Love & Real Estate

You build your first development, and right away you want to build a bigger one, and you want a bigger house to live in, and if it ain't in Buckhead, you might as well cut your wrists.

Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full

Like any good real estateur, Jimmy’s professional life began on shaky financial ground. He went on to become one of the best developers I know, and quite rich, but getting started was difficult - especially for his love life.

Atlanta has always been a real estate town, the kind of place where young promoters in sport coats and alligator shoes could hit it big. And for those that did, Buckhead - a charming neighborhood of oversized leafy lots and grand homes built with Coca-Cola dividends - was the place to live.

And, for a decade-long interlude, Buckhead was also the place to get drunk. With a stroke of the [zoning] pen - removing parking minimums - Buckhead Village, a quaint commercial district tucked in amongst boxwoods and ivy-clad homes, transformed into one of the densest collection of bars and nightclubs in the South. At its mid-1980s peak, over 100 liquor licenses were issued within a five-block area. Jimmy knew them all because for a young real estate hustler, nothing paired with Reaganomics better than a night at Lulu’s Bait Shack, Tongue & Groove, or Clarence Foster’s.

For Jimmy, though, love proved elusive.

He decided being broke wasn’t helping and more money would make him more effective at the Buckhead bars.

His first step towards changing his fortunes was supplementing his commission leasing job and he secured a management position. The managerial role provided more both more cash in his jeans and an apartment in a Buckhead high rise.

The solution didn’t last long, however. Jimmy wasn’t cut out for management, at least in that role. It was his first W2 position and soon became his last. During his first weekend in his fancy new apartment he had a splendid evening at the bars and was successful in finding a willing participant to join him back at the high rise for a nightcap. But love never materialized. In fact, it ended in an argument. And by Monday he was fired.

The nuance of Jimmy’s new situation was important. While he did have a new residence in a Buckhead high rise, it was in a continuing care retirement community. And while his new role was in management, it was as the resident night manager at the continuing care retirement community. Neither of these facts did he emphasize with his date.

A unique feature of the resident night manager’s apartment was that it came with a buzzer that could be activated by any of the 400 residents should they need assistance. And that first evening with his first date, just as Jimmy’s evening prospects began to improve, the buzzer went off.

He first tried to ignore it but when his date pushed away and he couldn’t play it off anymore he said he would go see if he could find out what was going on and, pleading with his date to remain in the current state - sprinted down the hall and took the steps two at a time to the next floor.

The source of the buzzer was an elderly woman asking that her elderly husband be removed from the apartment. Apparently he had made eyes at another resident that afternoon and, after a few evening cocktails, things had come to a head. It was an argument that had been brewing for 50 years.

Jimmy, fighting frustration, spoke fast and using his best sales skills, encouraged the couple to just get some rest before sprinting back to his apartment. In his absence, his date had gotten wise to situation and location, but agreed to stay.

Until the buzzer went off again.

Despite his pleadings over the incessant buzzer, his date departed - after kissing Jimmy on the cheek with compassionate amusement.

Jimmy’s love life eventually improved, but it wasn’t until after he got fired from his management position.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably interested in real estate.

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