Fun Fact Friday: The World's Largest Residential Pool

We’ve checked out some amazing pools here at Sunplay. There’s been Utah’s spectacular $2 million dollar pool that features a 90 foot diving platform, the Oklahoma scuba pool, and the world’s deepest pool in Italy with impressive depths of 131 feet. That got us thinking: where is the world's largest residential pool?

To answer that question, let's head to Texas to get some interesting tidbits for today’s fun fact Friday!

• The world’s largest residential pool is located in the Houston, TX area in a town called El Campo, TX.

• El Campo is a town of just over 11,000 people according to the 2010 census.

• The pool is not in the midst of a busy metropolitan area. Rather, it sits among farmland and pastures.

• The pool belongs to owner Mike Mobley and was constructed by pool builder Rick Kuykendall.

• The area was originally a hard-to-maintain backyard pond. Kuykendall took it from a mild nuisance that was overgrown to an unparalleled tropical oasis.

• It takes 600,000 gallons of water to fill up Mobley’s pool—that’s 30-40 times more water than is required by a standard swimming pool.

• Mobley has an open door (or diving board) policy when it comes to his pool. He wants it to be used by friends, family, business associates, and even interested wedding parties.

• Every Sunday in the summer, you can find residents of El Campo taking a dip in the pool.

• Part of the owner’s intention was to provide a spot where local kids could swim for free.

• Some of the kid friendly elements in the huge pool area include a playground, rock climbing wall, tree with a rope swing, and huge slide.

• The pool’s slide is 21 feet long and built to look like natural rock.

• The slide cost $70,000 to construct which is almost 10 times as much as the average cost for pool slides as it’s six to seven times larger.

• The fabricated tree with rope swing cost approximately $15,000-$18,000 to create.

• Of course the pool includes a spa which has the capacity to seat between 25-30 people.

• There’s a swim up bar in the pool that set Mobley back approximately $200,000.

• More expensive than the bar were the genuine Florida palm trees he paid to have flown in—a $250,000 expense.

• Those trees traveled approximately 1,000 miles to find new residence in the great state of Texas.

• The most popular spot in the pool is the 500 foot, adjustable speed lazy river.

• Not so much “lazy,” this river is nicknamed Thunder River.

• Mobley even has a sign that says Thunder River, bought at auction from the now defunct Six Flags Astroworld which closed in 2005.

• Mobley said he didn’t intend the pool to end up as expansive as it did, but you know what they say: everything is bigger in Texas!

• To recreate a pool like Mobley’s, you’d have to shell out $3 million dollars.

• The utilities aren’t cheap, either. A reasonable pool costs under $100 a month in additional utility bills to operate. This Texan monstrosity costs its owners an additional $1200+ on their bill.

• According to Mobley, the expense is all worth it:

“There’s no price on family, friends, and having fun.”