Looking back VI
As those developers pushed the edges of town further into the desert, they indeed
cleaned things up. As I mentioned last month, motorbike and ATV riders as well as
litterbugs were trashing the desert. Well, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, new developments
sprung up faster than they could build roads to them. I was not impressed though.
High-end housing usually meant a custom home built on at least an acre of untouched
desert, a gated community and starting to approach a million dollars. Mid-range housing
was still reasonably in the low $100,000s, but consisted of look-alike homes on barely
enough land to qualify as a lot. I remember one development about 20 miles north
of town that advertised as being around the natural desert. They had a billboard
showing quail, rabbits, coyotes as well as an array of cacti that you’d expect to
be surrounded by if you lived there. We drove out there to see for ourselves and
what we found was that they scraped the ground clean of all growth and built on lots
that were hard to find room to plant even a small tree or cactus on. Those desert
animals, well, they ran as far away as they could get. Their marketing concept had
to be the fact that you were a bit closer to the real desert than most folks since
they were built so far out of town although there wasn’t the semblance of a desert
in sight.
Investing in real estate seemed like a sure thing, and it was, almost. At the time,
about 80% of the land in Arizona was owned by the government or Indian tribes. Seems
like some unscrupulous individuals had a propensity to sell plots of land to people
out of state; not only as investments, but something to eventually build homes on.
The problem is that this land was out in the middle of nowhere, had no water or power,
possibly even land-locked and was not close to the boating and water skiing as the
fancy brochures showed. Real estate laws were changed and people went to jail over
this, including the head of the real estate department. You can still drive between
Kingman and Flagstaff today and see street signs pushed into barren fields.
By the mid-’80s, our business had established itself and we were supplying custom
security systems to many businesses, high-end homes, prisons and jails, areas that
all do well when the economy is flourishing. One person that jumped on the bandwagon
was someone we’ll call Mr. Hall. This guy took a simple health club and expanded
it by selling lifetime memberships. Once someone paid the one-time fee, they could
go to any of his clubs and use their workout machines anytime. He, of course, had
a hit on his hands; lots of members signed up and he raked in the cash as his business
grew to the point that it attracted some buyers. Well, yeah, they bought the business,
but quickly realized that there was no income; most of the members had paid-up, lifetime
memberships. It didn’t take long for it to go bust and as a result, get a law passed
banning long-term health club memberships; but Mr. Hall took his profits and played
real estate tycoon. He got other investors involved and they were developing property
and making money hand over fist. One thing he bought for himself was the old, empty
57,000 square foot McCune mansion that I mentioned a few months back. It seems like
all the profits from his new ventures were going into finishing and upgrading the
mansion. Here’s where I come in, seems as if Mr. Hall also was in need of protection
and we were asked to build a custom security system for his new abode. We spend many
a day building and installing a state-of-the-art system with graphic panels throughout.
If someone made a wrong move anywhere on the property, alarm lights would light up
on these panels showing exactly where the intrusion was. Well, the party ended abruptly
for Mr. Hall when he bragged to the newspapers about how he had used investment money
to finance his opulent lifestyle. His other investors got wind of this and pulled
his financial plug within hours. All construction at the mansion stopped. Mr. Hall
eventually lost the house and came close to finding himself in jail a few times after
that in his efforts to regain his lost kingdom. That isn’t the end of this story
though; just like The Sopranos, it goes on with a few more twists.
