The Green Scene
a podcast at the intersection of golf, real estate innovation, and building community
The Green Scene
Episode 3 - Turner Simkins
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What makes a great community? Is it the homes, the amenities, the golf course—or something deeper?
In this episode of The Green Scene, Matt Green sits down with developer, investor, author, and community-builder Turner Simkins to discuss the art of placemaking, the future of community development, and why great places don't happen by accident.
The conversation explores walkability, wellness, golf communities, AI, leadership, and the importance of creating environments where people genuinely connect. Turner also shares personal lessons learned through adversity and how those experiences shaped his approach to life, leadership, and community building.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Green Scene. My name is Matt Green, and today is another great day for the Green Scene. Uh, for those of you that have not watched the Green Scene, welcome, welcome aboard this journey. And I want to tell you a little bit about the green scene and what we're here and what we're trying to do with this. It truly is a journey. We're trying to connect the craft, a building and development with the close-knit culture, drawing parallels with the spirit of golf, community life, and workplace culture. We cover what it takes to be successful in this world where change is happening rapidly. It's unbelievable how fast change is happening. Drilling down on systems, processes, people's experiences, projects, all trying to take a bigger picture look on what it takes to have true success out there in the workplace and in the workplace culture. We talk about the pieces and parts that go into building great communities, the things that create incredible experiences, and the way teams behave when no one's watching. Expect candid conversations with uh executives, decision makers, uh builders, golf industry leaders, and experienced professionals who endured success along the way. Let's talk about where people belong, how neighbors become friends and why teams perform under pressure. Because great companies, neighborhoods, and clubs aren't built by accident. They're cultivated. And we at the green scene want to be in those conversations and having that real radical candor. So let's talk about today's conversation, why this conversation. I'm so excited about this conversation. Because as I mentioned, great communities are not billed by accident. Great communities are not built by accident. The leaders who are involved in these communities are the ones who are tested. They talk about when they're tested and the lessons that they've learned, and they stay in the fight to succeed. Because building great communities does not happen over time. It's a long time. It's a it's a cultivation of a lot of parts and pieces that come together. And so today, this is what defines the green scene and what we're all about. And I'm really excited to talk about our guest today, Turner Simkins. Turner's a great friend of mine, he's a great mentor. Turner sits in an unusual intersection in the world, quite frankly, let alone the real estate business. He's a real estate developer, he's an investor, he's an inventor, he's a land steward, he's an author, he's a nonprofit leader, he's a dad, and and I'm sure he's many other things as well. His perspective on building with intention spans cycles and disciplines and kinds of personal adversity that quietly shapes how a leader allocates his time, his attention, and his capital. This episode is a guided tour through that thinking, and it really is what the green scene is all about. So without further ado, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce the audience to Mr. Turner Simpkins. Welcome.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely welcome. Good to be here. Thanks for asking me.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, it's uh as I mentioned, we talked a little bit about before. Um this this isn't a podcast where we're gonna have, you know, eight guests a month. Uh this is a podcast that we're gonna take our time with guests and we want it to be really impactful. And so I think I've always just been admired at some of the things that you've been uh involved in your career. Um and and some people that um you know are involved in a lot of things in career, they just want to talk about it. But I'm I love how humble you are and and and your success. So I just want to congratulate you and thank you for coming on.
SPEAKER_01So thanks for rolling the dice on me. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so um so why don't we get started? Why don't you just, you know, just go ahead and tell uh you know a little bit about yourself, kind of where you're at today, kind of some of the things you're fun and today doing today for fun and and and things of that nature. And then uh I know we've got a lot of exciting things to talk about.
SPEAKER_01First, let me say that thank you for saying you admire what I do. I admire what you do. I'm all over the place. You seem to be you're all over the place, but you seem to have everything kind of corralled and yeah and under control. Whereas um I'm kind of feeling like a pinball these days. So I guess the short answer is everywhere. You know, I'm bouncing around. Um I've um you know it lately, I mean, personally, um it's been a lot of focus on family. I've got three boys, as you know. Um, my middle son Brennan, who um who was who had cancer as a child, and and actually, and consequently, my other two boys had crazy childhoods. Graduated from college of Charleston last weekend, and his little brother Christopher graduated from the University of South Carolina the day before. So we went back-to-back graduations, but um you know, we always they're just 11 months apart, and Christopher was always the wingman, you know, throughout all that experience. Older brother Nat's working, um, got a great career. Um, but Brennan, um the fact that he's here on this planet is a miracle, and the fact that he's graduated from college and has a job in Charleston, and um and that that's number one for me right now. Um professionally, still all over the place. Um, I think I told you one time that, you know, uh through my you haven't been in the map, I'm pretty much focused on master planning communities from starting in the luxury golf course gated community days back when I worked with the Nicholas organization to um moving back to Augusta and running a new homes division for Blanchard and Calhoun, where we did everything. I actually came there to do a golf course community and we started doing other things. And then I had already been drinking the new urbanism Kool-Aid, you know, before that, then my friendship with Vince and some of the other guys we know out there. Um and then um, you know, we tackled Hammond's Ferry in North Augusta, which took a lot longer because we started just a few years before the big crash in 089. Um managed to keep air in the tank and it's pretty much done. I'm very proud of that. But I swore afterwards, I was like, I'm not doing another master plan community. I don't have the, you know, it's just so back end oriented. But I love it, you know, and it's just one of those things, it's almost like a I guess it's I'd have to call it an addiction. I just feel like I've um I love the planning. I love the I've I there's there's I feel like we've come a long way in terms of making places. And I think now that I've gotten involved with Kane Island, and Kane, by the way, came out of a career change. I now work with an investment advisory group out of New York, and I kind of came on board as a real estate guy, you know, general wealth management, and but of course we do a lot of private investment and so forth. So as the alternative and one of the alternative investment guys, I had a client want to buy some land and or an investment in the low country. I just thought we'd get them an income producing some next, and then we bought an island, and I'm like, oh gosh, here we go.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it's um, but you know, the great thing about it is I've been thinking about this stuff so long. It's about what is what are we we're getting things done better, design-wise, human scale, walkability, but what is missing? What is it that makes great places, places that can't be calculated with tangible numbers that you can put in a you know in a in a construction or a you know, hammers, you know, wooden hammers or pipes and dirt, you know, there's and it's and to me it's the subcultural and it's the it's all of those little ingredients that bring people together and and uh not just front porches, but you know, things like art and music and wellness and um trying to you know encourage a sense of civic mindedness and understanding in the people who live there to wanna um to to truly understand you know a little bit better, you know, you know why we're you know trying to uh you know encourage this sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02You know, you know, I I often say that you know communities are extreme cultivation, right? I mean it's a little bit like farming. I mean you've got to plant the seeds and I mean it takes season after season after season to establish an incredible. It's the most critical.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's the most critical. And um, but they're all critical. They're all critical. It's just like the you know, the the the three notes in a in a you know, you have a first third and a fifth in a court in a musical court. It can't, it doesn't work without all three elements. But that root court that root note is is that first season that you're talking about. And um, you know, for example, in Cain, you know, we're instilling these things and we're trying we want to make it authentic. You know, you don't want to just say, oh, here's some music guy on a Friday night, you know. But it's you know, how do you encourage a place that songwriters really want to be part of and be part of a community where other people live and maybe they could do whatever for a living. Maybe it's a second home, maybe they're lawyers or whatever. Same thing with artists and food people and farm, you know, people that work in the gardens, uh, you know, conservationists. I mean, there's just so many little pieces, you know. I guess when we So when you look at that field, you know, there are a lot, you know, you've got that main crop, but there's a lot, all the little yeah, pieces of fertilizer or whatever that go in there.
