Near the edge of a cliff that plunges hundreds of feet down to the shore of Lake Austin, a five-thousand-square-foot steel-frame structure with tentlike walls houses the potential future of ultraluxury real estate marketing: a holodeck.
It is a term that comes from Star Trek, where Federation starships had special rooms in which crew members were able to create and interact with virtual environments. The enormous space at Lake Austin brings one of the most luxurious condos Texas has ever seen to life in photographic detail. The creator claims that it is the first installation of this caliber anywhere.
Back up. In late 2021, when entrepreneur Jonathan Coon revealed his plans to construct a massive complex on top of an impressive ridge that overlooked Lake Austin and downtown Austin, the world looked very different. The interest rates were near zero during the decade preceding, and more people than ever were moving to Texas. Although the COVID-19 epidemic had affected large areas of the economy and caused a lot of turmoil, high-end Austin property prices had no limits.
There was no luxury amenity or price too high for the tech founders and venture capitalists who were moving into the area. The world’s wealthiest man has moved to Austin.
Coon’s 100,000-square-foot amenities included a funicular made of glass to transport guests to the lakefront clubhouse and fleet of speedboats, an indoor orange grove modeled after the Versailles winter gardens, and a 76,000-square-foot sports and spa club. The penthouse condominiums, with their 3,000-square-foot wraparound terraces, would give you the feeling of floating hundreds of feet above the lake.
Coon’s project was inevitable, perhaps even overdue, given the buzz surrounding Austin. With 179 homes and Four Seasons as the management company, the project was inevitable. By February, following the announcement of the property, about 50 percent of homes had been reserved by buyers. Coon expected that the construction would be completed in four years.
He says, “But then Russia invaded Ukraine,” from the front seat of a Cadillac Escalade which ferries between a construction site and a trailer at the foot of the hill. In the year that followed, war, supply-chain disruption, inflation, and the end of the pandemic conspired to make everything change. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates faster than ever before, just as the real estate market was about to reach its champagne-sprinkling phase. Last month, the 80-story high-rise planned for downtown Austin was reduced to 45 stories.
Coon was forced to change his thinking when he turned to real estate after a successful career in other industries. Coon’s first major success was the creation of 1-800 Contacts in the 1990s (long before the millennial-favorite Warby Parker), which revolutionized corrective eyewear sales. It eventually sold for $900,000,000. He and his brother also co-financed the movie Napoleon Dynamite.
Throwing a party and creating a scene is a standard way to get more buyers to come to a trendy real estate market. Say it was the latest skyscraper in Miami. Douglas Elliman is one of the realty companies helping to market the Lake Austin Project. They use the same strategy in other cities. Coon says, “But we won’t do these things.” Austin is a city where new developments are met with a lot of negative commentary about its changing character. Something more restrained might be better. Coon isn’t a fan of Miami-style parties. Richardson-born Coon, who founded 1-800 Contacts before moving to Austin more than a decade earlier, comes across as an all-American father with a touch of the techno-optimist.
Coon was drawn to several new technologies last fall: a virtual reality headset called Quest Pro from Meta, designed for high-resolution collaboration environments, a powerful Nvidia graphics processing unit for rendering virtual worlds, and a game development platform called Unreal Engine 5, a highly advanced, new gaming platform. They could create a unique immersive experience where photorealistic computer-generated images can grow into entire worlds.
Coon built a four-story platform to showcase the views from his hilltop property. The view included a 90-degree turn in the Colorado River below, downtown Austin to its east, perfectly framing Mount Bonnell’s and the Dell Family’s compound, and the rugged Hill Country to the west. He decided to build a holodeck right next to it so that potential buyers could see the property inside and outside years before its construction. Coon explains that people who think, “I know what it is; it’s condos by the lake,” can see how much more it is once they stand inside a home.
Inside the cavernous virtual reality chamber, a network of green pin lights in the ceiling and blocky patterns on the walls allow the technology to maintain spatial awareness and track visitors as they wander through the space. Slide on a VR headset, wait a few seconds for the machinery to load up a 3D rendering and place you in it, and then be transported as if by magic.
This kind of photorealistic tour is a new concept. VR in real estate has been used for many years, from simple 360-degree photos up to elaborate architectural renderings. Architectural VR experiences have been more animated than live-action. Coon says four people can wear VR headsets to explore the virtual world together. However, Coon warns that this strains bandwidth. It requires more data than than the fastest Wi-Fi networks can handle. He says, “We are really pushing the limits of what can be transmitted.”
Coon, who is also my guide, spends thirty minutes with me on a tour of the apartment, which includes a wide bench seat in one of the picture windows. The design was inspired by the windows at 432 Park Avenue in Manhattan, one building in the so-called Billionaires’ Row that has sprouted just south of Central Park in the past decade. Coon, who is a resident of the apartment, points out the wide bench seat that sits in front of one of its picture windows. He says it was inspired by a similar design in 432 Park Avenue, erected in Manhattan in the last decade, one of the so-called Billionaires Row buildings. He points out hidden doors in the primary bathroom that lead to his and hers separate toilets. “One of the keys to successful marriage,” says Coon.
The glass surfaces are incredibly lifelike. They reflect the surrounding rooms and change in real time, just as they would in the real world. It can be nauseating. But it’s difficult to determine if this is due to the uncanny valley effect caused by the distorted perspectives – a chair that looks out of proportion here, or a distortion in the depth of field there – or the cognitive effects of spending so much time with VR. The feeling of disorientation is a natural reaction to entering a parallel universe of wealth, which only exists for a small fraction of humanity. These homes are described as floating above everything, and they certainly do.
This raises the question: who is buying these properties? Coon claims that it’s not Saudi Princes or Russian Oligarchs. About three-quarters of sales have gone to Texans. The rest are mostly Californians who plan to live here part-time. For a homeowner to receive the tax benefits, they must live in Texas at least 183 of the 365 days a calendar year. It’s about 1,700 miles from Austin to New York City, San Francisco, and Miami. Los Angeles is also roughly 1,300 miles away. “So, they make this hub.”
Coon began by marketing to buyers in all those coastal cities plus some others, such as Chicago and Seattle. He found that Texans and Californians were the ones who responded most to his pitch. Coon’s group scour property tax records for the two states to find buyers whose home appraises at more than $2 million here and $5 million in California. They believe that the Texan’s homes are worth twice as much thanks to the state’s convoluted tax system. The brochure is a six-pound hardcover coffee table book with glossy photos. If they show interest, the prospect is invited to experience the holodeck.
Coon believes that the strategy “is pretty obvious.” People who buy expensive homes are those who live in expensive homes. “That’s all.” About two dozen people, but only half were prospective buyers, have visited the holodeck to date. He explains that some of these people have entourages. Two of the people who saw it may be moving forward with a purchase.
All of this seems to be an enormous amount of work and investment, but that is the new reality in Austin’s condo market, even though the boom of the pandemic era has faded, or perhaps because of it. Coon is asked if he intends to make his technological marvel of property marketing into a real product, something that other developers would pay a premium for. After all, he’s an entrepreneur. He says that as prices for the parts come down, other people will be able to put these pieces together, and holodecks will become commonplace, at least in top properties such as this one or a new building on Billionaires’ Row. He says, “You are seeing the future of real-estate here.”
Coon and his wife were in love with the thought of building their dream home in this location. They planned an entire community because the land was expensive for a single homesite. When the community opens in 2025, they will be one of the first residents.