Terry College of Business - Fall 2008 - (Page 22) Brumley played a prominent role in the creation of an Amelia Island community that adroitly blended human habitat and nature. He handled complex zoning issues, walked a tightrope between competing interests, spread risk among various partners, and oversaw the construction of the island’s f irst homes and a Pete Dye golf course. “I talked it over with my father, and he was skeptical,” Frank recalls. “He knew I had a sure thing going at home, with the bank and the real estate.” Bowing to his father’s judgment, Brumley told Fraser no. But the phone rang again. It was Fraser, offering, selling, convincing. If Brumley wouldn’t come on board full-time, wouldn’t he just agree to be a consultant, to work part-time on the most pressing issues at Cumberland Island? Brumley’s father reconsidered. His son could surely get valuable experience this way, taste big-time development, earn a few financial and civic merit badges — and he could keep the secure job at the bank and the nascent family ventures. So the two Brumleys agreed to a consulting arrangement. Fraser must have high-fived someone when Brumley said yes. The developer’s sharp hook, baited so skillfully, was already halfway down Frank Brumley’s throat. Brumley goes island hopping He loved the work, of course. Really loved it. Frank Brumley took to the development business like a fish to water. He worked with Fraser as a consultant for six months, until it became evident to everyone that Brumley’s passion lay in the development business. Brumley soon went full-time with Fraser, and made his bones with the Sea Pines Company. He learned how to network, how to politic, how to partner. The people skills that came so naturally grew refined, strategic, even more effective. In truth, they had to; the proposed Fraser development on Cumberland outraged the locals, who valued the idyllic splendor and peace of the oak-shaded place more than boatloads of money (the history of these islanders, after all, was a history of the Carnegies and Candlers). As vice president and general manager of the Cumberland Island Holding Co., Brumley had to deal with unhappy protests, face hostile media, manage deteriorating public relations. It wasn’t long before Brumley and Fraser and their partners chose to look around for some other island. “There are some places that should never be developed,” Brumley says in hindsight. “Cumberland Island is one of those places.” The company moved to Amelia Island, which it purchased for $4.6 million in 1970. Once again, smart planning and careful development in a natural setting proved a winning formula. Brumley as GM played a prominent, conspicuous role in the creation of an Amelia Island community that adroitly blended human habitat and nature. He learned to handle complex zoning issues, to walk the tightrope between competing interests. He learned it was very smart to spread risk among various partners. He oversaw the island’s first homes and the construction of a Pete Dye golf course. Next up? A problematic development at Kiawah. A group of Kuwaiti businessmen owned the island, and Fraser threw Brumley to the sheiks, as CEO of the Kiawah Island Company. 22 • Fall 2008 After several frustrating years of juggling the interests of foreign owners, local interest groups, and other parties with divergent agendas, Sea Pines abandoned the Kiawah venture. This was 1974, at a time Fraser was facing financial catastrophe with an ill-advised investment in Puerto Rico. He couldn’t hold onto his properties or people, and Brumley, now on his own, was hired by the Kuwaitis to manage affairs at Kiawah. Just three years later, in 1978, Brumley left after a management disagreement. “I not only know where the skeletons are buried on Kiawah,” he laughs. “I know where the shovels are.” He and Pat McKinney, a real-estate partner, consulted next on the successful development of the 1,000-acre Wild Dunes. Gaining confidence, Brumley then had an opportunity to enter into a partnership that bought out Kiawah from the Kuwaitis for $105 million in 1988. At the time, it was the largest real estate transaction ever made in the state of South Carolina. Brumley and his partners found a way to retire $75 million of debt in just two years, spending only $2 million along the way. Things were obviously going well. “We were welcomed back to Kiawah with open arms,” he explains. But Frank Brumley had no way of knowing that another success would soon open arms even wider. The path to Daniel Island “I have been honored to serve on many boards of directors in Charleston at one time or other,” Brumley notes. True. The list includes The Nature Conservancy of South Carolina, the Lowcountry Open Land Trust, the Civic Design Center of the City of Charleston, the Coastal Community Foundation, and a dozen others. In networking and partnering with Charleston’s business leaders, Brumley met a businessman who knew a man on the board of directors of the Guggenheim Foundation, owners of a huge tract of land east of Charleston. The foundation was looking for development proposals for Daniel Island, part of its holdings. Daniel lay between the Cooper and Wando rivers just minutes from downtown Charleston on the far side of a newly planned interstate connector. Brumley got some partners together and made a pitch. His group placed in the top five of 17 competitors, but lost to Olympia & York, then the world’s largest real estate development company. Still, he earned a consolation prize. The winners asked Frank to join them in a consulting role on the development. Not long afterward, Olympia & York dumbfounded the world by declaring bankruptcy. The Guggenheim Foundation ultimately Terry College oF Business
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