Water park goes into Richard Malouf’s Strait Lane backyard in Dallas

by Candy Evans of Candy's Dirt

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The park is going to need about six million gallons of water each year, using Malouf's own well.

Was Richard Malouf’s water park patterned after Celine Dion’s?

Here’s what the Malouf’s have in store for the backyard of what was once 10674 Strait Lane: Hurricane Harbor. There will be a really, really deep pool, a lazy river, and three water slides 30 to 35 feet tall, some of which were originally to be accessible from and twist through the upstairs windows of the Sports Complex. Wheeee!

But that plan was dropped and instead, the slides will be off the observatory — you need pretty deep water for those suckers. And 35 feet tall is as tall as the city of Dallas will let you go with a water slide.

This is probably a first in Dallas, maybe Texas. I know the Dundon home over on Northwest Highway, built by Mark Molthan, has a sort of swim park, indoor-outdoor tennis courts and pavilion, baseball diamond, automatic batting cage, a putting green, a go-cart track, and two slides from the second to the first floor — one is inside the house in the family room, Trail-Dust style, and one outside, but both are dry. Malouf’s complex will trump: The Dundons only have a swim park, not a water park.

How in the world, where in the world, do you even begin to build a water park in your backyard, especially if you are your own sub contractor? Simple: Find the guys who built Hurricane Harbor and hire them. Two water park contractors came out from Canada. Their bid: a few million. Malouf ended up hiring someone (maybe it was them, not sure) to draft a set of buildable plans, and he is self-contracting the whole thing to save money.

Actually, I’ll bet that saves at least a half million.

But they did build the lazy river too deep and had to back-fill it.

The wattage and power in the first house was enough to power the second-house-turned- sports-world, but they needed the three phase transformer JUST for the water park.

Why would anyone want a water park in their yard? To create a resort-style feel. Like the Dundon house, Malouf is creating an environment where kids can come over and have at their disposal everything they would have at a Four Seasons, plus a water park. This is a very family-oriented family with extended members.

All the excavation and activity makes it a little noisy over there, and you can’t help but wonder what the neighbors think of all the construction work, which has been going on now for more than a year and is about six months behind schedule. A few I called were out of town. Owen Wilson was not too keen on the noise — he was staying at his parents’ house a few months ago and complained he couldn’t sleep during the day because of all the construction next door.

Oh, I know what you are wondering because I wondered the very same thing: How can the Maloufs have a private water park with Dallas water restrictions in force?

Simple. Malouf dug his own well. There are three levels you can go with a well, and Malouf dug to the middle level. That was smart: The park is going to need about six million gallons of water each year.

At least that’s what we are estimating from Dion's. In Florida, on Jupiter Island, the chanteuse and her hubby built a $20 million home with a backyard water park, but the community became upset that the water park used so much of the fresh water supply on the island. They claimed it led to a drought and water restrictions in the area. The Dions were fined for massive use of water, so they built six wells on the property to store enough water to keep the park fluid. This one requires 6.5 million gallons each year. It includes two pools and a lazy river. The Malouf’s may only have one pool with the lazy river, but with a one-acre backyard space, my sources estimate it will be about the same size as Dion’s.

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