I just need 100 million...
A few years ago, I had an idea that was either brilliant or completely ridiculous… possibly both.
Land in central Florida is surprisingly cheap. So what if someone (I dunno, maybe me?) built a resort that looked like a remote seaside village in Thailand or Vietnam, tucked into lush, misty mountains but with Florida weather and none of that 20-hour flight crap?
You’d get the exotic atmosphere without the jet lag.
There was one obvious problem: Florida is famously flat. But then again, Disney didn’t let that stop them.
If you’ve spent any time at Disney World, you’ve seen their fake boulders… those massive sculpted rocks woven into rides, pathways, and landscaping throughout the parks. They’re everywhere, and they’re convincing. So why couldn’t a resort do the same thing? Build a normal structure, clad the whole thing in sculpted rock, and suddenly you’ve got a mountain in Floirda!
Having a lagoon in the middle of this structure would be the easy part. There is already a company that builds these very realistic lagoons all over the world, , including this one near where I live.
I have zero real estate development experience. But this felt less like a construction project and more like an art project, so my wife and I just… started building.
Our materials: a brown paper bag, pencil erasers, tiny fake palm trees, and some paint. What we ended up with was a surprisingly thought-through model. We mapped out sun orientation (the highest peak being on the north side of the structure to not block the sun), staff access doors, hiking paths, and premium over-water bungalows. The whole thing came together on our kitchen table.
Here are a few photos of the model.
Click to enlarge.
Let's build it!
I used AI to turn this model into a real life photo, as if it was really built here in Florida. The result? Stunning!
Click to enlarge.
That’s a little outside the budget right now.
What I learned
- I’m not a handy person around the house but building this model with my hands and thinking through the business and technical challenges were fun.
What I’d do differently now
- Like it was a website, I would build a lead magnet! Specifically a shopping and retail center on one side of the model. The foot traffic to the mall would result in a steady stream of resort visitors.
- I would also build it as more of an L shape as opposed to a rectangle. It would feel a bit more mysterious if there was always something you couldn’t see.
Where it ended up:
- In the garbage when we packed all our stuff to travel around the world.