The water in Lake Austin was too cold for the guests of the Sunshine Nudist Camp, which was established on Lake Austin in the early 1970s, replacing a fishing camp that had been there since the '40s. The campers gritted their teeth for a few years, then decamped to warmer climes. Replacing them were rodeo clowns and cowboys learning the ropes at the Steiner Ranch Rodeo Camp. That venture lasted until 1979, when the Bermuda Inn, a fat farm, opened its doors at this secluded spot 45 minutes northwest of the Texas capital. It would stay until 1997, undergoing two name changes (and substantial shifts in philosophy) during that time, becoming Lake Austin Resort in the 1980s and Lake Austin Spa Resort in 1994. Then, in 1997, the property was bought by its present owners, Michael McAdams and Billy Rucks, who kept the name but started changing just about everything else.

The current Lake Austin Spa Resort is incarnation number seven, and that seems to be the lucky number. McAdams and Rucks have just finished a seven-year renovation of the property. The grand finale, which opened in June, is the 25,000-square-foot LakeHouse Spa. It has 30 treatment areas, both indoors and out, and one of the most extensive treatment menus I've seen, encompassing everything from Ayurveda and energy work (Energy Balance with Healing Sound) to a variety of baths and very good scrubs (the Texas Pecan is a favorite). There are special menus for men and teens and a separate beauty salon with a pedicure bar. The new facility, along with the property's other improvements, puts Lake Austin firmly on the destination-spa map, right up there with Canyon Ranch and Rancho La Puerta.

But it's been a long road.

"I didn't know I was buying Green Acres," says McAdams, who had previously run on the fast track at Dallas?Ft. Worth real estate power Trammell Crow, where he was president of the company's design centers--good training for this venture. "I found an amazingly beautiful piece of nature, a fantastic core staff, and just ugly run-down facilities." One of the first people he hired, general manager Tracy York, who came from the Hotel Crescent Court in Dallas, got a good dose of what was in store on her first day. "A lady was just standing there screaming," she recalls. "She had stepped into her bathtub and her foot had gone right through. The tub was rusted out. I thought, What have I done?"

McAdams's ambition was to build a spa "that would be like your best friend's lake house," he says. Based on my three-day visit, I'd say that he and Rucks have succeeded. The LakeHouse Spa, constructed of local limestone and cedar, sits on a hillside that overlooks two acres of terraced water gardens containing 200 species of native plants. To the left, as you come up the walk to the building, is the Pool Barn, a handsome trussed-roof structure with garage doors built into the sides; it houses a junior Olympic lap pool. And on the right is the new resort pool, which includes private spa cabanas for two.