SPEAKER_02So let's talk about that for a minute because you know, we talk about cultivation and real estate, and I gotta believe all the things that you're involved with are just, you know, make up a lot of you know those thoughts and ideas, right? I I was reading that you're an investor, an author, uh a real estate guy, junkie as as I am. Uh you're a musician, uh, you're a land store, you you do a lot of different things. And I don't know how you keep it all focused, right? And in and in one lane, but just talk about that as we before we get into real estate, just talk about all those things and the why, why you're involved. I know it's not by choice.
SPEAKER_01All right. Well, I'll some of them are certainly. I mean, real estate's obviously by choice. Right. Um and that's led to other things. Like I mentioned, I'm working with an investment advisory group. So I mean, that's kind of allowed me to sort of pollinate into other areas of investment. You know, I'm meeting new people. Um I'm I'm continuing to learn. I remember my my mom, who's 91, reads books every, you know, she'll read a book a week of more. So she's never stopped learning, you know. And um the um it it but I've also begun um working um during you began looking at in the world of tax credits, which is involved in, you know, obviously the the real estate business in terms of affordable housing, you know, historic preservation, um, you know, renewable energy, which sometimes all three of those elements are combined. You know, in the state of Georgia, you've got film, you've got, you know, um, and um and so you know, a lot each all of those things are part of the future, part of everything from the upper level, from the political side of things all the way down to the needs that we have in this state and other states to make sure we've got all these new industry moving to the area. But we we can't, because of politics, we can't lose sense of the fact that all these great new jobs are here, but if the rents or the costs are so far up, somebody's got to live somewhere, and it needs to be, you know, decent enough to do that. So um there's a lot of things. On the stewardship piece, yeah, I mentioned my mom's 92. When my dad's 92, my dad is um is very well known in this state and uh really throughout the southeast. Have been for a long time as kind of the guy in land and timber properties, hunting farms and that sort of thing, hunting plantations and whatnot. And um we have a our family has some land assets and um in mostly in South Carolina and Georgia. And um, so I'm now kind of running the farm, you know, and um we're um and he is so knowledgeable. I mean he can I think one of the reasons he was so successful is I mean he became an arborist. I mean he's I mean he's he's qualified. He's I mean I mean I'm and he's you know he has all um but he could tell you the botanical name of anything that grows anywhere, whether it's he's walking through the forest in Japan and he'll tell you what it is.
SPEAKER_02That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01And um, but you know, learning what makes a forest healthy. We primarily um grow hardwood forests. Matter of fact, we converted 900 acres of agricultural row crop land back to hardwood forests. You know, mother, you know, when you see so many pine trees around here, you know, you know, and um again, following my father's advice, Mother Nature didn't plant pine trees. It was a little more diversity. You had a mixture of things. So you know you have everything from oaks to even some of the sort of what we consider junkier trees, like you know, um, you know, two, you know, like um sycamores and things like that. Um, you know, but it it again it it's it's it's it's getting the the the world of that little ecosystem back on a cycle that um is best for the future of that property for the next generation, but also you know, in a way that we can continue to be responsible. You know, we can harvest trees responsibly and stay within the rules of our conservation easements and that stuff. That's fascinating to me. But you know, all of a sudden I'm just doing this, right? It wasn't like I'm, you know, so all of a sudden let's shoehorn that in here somewhere.
SPEAKER_02Um but it all ties back to some things I love about real estate is all of that is relatable to a piece of land, a community, a place. I mean, all of those experiences uh that you talked about, um, I 100%, and there's no doubt in my mind, only benefit to creating a place. And and and um so I want to talk about that. Um, but you know, you mentioned a lot of different things, and I always ask this question uh to people. Tell me who the most influential person that you have in your life you've ever met in your life. And and and the why, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_01Because you you've done a lot of yeah, you know, you've done a lot of really interesting things. Certainly, I'll probably have to do at least a couple. Uh my father, yeah. Um, for um, you know, um, you know, he was he, you know, he's a tough guy, but at the same time, he's you know got a big heart and you know, and well loved by a lot of people, but just admiring how he became so respected and sort of just observing what allowed him to become recognized in that way. I mean, he didn't, he wasn't like a celebrity by any chance, but just recognized as an honest guy who knows what he's talking about, um, who is open whose doors always open for the younger generation that's wanting to learn. I mean, today there's guys that are trying to get in the land business that want to come talk to him. Yeah. And he's always happy to do that.
SPEAKER_02That's great.
SPEAKER_01Um, or take three hours out of his day to go to somebody's house because they're afraid they're gonna lose a tree. And you know, little things like that. So um, you know, that's um, you know, I I tend to say yes to a lot of things, you know, just because I want to be that way. Um it's kind of hard right now just because I've got a lot of, you know, I do need to kind of distill this things down into a little bit more, you know, a little more organized chart. But um, so Dad, um my uh first boss, Bob Sierra, who ran the Nicholas Sierra, the Jack Nicholas development company, I learned all the fundamentals real estate from him. And um he put a lot of faith. I was a philosophy major in college, right? Really? I did not um in English.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, so I mean I didn't come out of I'm you know, I but I, you know, I think having a liberal arts background was in retrospect, I think was was the thing that benefits me now. I think it's probably going to benefit the next generation too, because of AI and so many jobs being, but you know, if you can write, if you could communicate with people, um, you can uh you know, if you can learn be, you know, express yourself creatively, that's kind of what worked my way up with food chains. And he put he he moved me up when there were other guys who had construction backgrounds or legal backgrounds, and you know, just put me in the hot seat and said, you know, figure it out. Um and um so I have to thank him for that.
SPEAKER_02That's great.
SPEAKER_01Um and then you know, of course, my wife and I don't know, I can go on and on. You know, I mean for her, all the stuff that we you know had to do as a well family is big. Well, as a you know, well, particularly going through having a son who, you know, who had cancer and relapsed and relapsed and relapsed, um, you know, we could have um that's that's a an I mean that's basically the recipe for divorce.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um we um managed to work together and you know, and um we didn't always agree on things, but we were able to sit down and work it out and make sure, and you know, thank goodness we did, because we got you know three boys who love each other.
SPEAKER_02And kudos to you, man. That's uh so let's let's talk about that, right? Because I I you know you you wrote a book about it, uh uh possibilities. And I read the book recently, and uh it's it's a hard book to get through. Uh, but I got even more respect for you after getting through it. And I can't even imagine going something like through that. You know, my my wife and I went through a a blip compared to that with my son who had a uh an ACL and a meniscus injury from playing football. And I know what we lived for five months.
SPEAKER_01It's just a matter of scale, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but it was interesting the strain that it put on the family just in just in general. Like you go from normal to not normal over it real quick.
SPEAKER_01That was the first thing. When we walked into when he was diagnosed, we they told us to get to the go to the fifth floor of the children's hospital of Georgia and you know, the pediatric hospital, and um we walked up to the fifth floor, and this kid standing there with an IV pole and no hair. We're like, oh God, you know, here we go. And the first thing a nurse practitioner said to us was You're gonna have everything's a new normal now. Yeah, you just like I mean you it's a swerve, you know. You think you're going this way, and you're on this path, you better get used to it and navigate. Um so it's so hard.
SPEAKER_02Like, what inspired you to write a book about that?
