on display at AT&T Stadium , have made their way to The Star; others were picked up at the suggestion of the Jones’s art-advisory panel.

The Star has no shortage of leisure facilities, too. There’s the newly opened Omni Frisco, a 16-floor, 300-room luxury hotel and a 50-50 partnership between the Jones family and Omni owner Bob Rowling. Jones Anderson says the Omni brand was a natural fit, the perfect balance of luxury and approachability, “for the common fan who wants to paint their face.” She also keeps an eponymous boutique in the lobby, where shoppers can pick up everything from the star-etched rocks glasses the Joneses and their friends sip from in the owner’s suite on game day to a $15,000 Swarovski-crystal-encrusted Ford F150 Power Wheels truck.

The Star, which sits on 91 acres in Frisco, a suburb north of downtown Dallas, is part of the "$5 Billion Mile," comprised of four mixed-use developments along the Dallas North Tollway.

Most impressive, at least from a design standpoint, might be the Cowboys Club, an exclusive Soho House-style establishment designed by Icrave, where 800 members (another 2,000-plus are on a waiting list) can rub elbows over breakfast, lunch, drinks, and dinner with former Cowboys while watching the team run drills below. They also have access to the cutting-edge Cowboys Fit gym housed just beyond the visible cheerleaders’ workout studio. “There’s no golf course, no affinity to it other than to be a part of the Cowboys organization in a unique way,” Jones Anderson says, sitting in the club’s entry lounge beside a pool table with custom Cowboys-branded balls. "It’s truly one of a kind—you’re in the heart of what we do—yet we’re still able to operate a business around it.”

Antsy from all the talk, Jones Anderson, an elegant Stanford graduate, is visibly eager to give us a tour. After recalling the near-immediate leap from the stadium project to The Star, she mentions the next phase of construction beginning in January, a luxury condominium tower to be built in partnership with beloved Cowboys alum Roger Staubach. “I’m like, Did I look bored? ,” she asks, laughing, before starting off down the marble hall in towering heels, assistants and camera crew scurrying to keep up. “I’m just going to go see if my kids grew up yet.”