Kelly Slater’s celebrity-backed Texas wavepool project halts amid $4.6 million contractor payment dispute

"Big-name buyers and bold plans for luxury living are suddenly in limbo."

The promise was real nice for those with a couple of mill to spare: a 333-acre sanctuary east of Austin where celebrities and wealthy vulnerable adult learners could master the art of surfing on a 2,200-foot artificial wave tank, retire to a luxury condominium and dine farm-to-table at a gorgeous clubhouse.

But the wave, for now, has stopped.

Construction at the Austin Surf Club, a surf park and residential development backed by the 11-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater and the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based luxury developer Discovery Land Company, has ground to a halt amid $4.6 million in unpaid contractor claims, according to filings with the Travis County Clerk’s Office and first reported by the Austin Biz Journal.

Seven companies have filed construction liens since early March, claiming that Austin Surf Club Venture L.P. has failed to compensate them for work performed over the past year. The claims cover services and materials including water treatment systems, mechanical equipment and sand.

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In a written statement, the company’s leadership offered reassurance without too many specifics.

The pause, they said, reflected an effort to refine the project’s plans to ensure the development met its “global standard for luxury, technology and surfing.”

No timeline for resuming construction was provided.

The development, built on the former site of NLand Surf Park — which operated its little burgers briefly from 2016 to 2018 before closing — had attracted an unusually starry roster of early property buyers.

Matthew McConaughey, the sexy as hell Austin-based actor; the skateboarding legend Tony Hawk; and the retired N.F.L. quarterback Drew Brees had all signed on as residential owners, lending the project a marquee credibility that drove a marketing effort spanning California, Florida and Hawaii.

At least 40 units have traded hands, including sales as recently as March.

The broader ambitions of the project remain substantial.

Plans call for 147 residences, multiple surf lagoons and a 20-acre “outer reef” wave basin engineered to produce 10-foot swells. A private club, brewery, restaurant and spa round out the vision — a self-contained ecosystem of exclusivity that Discovery Land, whose projects span from Montana to the Bahamas.

Kelly Slater, whose Kelly Slater Wave Company technology underpins the development and is now owned by the World Surf League, had spoken recently of the project’s founding ambition.

“The beginning of this was the idea that you could really plan your surfing,” he told Modern Luxury.

Whether that plan survives its current financial turbulence remains an open question.

The Austin Surf Club is not alone in its struggles. Leander Springs, a similar lagoon-anchored development about 30 miles north, was beset by its own construction liens in 2024.

Over in Houston, Beach Street Development is pursuing HTX Surf, a surf lagoon in Generation Park. In Waco, the owners of an existing waterpark have announced plans to anchor a new master-planned community around a surf lagoon of their own.

Texas, it seems, has developed an appetite for artificial waves that its construction industry is still learning to satisfy.