SPEAKER_01Well, it started with a blog. Um, have you heard of Hearing Bridge or Care Pages? You know, it's like it's basically a platform so you don't have to call everybody and say, you know, like here's everything that's going on. Don't call me. I've got to focus.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so it started out like that. And then I'll, you know, he Brendan was inpatient, like in not inpatient, but inpatient in the hospital at the first phase for 90 days, with like a week off in between every 30-day section. So you're living in the hospital with your kid, you know, and spending the night there. And the blog went from that to just me spilling my guts about all right, what am I thinking as a parent, as a caregiver, as someone who's got to keep his job going somehow, as somebody who's got to keep his brothers from, you know, you know, freaking out, you know, without, and um, and not to mention all, you know, dealing with all the stuff going around you. And so and that just became it got it really just became viral. And then the whole thing lasted like four years. So by the time I we moved to Memphis, we were at St. Jude's, I had like 10,000 plus subscribers to this thing. And I think people were reading it like a reality TV show, like, what's gonna happen to this kid? They were tuning in because I was posting stuff pretty much about every other day.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um I had a uh publisher um from Connecticut, um, who was the publisher of Globe Pequot Press, reached out and and introduced herself, and somehow she started reading it and she said you should write a book. And I just sort of pushed that aside, but when we when we moved back from Memphis after his fourth bone marrow transplant, um, from you know, had four transplants from four different donors, which is unheard of. I mean, at the time, it's it's never been done before. Um, he wasn't supposed to survive the second one. Um, we were told he wouldn't. Um, and um you you get a little PTSD. I mean, not a little P there's PTSD.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean you go back to work and it's just it doesn't you I I mean it was like the passion you're talking about, it was gone.
SPEAKER_02It was gone.
SPEAKER_01Um and I, you know, I had that was I guess good luck. It was kind of during that recession period, so we didn't have a whole lot going on. And then tried to start this other, we started a digital marketing business, which was a good little company. We were about 10 years too early because nobody bought into social media advertising and targeting and all that stuff at that time. We did okay, but I couldn't fortunately have good partners there because they had to tote most of the water. And it was so it I decided to do it, and and I think at the end of the day it was a cathartic thing for me because I I remember rereading the blog, and I would just there was stuff I'd forgotten, and I just I'd just lose it.
SPEAKER_03Lose it.
SPEAKER_01And um and then the book got great reviews in the literary community. Um I mean, there's some I mean, some of the most respected authors that I had uh of mine, you know, Will, you know, gave it great reviews. And um, so it's um matter of fact, I've had a guy talk to me about making a movie out of it, um the same group that just didn't that Nuremberg movie. Whether it happens or not, I don't know. But we're having a conversation, so um would make an interesting series.
SPEAKER_02Well, I can only imagine to relive that story, right?
SPEAKER_01It's one thing to live through it, but to relive it, but it's part of you forever, and you know, it becomes part of when you think about communities, if you think about the places that make you feel alive, you know, the like St. Jude does it in Memphis. Like, all right, these so most of these kids aren't gonna live. So how can the place that they live make them not think about the worst, you know? Um, or but just not so much that it's like what makes them think forward to the best? You know, that you know that's a healing thing. I mean, it's it it's something that rather than having this group crying over here and this group crying over here, those groups come together and laugh. You know, and so what are the physical things we can do to make that happen? So I try to apply a little bit of that to what I think about when we're building the stuff I'm working on now. You know, and some of them it's it's kind of hard to articulate that to a you know a partner you don't hasn't worked with in a while or ever, you know. Um Where are you coming from? There's a lot of deep-seated stuff. But these are things I've observed and I've seen it happen. And I've and I know it's you know there's just a there's a thing inside us that responds to scale, um, to color, to sound, to smells, you know, it's and um and that's the you know, kind of applying that to that. So I have learned a lot through that.
SPEAKER_02Um uh and um of course you know, you know, what I've learned from other people and um and uh well so my so my guess is uh one of the things I love about the book is that obviously you don't see adversity like you did before that, right? I mean it yeah, I'm sure there's things in today's life that maybe used to upset you, but today you're just like I mean that's not that big of a deal. Yeah, that's not that big of a deal, right? And I yeah, I kind of feel like social media, right? I mean I'm I am slowly trying to get off of social media. I really don't do it a lot, but I just feel like there's nothing good about it. Right? There's nothing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I just I post like a memorable picture, like here's something I'm proud of my summer graduating, or this is a great sunset or a way to look at it. Yeah. Um and um I think that um I know we're you you you you mentioned talking about you know the next you know the next generation of development. I think that um, you know, in the workplace, we've got to let you know, teach kids who graduate from college now that you are not measured by that.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_01And you need to stop measuring yourself by what you think other people think or by what some video says you should be, this ideal person, uh, whether they're the ideal golf swing or the ideal physique or whatever. Just you know, you gotta shut that off. Yeah um because the analog, there's certain analog components to uh the the business world that aren't gonna go away. And um that's yeah I think maybe the hospitality injury is probably a great one that I think it will survive to a degree. There'll be amenities and things that might be with the engagement with people, um that um and having the the skills to to talk to people without being self-conscious um or you know anything that's without saying what you think you're supposed to say, but saying what you're being I being intentional. My son Brennan, um you know Ben Navarro, you've yeah, yeah, of course. I still haven't met Ben. I got have but he's major influence on my son Brennan.
SPEAKER_02Really?
SPEAKER_01Brennan took the uh he became he'd been interviewed for his intentionality class at College of Charleston, and it has literally brought him out of his shell in terms of learning about to be comfortable in standing up and talking about that, you know. But you never want to talk about the cancer stuff, but but not only about that, but his other weaknesses and learning how not to fall in love with your own BS um so that you can do, you know. Am I doing this because I think I'm supposed to do it? Or or you know, or am I doing it with intention, yeah, you know, and um gratitude and all that.
SPEAKER_02Well, I again the book was amazing. I appreciate you sharing it and I appreciate you talking about it. Um it was one of the things that I wanted to touch on. And you know, I I want to get into real estate, and uh, but I gotta tell you, I was uh we're talking about social media and I came across the Eric Church commencement. Oh, is that not the best at at uh UNC. Yeah, so I had zero clue. I watched this thing, and I was so moved. I watched it again. So I was uh you know talking about social media, I was watching um I don't know, Instagram or something, and I saw the Eric Church commencement speech.
SPEAKER_01And I saw it.
SPEAKER_02I listened to it twice.
SPEAKER_01I passed it on to my one. I told my kids are like, y'all have to watch it.
SPEAKER_02I made my kids, my wife, right, in my living room. I said, I'm gonna put this on. Everybody's phones down, you're gonna watch it. And the thing that he said that I love to what we were talking about is you know he was right.
SPEAKER_01Social media is not gonna define it. Sort of. I mean, I'm not sort of we've we've I mean he knows enough to know who I am when I walk in there, and I've like, I was I just didn't I I mean I know he's a creative, brilliant guy, but he that was something that I just was just I'll I'll think of him differently now. Yeah. Um I was always you know admired the guy to, but I mean that's like a totally different level.
SPEAKER_02I'm with you. Yeah, I'm with you. It was uh it was cool. So anyway, that was a that was a good one. Um all right, so let's talk about real estate. Um I love real estate.
SPEAKER_01But those are the six things, the six strings of the all the things. That's that's kind of it, you know. I mean, that's that's what we you know what we and he talked about a lot, social media.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, talk family and community.
SPEAKER_01I mean, he's you know, civic minded, yeah, you know, find the time to give back.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And um so you know, I I've I've loved real estate. Uh I was an accountant out of college and and got into real estate.
SPEAKER_01So we had two totally different college backgrounds.
