Wendell decided that he would stay in Florida for at least another six months and deal with details of his application for subdivision from there. Ian Knox, in North Carolina would handle the matters locally but Wendell would travel to Topsail Island to be present at important council meetings. Wendell would have preferred to stay closer but he had contracts to fulfill in Florida and he would need the money in the near future. Nevertheless, he had already begun to watch out for “House for Rent” signs. He also kept an eye out for a place to set up office. He needed some place with a small office and a warehouse. On his second trip, he found an ideal place nearby in Sneads Ferry, on the mainland, about five miles from the subdivision. It was a vacant, brown brick building that had suffered a few broken windows and a bit of minor vandalism. He didn’t need it until he got his approvals but spoke to the owner anyway. They struck a three year rental agreement, the first six months, rent free provided the windows were repaired and the building cleaned up.
The next six months were exciting. As well as his regular work, Wendell spent many hours a week fine tuning his subdivision, dealing long distance with engineers, environmentalists, surveyors and politicians. Town council was as good as its word and fast tracked the project as much as possible. More houses meant more taxes and more growth of the private sector, which also meant more taxes. The experience was heady and Wendell’s confidence in the project grew. The homes he was building in Florida were nearing completion and Wendell was already packing up his rented condo, longing for the move to North Carolina where he could walk on his own land.
His foreman was also prepared to join him but he had a family and needed full time work when he got there. Wendell knew that he would need at least a couple of months getting things ready before any actual work began on site. He managed to get his foreman a renovation project that would keep him going for three or four months. He hoped the man would not get too independent in that time and would join him when the on-site work began in North Carolina. It was a gamble but it was also a test of loyalty, which was a rarity in the workplace.
Wendell rented a small house in Sneads Ferry, about a mile from his new office. It was a bit shabby but the price was right and Wendell wanted to minimize his expenditures until lots began to sell and cash flow became positive instead of a constant drain.
Then it happened. Almost synonymous with his final approvals, the recession hit. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the first casualties. Wendell was caught between a rock and a hard place. In order to get the extension to the builder’s mortgage he had agreed to with Bob Loughton, Wendell was required to have registered the subdivision and roughed in the roads and services within two years. The first part was completed. The subdivision was fully registered. The roads and services were not yet begun.
Nor could Wendell re-negotiate. Bob Loughton had died and his lawyer had full control of the land. Now that it was a registered subdivision, the land was considerably more valuable as individual lots than it had been as a single parcel. Or at least it would be when the recession ended. Loughton’s lawyer made it clear that he had no qualms about foreclosing and taking back the land with its new status if the terms of the mortgage were not met. The only thing Wendell could do to protect his interest was to forge on, build the roads and hope the recession ended quickly.
The problem was money. Two years ago, financing roads in a registered subdivision would have been easy. Not anymore! Now there was more land for sale under foreclosure than there had been land for sale a few years ago. Wendell had presented his business plan to his local bank who had been totally supportive of him while he was financing the registration process with his own capital but they apologetically rejected his application for a mortgage loan with which to build the roads. He presented a similar proposal to banks in Jacksonville and Wilmington with identical results.
Wendell tried to keep his foreman busy but there wasn’t much that could be done without an input of fresh capital. He had already cut back the number of hours his foreman worked. At first he worried that he might lose his top man but as sad as it was, he knew no one else was offering jobs. Wendell had tried to pre-sell a couple of lots but there had been no takers. The realtors were begging him to lower his prices.
At this rate, Wendell figured he could hold out until the last day before the mortgage matured. Maybe Bob Loughton’s attorney would relent and extend the mortgage for a short period of time if the roadwork was well underway. If not, the foreclosure would take some time but the writing was on the wall. Without either sales, which seemed unlikely, or a White Knight which seemed even more unlikely, Wendell was headed toward losing everything.
Wendell established a drop dead date. If he hadn’t arranged financing by that date, there was no possible way he could have the roads built in the allotted time. As the deadline approached his sleep became more sporadic until one night, at three o’clock in the morning, he snapped back to consciousness from a deep sleep. He could hear the wind howling, blowing outside his window at near gale force. It was an east wind, straight off the Atlantic. Forty miles offshore, in the Gulf Stream, waves were breaching twenty feet. He had been dreaming he was out there struggling for his life. The dream was all turmoil and confusion. He had no idea how he had gotten out to the ocean but there he was, being tossed about by massive waves. Somehow he found a piece of flotsam and grabbed it seconds before it was swept away. As he clutched the floating debris close to his chest he felt himself being buoyed up long enough to draw in a deep breath. With the intake of oxygen came a vague idea of how he might save himself. The dream was fast fading into obscurity but the idea, vague as it was, remained. The terrible wind seemed to abate. He concentrated on the idea. An hour later the wind had died but by then a feeling of hope, maybe even confidence, was firmly entrenched in his mind. He had a plan to save himself.
Instinctively he knew that he could not achieve success locally. He had already exhausted that. Part of the plan still required obtaining financing so his only choice was to travel further afield. Mentally he reviewed the location of major urban centers in the Carolinas. He selected Charleston as his target on the basis that they would be more appreciative of a waterfront subdivision than other locations such as Raleigh or Charlottesville. Furthermore, it was an older city with older money.
A week later he had repackaged his proposal and prepared to leave with no definite date of return. He met with his foreman in the morning and asked him about his experience laying bricks and doing stone work.
“I’m no expert, but I can do a reasonable job,” the foreman answered.
“All right. Stop the ground work at the back of the property. We are going to concentrate on stuff that is visual. I want you to build a stone and stucco wall at the entrance to the property. Plants … flowers … the whole nine yards. Normally I would just sub that out but you know things are tight and if they don’t change soon, we are both going to be out of work. We’ll make the entrance to the subdivision top priority. If I can afford it, I’ll pave the first hundred feet. If not, at least we’ll have an attractive entrance, even if it does have a sand and gravel road.”
Wendell provided some sketches of the proposed entrance.
“This is just a concept of what I want. I’m giving you a green light to use your imagination. Dress the thing up with some natural stone. It’s got to look good …. But keep it on a low budget. I’m going to be out of town for a few weeks or a month. You’ll be on your own. The bookkeeper has your pay and will take care of expenses. Just go see her every Friday. Keep one man on as a laborer and let the rest go. Tell the other men I’m sorry. I’ll put an extra fifty bucks in each of their pay envelopes. It’s not much but at least they can go out and get drunk.”
“They understand. They know you have kept them on longer than you really needed them,” answered the foreman, sadly.
Wendell left quickly. He didn’t envy the job he had just given to his foreman. It was one thing laying guys off when things