Jonathan Coon, who sold 1-800-Contacts to Walmart in 2012, is converting a former Exxon corporate property on Lake Austin into a Four Seasons Private Residences enclave with $35 million in capital deployed. The 4.7-acre site at 3636 Executive Center Drive will house 16 residences priced between $3 million and $8 million, with delivery targeted for Q4 2026. The transaction marks the latest exit of legacy corporate real estate into hospitality-adjacent residential product as Austin's luxury buyer pool deepens past $10 billion in regional family-office assets under management.
Coon's entity, Lake Austin Holdings, acquired the land from ExxonMobil in a direct negotiation that closed in October 2024. The site has sat largely dormant since Exxon consolidated regional operations in 2019. Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts will manage amenities under a licensing structure that gives buyers access to the brand's concierge network and priority reservations across 126 properties globally. The residences will include private boat slips, a 6,000-square-foot clubhouse, and a helipod rated for light twin-engine aircraft. Construction permits were filed with Travis County in January 2025.
The move follows a pattern allocators have watched since 2022: operators are buying corporate retreat properties at 20-30% discounts to pre-pandemic comps and flipping them into branded residential at 3-4x gross margin. Austin's branded-residence inventory has grown 240% since 2020, from 47 units to 160 units currently under construction or planned. Four Seasons alone has three Austin-area projects in motion, including a downtown tower at Second and Brazos that broke ground in November 2024. The Lake Austin site is the first to target the western corridor, where average household income exceeds $420,000 and property tax caps remain enforceable under Texas law.
What separates this from typical condo conversions is the operational arbitrage. Coon is not selling units outright. Buyers take title but agree to place residences into a rental pool managed by Four Seasons for 180 days per year minimum, generating projected net yields of 4.8-6.2% depending on occupancy. That structure lets Coon retain 25% equity in a master LLC that collects management fees in perpetuity, while buyers gain Four Seasons affiliation without the compliance burden of owning a hotel interest. The model mirrors what Aman and Rosewood have deployed in Cabo and Mayakoba, where residential yields now exceed comparable hotel EBITDA margins by 140 basis points.
Operators should track permitting timelines in Travis County, where luxury residential approvals have stretched to 11-14 months as environmental reviews tighten around Lake Austin watershed zones. Any delay past Q2 2025 would push delivery into 2027, colliding with $180 million in competing Four Seasons inventory hitting the market downtown. Allocators should watch whether Coon files for a REIT conversion by mid-2026, which would unlock institutional co-investment and signal intent to replicate the model across secondary Sun Belt markets. The helipod, meanwhile, requires FAA Part 157 notice, typically a 90-day process unless noise complaints trigger extended comment periods.
ExxonMobil has now sold four former regional offices in Texas since 2023, each to hospitality or residential developers, none to traditional commercial buyers. The Lake Austin transaction closed at $7.4 million, or $1.57 million per acre, 18% below the county's 2024 assessed value for comparable waterfront land.