SPEAKER_02Two, yeah, philosophy and accounting is Apple's normal. I avoided the accounting classroom, like the, you know, and I and I remember sitting in the philosophy class one day and like, what is this all about a guy that grew up on a near a farm in Ohio? It's uh I'm not sure it was English, but uh so I I love real estate because it's tangible. Uh you can see it, you can touch it, you can feel it. I also love real estate because there's so many different facets of real estate. And I often encourage people to look at real estate because there's a little bit of something for everybody in there.
SPEAKER_01And and it's interesting you said that because when I when I got out of school, actually I I thought I was going to go to law school. Yeah, and you know, I thought I knew the background. I did really well on the uh LSAT. And I worked at a law firm, a big law firm in Atlanta. I'm not gonna say it because uh what it was, because I hated it. And um, I think, and I was like, oh my god, I made the wrong choice. Um I thought I was gonna learn whether or not I want to be a litigator or work a guy or whatever. If I've been a little law firm, I probably would have done it, but anyway, it scared me. And so I asked my dad, I was like, Can you you know can I come work for you? He said no. He said no. He said, But if you want to learn about real estate, go work for a developer because you're gonna learn all everything. Because you've got the land part, you know, learning to look at a piece of land, finding out, you know, what are the attributes of that property, what are the negative things about it that would work for whatever you want to do. Yeah, you've got the so you've got the investment side, right? You know, you got the performance and the analysis, you got the planning and design, um, and you've got marketing and sales and management. I mean, you've got the whole pretty much spectrum. Now, you know, it could be you know obviously different degrees of versus, you know, the you know, the you know, the big REIT level type stuff and things like that. But there's elements of that too. And um, he said, then you can figure out which hat you want to wear. I wanted I liked all of them, unfortunately. Yeah, other than the property management hat, I don't really like that one that much, but I'll wear that.
SPEAKER_02So I I um, you know, we're we're both in the community master plan business right now, and we're we're working on this project in Greenwood South kind of called old eight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it's uh it's interesting because we're taking something that was old, uh, that was already defined, and we're trying to, you know, rebirth, reinvigorate that with a new portion as well. And so we're trying to blend and weave those two communities and fabrics together and uh sort of a renaissance and new thing in the extreme cultivation, there's no doubt about it. But I will say the people that we brought into it, you and I know a lot of the same people that work on some of our projects, uh, the consultants that are passionate and can take the horizontal aspect and weave this together. It's been amazing and we're redefining place. And and as I, you know, I want to get your thoughts on this because as I look out and I forecasted a lot of the projects out there, right? There's greenfield, there's you know, there's renovations or or uh teardowns, there's all kinds of real estate projects happening. But this has been really fun for me because not only do we have to recreate place, but we have to reintroduce the place to the people as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so we had a lot of opposition and diversity, and now we're starting to get people to say, well, you gotta rebrand it. We gotta rebrand it. And and so uh so it's been it's it's been really neat from a from a master, you know, master plan community. But just talk about your beliefs and some of the things that you've seen over the years in master plan communities. Um I I think the bell of the ball is Kane Island. Uh, you know, obviously I'm excited about what you're doing there and want to make sure you tell people about it. But just you know, talk about the evolution and Mohammed's Ferry was a super successful T and D. But talk about that journey that that you've been on.
SPEAKER_01So when we I learned uh so I started out working with Nicholas, and that was I just I love golf, right? And so I'm and um my dad uh you know Jack had been in the development business for a while, but um, people probably heard about some of the deals that weren't great, they're in bad markets, good projects, good golf courses, but bad minds. So Bob Sierra, the guy I've mentioned earlier, um, came in as CEO, and my dad knew him. He was he was friends with one of my dad's roommates in college. And so I had a number um and I kept calling the guy, and um and finally just kind of I guess I wore him down or something. But anyway, so I started out doing the gated community high end. And then I eventually became a project manager, meaning the listeners probably know, but I mean you're basically managing everything from the golf course operations to the sales to ongoing development, the various phases of development until you're finished. And um the um as someone who was observing Country Club of the South in Atlanta was my last project management job with them. And if you've ever been there, but their house is bigger than the clubhouse, the 20,000 square foot house. A lot of celebrities live there, a lot of athletes. Um, and um and I understood the gate, the need for the gate there. At the same time, I also noticed it because of the the way it was sectionalized into, you know, you know, I guess this is probably more of a 90s and 80s kind of model, but you have your condos here, you have your million-dollar houses here, your plus million dollars houses here, your $300,000 houses here. And there was this sort of an inherent segregation within which I which was a recipe for um uh not a disaster per se, but but but like I just noticed HOA meetings. There was like people like the tennis people didn't like the golf people, the million dollar people looked down on $300,000 people. So that's where I you know kind of really started. I think I instinctively or in um inherently kind of just knew about a new urbanism just because of growing up and um observed like my mother grew up in a little town, Covington, Georgia, which is a beautiful little town square. My grandmother, I could go stay at my grandma's, I could walk down to the corner, you know, in the square, I'd go to the movies, I'd go to the hardware store, I'd go to the ice to the get some ice cream at the drugstore of the lunch counter and all that stuff. And I just and I remember asking my boss, this is the one thing I disagree with him on. I said, you know, what if we were to do a golf course community like this, kind of like St. Andrew's, where you've got the town, small scale, and you know, and versus having golf houses down the side of everything and out of bounds everywhere. You know, again, he, you know, this is a guy that started doing stuff in the 70s and 80s, and he said, No, it'll never work. So when I moved back to home, I was like, I was dead set on doing something like that, proving it wrong. And um the well, not proving it wrong, but proving it would work is more like it. And um, and uh I and I and people scale and and well executed, consistently well executed design, very rigorous design standards. We had to have a school for trim carpenters, for example, to come in and show like you know how you do a proper cornice return and um you know and make certain that you know that the depth of the you know of the overlaps on the planks wasn't too thick or too thin and all this kind of stuff. And um the um had we deviated on one house at the beginning, it would have been different. But and but we're in North Augusta your listeners who don't know Augusta or North Augusta, North Augusta's on the South Carolina side of the river, right across from downtown Augusta. And at this time it was more of a bedroom community, and the blue bullet Augusta people would never have thought about moving to North Augusta. Well, guess what? They're all over there, they've got the highest values in town, and it's all because of the of the walkability and the scale. You got narrow streets, so cars have to slow down. Um and um but it's all new urbanists, right? So you know, I don't think it has to be that way. You know, I do, you know, if you look at the what we the people call the transect, where you go from rural to uh uber urban, to the extent that we can, you know, we're it's not contrived and you can do that. I think Kane has a it definitely has that where you've got large, you know, we've got much open space and you've got large lots, you know, acre to four acre lots on one side that distills down into a little village. It kind of um I you know I think it feels authentic. Um in terms of the future and the the rest of the world. I think that you can't be you can't have the new urbanists here and the suburban guys here. Yeah, suburban guys need to learn some stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01But the new urbanist guys don't need to be so sanctimonious either and think that we're the bees' knees. And the historic preservation people don't need to hate the new urbanists because they're doing new stuff and they're saving old stuff. It's it's all it's all that stuff needs to work together. I mean, you could do something downtown here where you maybe have an old cool little building you could fix up, tear down a you know, maybe a gray field site behind it where you, you know, in a little con whatever it is, and you know you could there you can do that. Um I'm you know, the greenfield going out, sub moving out into suburbia. Uh I I try not I don't I don't want to do that. Cain is not so much that because it's already in the middle of town.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's already in the middle.
SPEAKER_01Um, but um, you know, unless there's a good reason to go on the outside of sub the suburbs and cut something down these days, there's so much in the middle that needs to be fixed.
