W. Harrison Merrill might be what you’d call a classic Atlanta man, the kind of character you might see in “Gone With the Wind,” rushing to pick up the smoldering pieces after the city was razed.
When the Atlanta native’s publicly traded real estate development company went bankrupt in 1990, Merrill started over again. He rebuilt his development business until it was doing subdivisions on an industrial scale a few years ago, converting thousands of acres into mega-subdivisions ready to sell to homebuilders. Projects were scattered from North Carolina to Florida and Atlanta to Phoenix.
Last year, the high-rolling developer hosted then-President George Bush, Gov. Sonny Perdue and nearly 200 other people at a $1,000-a-head fund-raiser in his home.
But with the real estate crash, Merrill’s ventures partially imploded. One aborted development, the nearly 6,000-acre Merrill Ranch outside of Phoenix, saddled 60-plus banks in Georgia and other states with $100 million in bad loans that went into foreclosure. Merrill’s $8.8 million home was put up for sale.
In a recent article in Southern Seasons magazine, Merrill, 66, described himself as a self-made billionaire who has been “spectacularly unsuccessful” at times.
“I am now in a much more exclusive club of those very few who have also lost a billion dollars,” he told the magazine.
Despite such setbacks, Merrill is attempting another comeback, this time with ambitious plans for a $1 billion-plus development on the western outskirts of metro Atlanta, an “urban sporting club” featuring an unusual mix of high-end homes, horses, hunting, fishing, golf, a hotel, convention facilities and river frontage on the Chattahoochee.
Aimed at wealthy boomers
Merrill could not be reached to discuss Foxhall. But its marketing director, Steve Schneider, told the AJC the developer is betting that affluent baby boomers will buy into the project’s focus on such traditional outdoor activities. Other draws: its location on the Chattahoochee River, and an easy drive down the scenic and uncongested South Fulton Parkway to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Schneider argues that affluent boomers are almost desperate to find places where they can fish and trail-ride with their kids or grandkids before the youngsters grow up. They want to pass on something of their own childhood experiences, he said.
The Douglas County Commission recently approved the company’s plans to develop the first 49 lots. The developer hopes to sell the lots for $150,000 to $300,000.
Merrill is starting out small and virtually self-financed and, Schneider said, is taking the long view on making the venture a success. Still, he likely faces a tough launch in the Atlanta market, which is flooded with about 150,000 vacant lots.
The market for new lots and homes is “still dismal,” said Bob Romano, executive vice president of Coldwell Banker NRT Development Advisors, which works with developers and homebuilders.
Now is hardly the time to add more high-priced lots on the outskirts of Atlanta, he said. While investor groups and homebuilders are now buying more lots at auctions than a few months ago, they’re “paying 20 to 30 cents on the dollar,” he said. “The further you go out [from Atlanta], the worse it gets,” he said.
A difficult market
Steve Palm, president of Marietta-based real estate research firm SmartNumbers, says a luxury development like Foxhall would face tough prospects in Douglas County even during a strong economy, because most home buyers there are looking for cheaper homes. He said only 156 homes have sold there for more than $500,000 since 1997 — less than 1 percent of the county’s home sales during that period.
“That [project] won’t work in Douglas,” he said. “That’s a pickup truck property [market].”
Indeed, Le Jardin, off South Fulton Parkway several miles closer to Atlanta, gives mute testimony to the difficulty of selling expensive homes in the area. Last week, a sign on the large stone wall surrounding the community read “Le ardin” due to a missing “J.”
Former Braves player Brian Jordan and partners rolled out the 1,100-acre Le Jardin development for $1 million homes about four years ago, but quickly ran into trouble. Le Jardin filed bankruptcy in 2008.
Merrill has had similar ups and downs, said Schneider, but he’s prepared to be patient with Foxhall’s development.
“We’re looking at this in terms of a 20-year project,” said Schneider. “We know there is a glut out there ... but we would also say none of those sites are 20 minutes from the world’s busiest airport and are on two miles of Chattahoochee River frontage.”
Up and down history
Merrill’s history suggests that he is often a man in a hurry who takes big risks, but also shows patience and tenacity after major setbacks.
The son of a doctor, he had migrated into residential real estate development in the early 1970s a few years after getting a law degree from Emory University. Riding the local real estate boom, his operation ballooned to more than 100 employees, with offices in Atlanta, Orlando, Houston and Phoenix.
Merrill’s business faltered during the severe recession in 1974 when some projects failed, but it survived.
By the early 1980s, Merrill was on the rise again. The retooled business renovated more than a dozen historic buildings that helped kick off revitalization efforts in some parts of metro Atlanta. The projects — many backed by city government leases or tax-exempt bonds — included the Marietta Station and Kennesaw House in Marietta, the Buggyworks in East Point, and the Garnett Station Place next to MARTA’s Garnett Street station in downtown Atlanta.
Merrill sold shares of his company, Landmark America Corp., to the public in 1986 and expanded, but hit a wall again with the next recession. The company filed bankruptcy in 1990.
A decade later, Merrill was unrolling some of his biggest plans so far. He had obtained more than 20,000 acres around Phoenix, with plans for huge master-planned communities featuring thousands of homes, hotels, retail shops, golf courses and other facilities.
A syndicate of more than 60 lenders, led by Peoples Bank, a small bank in Winder, provided a $100 million loan in late 2007 for one of the Arizona projects, called Merrill Ranch.
Meanwhile, Merrill Trust Group, a trust for Merrill’s five children, had bought north Georgia’s Sky Valley Resort in 2004 and converted it from a usually struggling ski resort into a golf and mixed-use resort. The trust also owns similar residential/recreational resorts, including Daytona Beach Resort in Florida and Catatoga near Lake Toxaway, N.C.
‘Passionate’ about project
In 2007, Merrill bought the nearly 1,100-acre Foxhall Farm equestrian facility in Douglas County for nearly $17.5 million, according to Douglas County tax assessor records.
Jim Richards, son of the founder of Carrollton-based wiring manufacturer Southwire, had meticulously and expensively built the facility on rolling land bordered by the Chattahoochee River. Richards allowed Olympic riders to train there and briefly sponsored the Foxhall Cup equestrian event there. But Richards had to put the place up for sale in 2006 while liquidating his investment company.
Last year, the Merrill Trust announced ambitious plans for a 900-home mixed-use project on the former Richards property. The trust also announced a 5,400-home project on 1,300 acres in Palmetto in southern Fulton County, to be called Foxhall Village. Merrill bought land for the latter project in 2006 for at least $17.5 million, according to Fulton County tax assessor records.
But by 2008, the housing market in Atlanta, Phoenix and the rest of the nation was already in free fall.
Soon, the Peoples Bank’s loan syndicate had foreclosed on Merrill’s nearly 6,000-acre property near Phoenix and slashed its price in half. The Atlanta bank that had engineered that and many similar financing packages, Silverton Bank, failed in May.
In the wake of the Great Recession, most things about financing, developing and selling such projects have radically changed, said Schneider, with Merrill Trust Group. But Merrill is determined to make Foxhall Resort a reality, he said.
He is “passionate about this property,” said Schneider. Much like his earlier days in the real estate business, Merrill is bootstrapping the operation with funds from his family’s other developments, and talking to prospective hotel developers about building a hotel, meeting facilities and a golf course.
“It is the one project where he is focusing his energies and his resources,” said Schneider.
