Meadowlakes is a small, gated community on Lake Marble Falls in southern Burnet County, bordered on the northeast by Marble Falls itself and about 49 miles northwest of downtown Austin. Development started here in the 1970s, and the city incorporated in the mid-1980s with an estimated 250 residents — it’s grown steadily since, but it’s stayed a small, golf-course community rather than turning into a full-service town.
The population has grown from roughly 250 residents at incorporation to 1,293 at the 2000 census, 1,907 at the 2020 census, and an estimated 1,996 today. Meadowlakes has kept its own mayor and city council the whole time, though Marble Falls provides most of the day-to-day municipal services — a setup that keeps the city’s overhead low without leaving residents without a local voice on zoning and gate rules.
The community is built around a semi-private, 18-hole golf course — a par-72 layout dating to 1976, with Bermuda fairways lined by mature pecan trees — and that, plus the gated entry, is a big part of why Meadowlakes tends to draw retirees and second-home buyers looking for a quieter pace rather than a starter-home crowd. If you’re weighing a move here specifically for retirement, Retiring in Meadowlakes, TX goes deeper into what that gated, golf-centered setup means day to day.
Lake Marble Falls itself, formed by the LCRA’s Max Starcke Dam just upstream of Lake Travis, is one of the constant-level lakes in the Highland Lakes chain — the dam’s floodgates keep the water within about eight-tenths of a foot of the same range year-round, so docks and boathouses here don’t deal with the seasonal drawdowns some of the other lakes in the chain see.
I’m Robbie English, REALTOR and Broker at Uncommon Highland Lakes Realty here in the Highland Lakes.
Governance, Parks, and Getting Around
Meadowlakes runs its own Property Owners Association, separate from the city government, which holds the CC&Rs and handles the day-to-day rules that come with a gated community — along with a set of city-maintained parks residents don’t have to leave the gates to use. There’s a boat ramp and an adjoining fishing pier right in the community, giving direct lake access without a drive to one of the public ramps in Marble Falls, plus a dedicated RV parking area — worth knowing if you’re the kind of buyer who tows a boat or a camper and doesn’t want it sitting in the driveway.
Kids here go to Marble Falls ISD, a seven-campus district based right next door — four elementary schools, one middle school, and two high schools. Being this close to the district means a short bus ride, and being this close to Marble Falls itself means groceries, Baylor Scott & White’s hospital, and downtown are a few minutes away rather than a real errand.
Nearby Options
Meadowlakes sits right on the edge of Marble Falls, so most buyers looking here are also weighing Marble Falls itself for more in-town amenities, or Horseshoe Bay if a bigger golf-and-lake community fits better. For the wider picture of what’s available across the chain, take a look at Highland Lakes homes for sale.
If you’d like to see what’s currently listed in Meadowlakes, reach out and I’ll walk you through it.
For a closer look at what day-to-day life here is actually like, read Living in Meadowlakes, TX.