SPEAKER_02You know, it's uh it's amazing. I think what you're saying is exactly right in terms of you know, master plan communities. And you know, we started at Levitt Town back in the 50s, right? Is where it started. But if you think before that, I mean it was the normal. The train ran through the middle of the town, you had Main Street. You know, it's funny. I grew up in a little, they called it a village. There was 3,700 people. My grandparents had a corner store called Green's Market. Um Joe and Mary Elizabeth were my my grandparents from the greatest generation. I still think about them today. Um actually, our our company, Front Light Building Company, is named after my other grandmother, Viola. Her concept was when the front light was on at the house, that was her signal that sense of hospitality that you could go in, literally walk in her house candy jar, cookies. I mean, what you see is what you get maybe one hour for whole nine yards, I can thank her. But it was just an incredible time. But if I think about that town, you know, Joe and Mary Elizabeth, uh, they lived above the store.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02We had a farm about 10 minutes away where we raised, you know, beef cattle. And that was what people knew. I grew up every day. I lived very close. I'd get on my bike and I'd hightail it over there and eat cereal and spend the time with my grandparents. I didn't know any better. And so when you think about the development of the community, suburbia, if you will, um, it really, you know, you talk about philosophy and psychologically, it really completed who we are. Like there's some people that'll move into a house and won't even know their neighbor.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's kind of where I'm going with everything. I mean, you you close your garage door and that's it. And if their dog barks, you don't go talk to them, you call the HOA, right? Yeah, exactly. You know, that's um, and you know, there's um, you know, you had back, you mentioned the railroad tracks, right? You know, of course they consider a wrong side of the tracks, you always heard about now there's wrong sides of the interstate or the bypass or what you know. I mean, we're anti amputating parts of cities all the time. I mean, Moses did that in New York, where parts of Brooklyn all of a sudden became the slums because this highway just split it in half. And we see it in Atlanta. We even see it, you know, see it in downtown Augusta where the Calhoun Expressway goes through town. Um so what do you think the trick is? So it's um well part well we're I one thing I think is refreshing is that the um you know the you know the GX and Y's and down are there is definitely uh an um a sort of a uh subconscious understanding of of community. We're that's why I think you're seeing so much success in these loft you know rehabs in in most towns, you know, here in Greenwood and Augusta and whatnot. I mean, if there was more for rent housing in downtown Augusta now, it would fill up overnight.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and again, it's not for everybody. Um, you know, that's why, you know, when I was showing some of our partners Hammond's Ferry, I was like, no, I'm not saying we got to do it like this, but there needs to be an element of this. There isn't and overall, you know, it needs to naturally connect to the next um, you know, level, whether that's a little bigger lot or maybe a park on that's you know, whatever something natural that breaks it up um versus a you know a big fat road that you can't walk across.
SPEAKER_02You know, that that's what we did here at Old Aid. We we have the the village center, uh where it's like Scotland. It's funny. I was laughing when you said that because it's the clubhouse and the range and the short course, and and and then we've got roads that lead to that are connected to a little bit larger lots, right? Not everybody wants to live in that village, but it's all woven together through trails and everything else. And and I guess the the the trick is in your mind, you know, or talk a little bit about what is the trick to take somebody that will pay um, you know, you know, a lot of money, quite frankly, you know, for those. Like, you know, because they're they're so used to that exclusive. Yeah, they're so used to that exclusivity.
SPEAKER_01That gets back to what I thought I was talking about. And I know this we've I've seen it. Um, I mean, I've witnessed this happening. When we started Hammond's Ferry, for example, we have the entire riverfront as a park. Um, as I think you know, there's a city built a path that goes connected to other roads and trestles, all the houses face it. But it's a big lawn. We built this beautiful little sort of undercover temporal building. And then the um once once the the the houses that frame that, you know, that you have the public space. I mean everything's kind of centered on the public spaces where the civic spaces where people gather. But if you have well executed design as the frame to a picture, so just think of it that way. And you do things in that part that bring people together. I've we've had music events in the early days, people would bring their blankets and their picnic baskets and see a good, you know, I'd bring in some like really good musicians, and people were sitting around going, you know what, this is pretty damn good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um we programmed Manuel's restaurant in the the first phase. I had you know, we had to rec basically have people audition for this role because we needed to know they were committed to it. But it also needed to be somebody whose whose reputation as a chef was they could have been in Timbuktu, right? Because we weren't really much on the map yet. And people would come and sit out on the sidewalk and go, yeah, this is pr this is pretty nice, you know. Maybe um and then the next one is if you can sort of nurture get to know the people and you know, and you know, refer, you know, the referral at the beginning, referral network at the beginning is cruel. If you I mean crucial if you can get like-minded people who know other people and can invite them in, then all of a sudden you have basically the bell cow that people you know start to follow. Um, you know, I'm not gonna mention names, but there's a one very well-known family from Augusta who's you know, you know, big in the community. When one of them moved over there, all of a sudden, oh, it's fine, you know. Whereas, you know, year before, you know, um and um but it's um but I feel like it's coming back. I feel like it's not contrived, you're just setting the table and letting them eat the food and then so talk about Kane.
SPEAKER_02Um because it's your most recent project. I've been out there in that land, it's just you know, turn it. I've walked a lot of pieces of dirt. That's a pretty special piece. Yeah, you know, the high bluff. Can't believe it was there. It is it is amazing. But what was your thought on Kane? Because I've uh I've seen a lot of different plans for Kane over the years. That that piece of land set there entitled, um, but but never really had any movement. And then when you and your group came in and and I mean talking about the master plan, because I I do think it's um I don't think it's normal in a good way. Um and when I saw the plan, I I feel like you're on the cutting edge of pushing things forward into the next evolution with what you're doing.
SPEAKER_01Um and you know, you're doing it here too. But um Brunson Miller, who's now a project manager, worked for a real estate guy at Charleston, and um I had um I just hadn't met him um and he told me about Kane because um it was uh the the master plan I think when the um the the previous owner had it um was done by Dover Cole out of Miami and they did our plan at Hammond's Ferry, so I immediately I was like, oh, that's up my alley. But then when I I thought it was under gonna be sold to a big you know production builder, a national builder, and forgot about it. Um and then when it came back, um uh then I had a client. From our from Northeast Private Wealth Management, who was interested in, he was one of my clients for the investment uh advisory group was interested in real estate. I found out it was on um that the contract fell through, but I called the owner and they said, well, it's got a contract, and it's actually got two contracts, you better get your act together pretty quick. So I had to do a quick back of the napkin plan, which I literally, you know, I got a g engineering scale and I kind of cranked out, you know, sort of, you know, the the most uh you know efficient thing I could do. But programming in things like a restaurant, you know, wellness plant, you know, you know, the th you know, something for boating, you know, again, all those little things I was talking about, you know, had our local engineering firm do the math and it worked, and I said, okay, and we we ended up getting them getting the deal. Um when I so the original plan was ex um was pretty close to what it is now, um, with the exception of the fact that um we and well let me back up. It was the original plan from the standpoint of knowing that it was gonna be super laid back, but I wanted to set a standard that was a new sort of archetype, uh, particularly for the low country. I mean, right now the bar is established. Well, is it like Palmata Bluff? Is it like Kiawa? I we I I said whatever we do, I don't be compared to anything else. Um I you know, I want the best of those things maybe to be somewhat reflected in there, but I want to try to create a new brand and identity, a lot of which had to do with service, super laid back, bare feet, but super high-level service, and all of these other cultural elements there that are just there on the periphery that that again sort of just add color and light and make your day-to-day experiences and make people feel more present. Whether that's having a, you know, um, whether that's you know, people painting or music or whatever. You know, it's just the little things that make a night a little more, you know, memorable when you're there. And uh so in order to do that, we need like I'm not a service guy, I mean not a hospitality guy. We needed a partner, and that's how Daniel Communities came on board. I was super impressed with what they done at High Hampton up in Cashers. And um, because that was a sensitive project with the old.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Matter of fact, when I first heard about it, I was like, oh, I'm up, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But um and I went up and um talked to Charlie Tickle, who runs Daniel Corp, and um introduced me to those guys, and um and it's been and and they brought in some great ideas. Um we you know, we did you know, we did the you know, we you know did the spitball plan and we threw darts at everything. And one of the best things that um happened um was um I believe it was um Dan Kiefer with um who was one of our planners, suggested in the middle, you know, as you recall, the middle of it had been farmed.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you had all these beautiful live oaks around the edges, but the interior, the integrity of it was really not much there, and then a few sporadic trees. I had shown like big kind of mini farm 10-acre things there. Um, and he they decided to put in a lake, which was brilliant. And uh now that gives us a water amenity in the middle. It's its own kind of connectivity thing, you know, by paddle boat or whatever, or I mean canoe, kayak or whatever. And um, and we and fortunately the soils were great for it. It gave us stormwater, you know, um uh solution uh and um and uh and uh and a natural s as I mentioned earlier, you know, uh sort of a transition point between um the natural areas and the large lots and down to the village.
