Waco Surf, once a struggling wave pool, has become a year-round sold-out destination by flipping its customer base from 99% professional surfers to 99% Texas families, according to co-owners David Taylor and Luke Schock on The Building Texas Show. The podcast episode, hosted by Justin McKenzie and published May 27, 2026, details how Taylor and Schock acquired the park in 2021 and turned it into a tourism and real estate phenomenon in Central Texas.
The conversation traces the park's evolution from a 2018 pilot of American Wave Machines technology at the original Barefoot Ski Ranch under Stuart Parsons. Taylor and Schock emphasize that 99% of current visitors have never surfed an ocean wave, making Waco an unlikely hub for surf culture. "It's a community for people that want high access but not high walls," Schock said, explaining their refusal to adopt the private, gated model used by other surf communities worldwide. He added, "The magic happens when you're sitting on the beach talking to the guy that, you know, it's his bucket list to come there."
The next move is Desperado, a 400-acre surf-anchored ranch community that will include a second surf pool, a 13-hole golf course, a hot springs resort, pickleball courts, and dirt-only roads. Taylor noted that deposits on Desperado homes are overwhelmingly from Texas-based families, with one exception: a Hawaii native whose family lives in New York and wants a centrally located meeting place. The development aims to capitalize on Waco's location between Dallas, Austin, and Houston, repositioning the city as the heart of a new Texas surf culture.
Taylor and Schock also discussed Waco's broader transformation, driven by Baylor graduates staying to open restaurants and buy real estate alongside the Magnolia effect from Chip and Joanna Gaines. They recounted how Tony Hawk quietly shows up at the local skate park at 7 a.m., films himself, and draws 200 people within fifteen minutes. The pair also dug into Waco history, including the 1952 tornado that derailed the city's run at becoming the financial hub of Texas and pushed that growth toward Fort Worth. They cited the Hippodrome on Austin Avenue, where Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin once performed, as evidence of the city's pre-tornado vibrancy.
The episode underscores how Waco Surf and Desperado are reshaping the region's tourism and real estate landscape, offering a model for inclusive, community-focused development. As the podcast concludes, Taylor and Schock's story serves as a case study in turning a niche attraction into a broad-based economic driver.
