Photo: Austin Surf Club
Way back in 2008, professional surfer and world-class beach bum Steve Addington was trying his best to live a simple life. He just wanted to surf, any luxuries and excess be damned — even shirts and shoes. Sure, being a “professional surfer” was kind of antithetical to his approach to life, but then again it offered him a free ride around the world as an A-list surfer/celebrity.
Then the money started to dry up, the waves went flat and Addington started to lose his mind. Even with all that money he saved, he couldn’t buy his way into good waves until a greedy, slimy entrepreneur named Eddie Zarno came along and offered Addington the world in return for helping him develop a virtual reality surfing game.
Addington had a real crisis in front of him. He could sell his soul and get barreled or he could keep his integrity and…not get barreled. I actually don’t remember what Addington did to get himself out of that pickle in 2008 (I just hammered that synopsis out from memory a decade-plus later) but since it was a Hollywood movie with terrible surfing I’m confident that things worked out for Steve Addington in the end. I’m also confident Steve Addington would be really heated right now to learn that the guy who played him on screen, Matthew McConaughey, is about to own property at a mega-development with an artificial wave at the center of it.
According to the Austin Business Journal, McConaughey, Tony Hawk, and future first-ballot NFL Hall of Famer Drew Brees are headlining the A-list of homeowners at Austin Surf Club. The publication says it obtained documents that offered a “glimpse into how the nation’s luminaries are bankrolling or jumping to grab a piece of one of Austin’s most-anticipated new neighborhoods” and “how developers wine and dine high-level prospects,” which apparently included the three big celebrity names.
Austin Surf Club isn’t the first wave pool at the center of a much larger developments offering resort-like living and entertainment. In Florida, for example, the $600-million Koa Bay project will offer condominiums that come with a membership to the surf park. According to Wave Pool Mag, the Austin facility will feature “140 condominiums, a brewery, restaurant, and clubhouse. The site will also feature a 19-acre reef wave and a 2,220-square-foot surf basin,” all built around the original NLand Surf Park.