SPEAKER_02I I also noticed um you know I've been reading a lot on wellness and well-being. Um and that is a huge part of the getting divine for me.
SPEAKER_01You know, and there was a lot I had to think I had to get into a little, you know, I mean I I had to teach or convey to a lot of folks I'm not just talking about yoga.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Sunlight, daylight, talking about living well, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Anything that you do being present again. Yeah. My wife is a life coach, she went on this wellness trip to um uh Morocco earlier this year, and um and the director had everybody bring uh they they gave her this book on how to really use your iPhone camera, and they gave them a sketchbook. None of them were necessarily photographers or artists, but the point of it was is by really looking through the lens intentionally at what it is, you you're more you're you're you're more present, right? It allows you to shut off the noise there or drawing, you know, you're yeah you're you're focused on something, you're not checking your email or you know, letting the phone ping. For me, that's playing a guitar or working on a master plan or whatever. Um, but um that could be fly fishing. It could be learning how to cook, it could be working in the you know, in our garden at our little farm at Cane Island. It could just be it could be um breaking bread with you know at a family style meal.
SPEAKER_02It could be um we're just reintroducing things that have been around for a long time.
SPEAKER_01You know what, I think maybe I do want to learn guitar. I'm 60 years old, but why not?
SPEAKER_02You know? Why not? Uh you know, it's funny, I'm presenting tomorrow to a global board of directors um up in North Carolina, and the the presentation is about um just building and some things that we're doing as an organization, but I've got like five slides in there about well-being. Uh I've been doing a lot of research about where that industry is going. In the home, right? Yeah, in the home, like just like this. Simple things like just daylight and sunlight and all the psychological. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's been uh you've been studying blue zones.
SPEAKER_02Uh I haven't studied blue zones. Tell me about that.
SPEAKER_01Well, blue zones have to do with um uh a lot there are places where people um that have been identified around the globe where people tend to live longer and healthier. And it's um identifying the elements that the common threads between all of those. Um, you know, most of these are old places. There are a couple of newer ones, but um it's pretty um, you know, there's um but water has a lot to do with, you know, even a even an image of water like that will make what show to break your blood pressure come down.
SPEAKER_02Um boy, I need to stare at water all day.
SPEAKER_01That's and um so it could be a ref like a koi pond, yeah? Or it could be, of course, you know, Kane, we got beautiful water everywhere. Um so you know, you don't have to be on the coast to to know that. Um to I mean, excuse me, to try to understand how that, you know, whether it's of course you know we we want buyers, right? But at the end of the day, we want people who love living there.
SPEAKER_02You want people that love living there. They're ambassadors.
SPEAKER_01And that's your brand.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because it's not that we crushed it and made X dollars. Is that we made that is like that's we made I mean, we, you know, we we made a great thing that made this part of the world a little better and we made some money at it, right? I don't want my kids thinking that their dad did well because he built a daughter, made a bunch of money building Walmart. I'm sorry. I've got friends who do that and I'm I'm probably just offended half of them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But um I hear you. I tell my kids all the time.
SPEAKER_01I wanted to make sure that my grandkids are gonna say my grandfather did that.
SPEAKER_02I say you can do good, you can have fun, and if you do those two things well, you'll make money, right? And I've kind of lived my whole philosophy uh in my career, right? I mean, if if if if I do the right thing and I have fun at what I'm doing, um then the money usually takes care of itself. Um great, fascinating conversation on Kane. I I I love it. I think it's gonna be a booming booming success.
SPEAKER_01I'm hoping you're gonna help us make it better.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're we're we're looking forward to that. And there's a lot of parallels. You know, uh Dan Kiefer and Whitmer Kiefer Jones are working on the old eight, so we have a lot of common actors.
SPEAKER_01He comes up here a lot in Rogers' bike, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, he's he's he's a crazy talk about well-being. He's a crazy thing. That dude has 90 body fat. Yeah, I mean he's he's he makes me every time I see him in the morning, I'm like, okay, how many miles did you run this morning? Uh so um so I want to talk about golf. Um our project here has a golf component. Uh you have a lot of uh golf experience and obviously your mentors. Like what do you feel like where golf is? I feel like golf has really changed with COVID. Um it was of course, yeah. You know, it was the only thing to do, and now I like to tell the story.
SPEAKER_01So many more people started golf, so many more people started for the opposite.
SPEAKER_02But there's a social side of golf now. Part three courses, you know, there's simulators, there's there's not just going out and send five hours to play championship golf. So what's your what's your thoughts on golf in master plan communities? Like where do you see, you know, obviously the Nicholas company back in the day versus where they're going is illegal.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, I would I mentioned Daniel communities. I mean, they've um we're obviously getting along because we're looking at doing another project with them and um and now I'm just across the Georgia border in Alabama on it late, but it's gonna have a golf element.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and um, you know, the it's just very preliminary now. But one of the um Troy, our you know the main planning guy, I mean, has programmed in a small, like a short par four course. And you're seeing that at places like Apogee down in South Florida. Everywhere. And um even the with you know, the Augusta Nationals done in Augusta with the um the old municipal course. Call the patch patch, yeah. And um, you know, there's an education element there to try to get you know to teach kids to get into, you know, whether it's a caddy or or learn a there's an agronomy school there, it's done with Augusta Tech. Um, you know, agronomy is the nursing element, what nursing is to hospitals. You know, it's a shortage and it's not vital. Um and um so that's a um but there's the R3 course, and it's lighted, you know, getting people out there, maybe have some fun doing that. Um and I think from a development standpoint, obviously, my good friend Mike Walrath honestly I I'd give him a the pretty much the credit for this new wave of stuff because what he did at O'Hoopy, what what what ended up at O'Hoopy was very intentional, but the consequences of it, I don't think Mike would probably say that he that he never expected all of a sudden all these people trying to replicate the that that feeling. And that feeling again, there's those who don't know it, I mean it's it's very laid back. I mean you walk in with you know, not even this nice with jeans or whatever. Um but you know, it's family style food, but really well done. There's no menu, you sit on and eat, and it's geared for you know, it's a private small membership, but you have um, you know, we've got you can bring another company to guests. So you'll you know, I could be there and have meet two other groups of non-members, and it's just whatever the the the architecture and the way you eat and the way you hang out makes you make you meet people and you hang out and make friends. Um you sit around the fire and play music, you um, you know, you know you help yourself to the bar, you know, whatever. Um and now this part of the world's overrun with it. I mean you've got 21 old marble, uh you got you know a tree farm, obviously. Um you you know, you got Brunsege, I think you got Rose. I mean there's I I don't have any courses or brand new that sprung up since there's a lot. Um and they're all selling not just memberships, but founders' memberships too. So I'd say that's a pretty good barometer for the health of the golf industry, at least in this part of the world.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um and I think that's what we're trying to do.
SPEAKER_01Master plan community, though. I think it's back to what you're saying, though. It needs to be you need to have that pure L you can't just have houses just framing it like you see down in Central Florida where out of bounds is everywhere. Yeah, yeah. More more core facility, or to the extent you can have most of it up, meaning core, meaning it's not just a you know big loop around um, you know, with houses that you know, maximizing house frontages, but more than that.
SPEAKER_02I think I think what what we've tried to do is take the golf element. Um because it was there. You know, I talked about it, it it's it's being rebirthed and rebranded. But we wanted to create, we you know, we have the lake, we wanted to create a lifestyle around that because you know, if you take a family of five and the husband loves golf and the wife doesn't, and they've got three kids, and some play golf, some some don't, we got that's gonna dictate who's gonna come to that property and how they're gonna come. Yeah, you can do the guys' trip, you can also do the family trip, uh, you can also do the nature stuff.
SPEAKER_01And so I think we're like the exact same thing we're doing.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly right. Right.
SPEAKER_01And you got the advantage of having golf.
SPEAKER_02So we have the golf, but we have many facets of golf the social side of golf, the serious side of golf, the fun side of golf. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so I think it's there, and that's gonna make it cool. It's like, hey, there's you know, whoever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's it's been really fun for me because I I feel like it's I grew up on a completely different model of of golf.
SPEAKER_01Lake Greenwood's awesome though. I mean, you know, it's small, it's um it's authentic. It's just nice, you know. And if you look at the you know, for the lake lake people, you know, there's people there's people who have lake houses, beach houses, mountain houses, everything, but there's some people that are kind of more lake-oriented. It's um you know, there's there's there's really not there's not a whole lot of these things like of this size that you know that are reasonably close, like it's close to Augusta, Columbia, you know, which is close to um, you know, not too far from Atlanta, Charlotte. Um it's a it's a refreshing difference from uh you know, like Oconey's awesome, but it's gotten kind of crowded too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, of course, like Lanier and all that's just like a super hard.
SPEAKER_02I want to um I want to talk about the future of real estate, but I want to relate it to AI because I want to I want to know more about that and I do. I want to get your thoughts on just you know, globally, where do you think? Like I I have a conversation with my family, it's one thing. I have a conversation, I'll get off a conference call and I'm like, oh boy. Uh I listened to uh the CEO of uh Big Bank the other day, and and he had a really hard day one Friday when he had to go home and just process what you know they where they were going as a company. And so you hear all different facets, people that fight it, people that don't. But what what is your just general view of AI and the world and and what you're seeing out there? Just in general, I mean, it's it's because it's gonna affect the bigger.
SPEAKER_01But I think parts of it are refreshing. Um parts of it um basically are um should be seen as a reality and therefore should prepare people to change, you know. If you're just if you're a you know, I'm sorry, if you're just a you know, if you're just a straight up stockbroker or a travel agent or, you know, any kind of thing like that. I mean it's you know, changes. Start thinking about the future, you know. That's kind of like when we were doing the social media people, like, oh, this direct mail stuff is great. It's like you know, we can actually target exactly who you want, and you can get you um the um I think um I think some things is gonna improve, like in um and some parts of it are terrifying um to me. Um did you the terrifying I'll start with the fun part. I think um I have some a lot of good friends in the music industry, and um Keith Sewell, who's um was at our house uh standing, he's Keith plays with Ricky's gags, he's a band leader for the chicks, they formerly Dixie Chicks, played with a lot of love, his large band, got Grammys and you know. And Tara, my wife Tara said, you know, are you what do you what do y'all think? He goes, and he explained to me that in his world as our songwriter, he feels like it's helping more than not. You know, you can of course have AI write a song, right? But if it's an AI song, uh you know, and you know, you there's today, even Eric Church and the big level guys, they're making their money on the on on the road, you know, because the idea of an LP is gone.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and um, you know, into tour. I mean, if you're into the sort of techno, you know, DJ stuff, maybe it might be somewhat of an obsolescence thing, but I've got an app on my phone right now that, you know, I have a bunch of unwritten songs and I could input it and I can just play my guitar, put in half my lyrics, and you know, say, you know, give me another solution to this rhyme here, play it up tempo, do it more jazz, and it'll like instantaneously spit out other variations of my work that you know I could theoretically do um you know myself, kind of like writing a letter, you know, or whatever, or researching. I use it for researching architectural stuff all the time. You know, I asked you know to help me, you know, I can then put stuff at Cain about. I want this more Anglo, Spanish, Caribbean sort of um traditional, yeah European traditional, but more of that element that's older than the anabellum south that people are so used to. And um it's been extremely helpful um in music, but on the you know, I still think of 2001 Space Odyssey where Hal. Once they learn once once it it can learn emotions um and j it and it can judge, you know, it you know, it you know, it it has an identity more so than a lot of humans.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it could just decide to shut down the grid and say, all right, y'all are a bunch of idiots.
SPEAKER_02Uh it's scary some of the uh some of the people that I won't say their names, but I listen to, and uh where they think, you know, it it starts to bounce up against humanity a little bit. It does. And and it's it's terrifying. I I see it as about data, right, as it relates to real estate.
SPEAKER_01Well, just like I was using it there like for the for that.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. I mean what I see it and what we're using it for is as a building and development company, is we have so many data points on things that we create and we can structure that data and we can bring our customer into that journey a little bit and help it. Yeah. I mean, it's it's determine whether you're it's amazing. And I often say for our company, it's you know, we want to get somebody on that life cycle of as a customer, and we don't want to let them off. And AI will help us do that as we is the is the various data points that we gain, whether we're servicing their house, whether we're building their house, whether we're trying to help them sell their house, that intelligence, those data points, kind of like evidence-based medicine that we're connecting and collecting um is very valuable to us. Of course. A lot of it just sits in a shelf, right? And and and so now we're bringing it off the shelf and work and working on all that stuff. So it's uh So I think it's gonna change. I think it's gonna change drastically. You know, as far as the real estate business, I mean, I think it's you know, but in terms of placemaking, it's not gonna change.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's gonna it might well I think it's I think it'll help us. I think it's gonna help us as a standpoint of refine this continual refinement, you know, um in you know, data points in terms of you know, what are people responding to food-wise, what are people responding to, you know, music wise, um, you know, um, you know, trends and so forth. Um you know, as we try to program and build what we think would be best for you know that group of people that are gonna live there, um to you know, marketing strategies, you know, testing out, you know, you know, is this um you know it could help you find new submarkets and you know things that you know, hey there's a lot of people from you know wherever Nebraska starting to look at you know because they're moving in from some engineering firm that's working for XYZ.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, but you know, we we used to use LinkedIn as a really great target for when I had Newfire Media, you know, in terms of um doing you know high um you know quick you know, being able to target decision makers with certain companies um for certain clients. Um and um but you know you can pretty much get AI to do that now. Like I want I need another relocation person for XYZ construction company that's bringing in 9,000 jobs, you know. You don't have to, you know, some things you don't, you know, you can it's even you know it's even making some of the like what is what was the tip of the spear digitally a couple years ago was now become obsolete. So that's the thing keeping up with it's it's hard.
SPEAKER_02It's fast and it's happening fast. I mean it it's it's it's rapid. Um so uh as we kind of wind this down, I wanna I want to talk about um you know, we talked a lot about real estate and you know talk about a lot of stuff. I I do think your your your philosophy on master plan communities is so spot on and and you're living it and breathing it, right? And some of the stuff you've done, and it's great. Um and I draw upon that stuff, right? So I so I appreciate you sharing that.
SPEAKER_01Well you show it and what you do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we we talked about adversity, right, and how that has helped shape your life. But you know, as we as you give your your you know uh your purpose every day and your perspective every day, like share with the listeners and the audience, like what you know, as people listening out there that are in their business or in their career life journey, um you know, what are some words of wisdom or advice that you can you can give them, right? Because it's it's a lot. Um but you know, I just you know, I always like to well somebody like yourself who's who's been so successful in so many different arenas and touch so many different things, um, most people get up and maybe work the same job for three, forty, fifty years, right? They don't get to see a lot of that stuff. What is you give a purpose or perspective that that you feel like if you had a if you were talking to 27,000 people and today you had to tell them something that what was your your your Eric Church commencement speech? Yeah, I mean I you know if you want to rattle that off, you know, that was uh Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh well I mean I I although I mean he hit he nailed it, but um and I so I think probably you if those those of you heard it, I'll probably sound like I'm copying some of it, but um Part of it is b you know, the the main thing is being in honest and intentional um with everything. Um you know, understanding who you know, you asked me about who I you know who I admire the most and who I you know, there are people in your life, um, whether you you however you grew up, um, you know, whether it's you nurturing great family or even the in the worst of conditions, there's there's um you you need to you know you need to l know what you know, pay attention to what went wrong, you know, what what went right and be grateful for that went right, but be grateful for what went wrong from the standpoint of hopefully not to nurture improvement versus anger and resentment. Um we need to listen. Um is what I'm saying. I mean nobody listens anymore. I mean, if you look at every political ad, it's all negative about this guy or that guy. I mean, we've categorically broken into a country that this side is this and those are guys are that. Um and um no one even bothers to consider, you know, are there elements of that person's opinion that that may work better, that you know, it's just categorical. I hate those people and they hate me. Um that can't, that that's that's a that's a train wreck. And um we have to therefore understand that you know we have to be true to ourselves, not worry about what other people think about us, other to the extent that I knowing that if I do the best that I can do, admit what I don't know how to do and ask for help, um, that um people will think great of me. I mean, it's just being honest and you know and humble, um, not bragging um about stuff. Warren Buffett talked about that a lot too, you know, is being quiet with your successes and um, you know, whether it's your money or your next deal, you know, don't brag about things too early. It could hurt you. But um but also having some civic purpose, whether that's just volunteering for something or other. Um and um, you know, having um it could it could be at the first tee, you know, it could be, you know, at the hospital, it could be with local um, you know, um could um um you know housing authority, it doesn't matter, you know. I think but we need to know that we're all you know, we all have a responsibility to do something.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01There's so many role models of the, you know, I mean, I'm you know, of uh of of our leaders today who just are old uber wealthy and and um I guess this is more of a servant leadership model, is what I'm saying. You know, the price model where you know you empower people to make decisions, you give them a certain amount of leeway to make, you know, to say, all right, I trust you to fix that problem, you know, within a degree of expense or whatever. Um, and then if they, you know, but but the you know, you don't have time to be a top-down leader.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I don't. I'm trying to keep up with my own stuff versus having to look at but down and having to micromanage everybody and figure out, you know, I mean the and I like I want people to want to work with me.
SPEAKER_02I think uh, you know, it's funny, the full circle moment is you know, some of the places that you're working on and I'm working on draw a lot of that out, right? You see your neighbor, you know your neighbor, you're talking to people at the coffee shop, you're fig forgetting about your differences, right? You you may, you know, go to a social place and and talk to somebody that, you know, where if you live in one of these isolated communities where there's no sidewalks and everything else, you don't get, you know, I mean, you may go to the management center 27 times, you may not, you know, know anybody for for two years. So hopefully, you know, my belief has always been as we continue to create place and build space, um, hopefully, you know, uh some of the societal things that we're starving for uh start to come back a little bit, you know, and in the mainstream it's the non-analog stuff again.
SPEAKER_01Just like this sort of inherent understanding of that that you know people talked about TN, you know, traditional new urban or new urbanism as a concept. It's like it's not a concept, just what we've been doing for since Babylon, you know, pre well before Jesus Christ existed. That's how everybody lived. Um but we're repairing, it's more of a repair, it's it's it's it's a it's a renaissance and a you know, and and repairing something that was broken. Um I mean, Lord knows. I mean, I'm I'm not saying that I'm the I mean I've done probably too much on the civic level. Right now, my civic purpose is is press on our pediatric cancer research fund, knowing that, you know, we started that thinking that we were out of cards, you know, with my son. But we've invested in some things that are making a big difference. I mean, big difference.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and um, but as a community level, you know, I'm um I'm involved um with um the you know community foundation, local community foundation, but I used to do way too much stuff, which was to everybody's you know to my detriment. And you know, it's not about building up a good obituary.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's about doing it for the right reason, you know. And um, you know, I can be a certainly a better front porch neighbor too. I'm not saying I'm perfect at that. I mean I'm really good at it sometimes, but sometimes I don't feel it. I don't feel like it sometimes. And sometimes I just gotta go off in a hole and play my guitar by myself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um there's nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_01Try not to cry sometimes, you know. And there's nothing wrong with that either.
SPEAKER_02Um well, listen, I uh I appreciate you know you taking the time.
SPEAKER_01I know you're a you're a busy person to join us on the I mean I I can't tell you how much I admire what you've done.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um I appreciate that. Uh I mean it's it's it's really astounding. Um and um it's um you do it the right way. Your systems you've built are you know a model that that uh you know that hopefully that you know that other you know developers and planners can do that we need to um again I want to you know feel like it's um we're still sort of uh paddling upstream a lot with people building and developing things that are gonna be slums pretty soon.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um but um let's take advantage of the tools that are out there and um and we'll just keep we'll just keep plugging away. We'll keep it. You're making your part of the world better.
SPEAKER_02I'm trying, and and I look forward to continue to work with you on some of these projects and and continuing the conversations and appreciate you sharing the the the uh story about possibilities. Yeah uh love to see that become a movie. That would be pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01I think that's funny. I'll I've I have a good f friend of my brother's who um read it, didn't know he didn't know about it, and he told me he was flying, he was on a plane flight, and he just broke out and the guy next to him, like, are you okay? He said, No, I'm okay. I'm just yeah, you know, it's I have a hard time telling people. I hope you enjoy it, but I've but never had anybody tell me that it didn't mean something to them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, so I'm proud of that. Um, but I'll mostly I think I'd like I said, it was I thank God I did it. I'd probably still be cowering in my little corner if I didn't do that.
SPEAKER_02Well, you did it for the right reasons, and and so again, I appreciate you coming on, and uh I appreciate all of you taking the time to to hear another episode of the Green Scene. And uh our guest Turner Simpkins would been blessed to have him here today, and uh again continue to follow us along the journey of the green scene, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.