Speaker 1:
What does it cost to just have a business? The American dream, like what's the cost? Right, right, so there's all that emotional and the stars aligning and all those things. And then there's $10 million that you got to get to before you make a penny, before $1 come through the door.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, the risk is huge.
Speaker 1:
I mean.
Speaker 2:
John and I have literally been working for free for nine and a half years. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And even the development and construction. Neither one of us are getting paid over the last 18 months since we broke ground. So I want to know when did you guys meet as a couple? As a couple, when?
Speaker 2:
did you guys meet you, you, you guys as a couple. When did you guys meet? We met in 1990 at Dixie State College at the time, Dixie State College Okay. Here in St George John's from St George I, or actually Santa Clara. I'm from Northeastern Utah, so I grew up in a really small town, lapointe, utah.
Speaker 1:
LaPointe.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, like 500 population Went LaPointe, utah, lapointe yeah, like 500 population Went to school in Vernal Okay and came down here for college in 1989. And we met then?
Speaker 1:
So how far is LaPointe from Vernal?
Speaker 2:
It's about 25 mile drive. So I grew up super rural farm town. You know cornfields.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Just parents. I mean, my dad was actually a USU professor and so he did the extension, the USU extension, and it's really like the first remote, you know education-wise, that was kind of the first was introduced I guess, and he did a lot of rural towns Like he would go to Moab. He'd go to like some of these other rural places to get education to more remote areas in. Utah so he taught speech and and um theater arts. He was a theater arts major, had his master's in that.
Speaker 1:
Oh cool.
Speaker 2:
And did a lot of life.
Speaker 1:
So he was a farmer and he actually wasn't a farmer.
Speaker 2:
He wasn't okay, but my grandparents were the town that I grew up. They had a small little gentleman's farm and had a few animals, garden stuff like that.
Speaker 1:
Crazy, okay, and so then you went to Dixie State.
Speaker 2:
I went to Dixie State for two years, met John. We got married Never left had six kids.
Speaker 1:
Never left yeah.
Speaker 2:
I was trying to figure out a way to stay here.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, honestly, like I love the weather, don't want to go back to Vernal or go back over there.
Speaker 2:
St. It was still a small town, you know, back in 1989. So, it was still a lot of fun here. The community was really small. We knew everybody. You know John, being raised here, knew a lot of people. So it just felt really quaint and I didn't want to leave. So I'm glad that I met a local so I could stay, yeah, perfect.
Speaker 1:
So what were you? What did you go to school for? At the time.
Speaker 2:
I just went for my generals, you know. I was just honestly. I was just getting out of the Yona basin. Like let's be honest, like I didn't want to stay there forever, and this was as far away as I could get and still stay in Utah, I guess from there.
Speaker 1:
So, and then you were born in Santa Clara.
Speaker 3:
I was actually born in Northern Utah. My dad was going to school up north and then, as soon as he finished his schooling, moved back here. So my ancestors are all from here, but I was actually born while my dad was doing his schooling other places. He became a chiropractor and he was in the military for four years and so after he finished all of that I think I was about seven or eight years old we moved to St George. So, yeah, it was fun to move here. It felt like I was actually coming home, cause I'd always been visiting here and uh, family and my grandparents on my dad's side lived here and it was fun. That's cool. But uh, yeah, I, I there were about three or 400 people in Santa Clara when I was a little boy.
Speaker 1:
And there was three or hundred people in santa clara from like 1912 till like 1970 right, basically, yeah, yeah, it didn't change much I was talking to the uh, uh, the hafen. I can't remember his name, he's. He's one of the. He's got the antique shop there on santa clara boulevard. Um, that's right across from city hall.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I know what you're talking and so I was talking to him and he was recounting like the story of basically you know they had the population sign. He's like the population never changed, it was just that, was what it was that many?
Speaker 1:
people for so long and you know all the families and generations. It was everybody knew everybody and you know for you know 50 years he's like. For 50 years it was like time stood still in Santa Clara specifically, and it's part of what that anchor of that heritage is still in Santa Clara and for sure in Ivan's as well too.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, my dad met my mom while he was at school. She was from New England, so he was able to bring some new blood in and kind of change it up. Mix it up, change it up a little bit because there was a lot of people related.
Speaker 1:
Get straight A lot of relations there. Nice, that's cool. So then you were going to school at Dixie State. What were you going to school for?
Speaker 3:
Same thing I was mostly chasing girls and getting my generals finished, yeah, and we both graduated, got married a week later right after graduation and then I just went into construction and I've been working in construction for over 30 years. Nicole was very busy busier than I was raising six kids.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, absolutely. I can only imagine I have three and I'm like the idea of six is yeah.
Speaker 3:
It's a good time I always told her it was easier for me to go to work than it was for me to stay home and take care of the kids, so I had actually an easier job, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:
For a while, like as a real estate agent. I can spend a lot of hours as a real estate agent or I can be at home, right, and so early on yeah, I mean, there's your trade-offs, right, if I'm at home, I'm not working, I'm not, you know, trying to get get another home under contract, right, those kinds of things. You kind of control the gas pedal. But that also changes the financial. Being a business owner yourself, you know exactly what I'm talking about. But I told her for a long time it was like they were all living this steady stream of life, and then I would pop in and out, right, and and I was like I don't want to be the outsider looking in, like I want to be on the inside as often as I can, and it's it's tough to do, especially while you're working and also trying to be involved in that stream of time. It's a tough balance. So when I I was home, it was like a hindrance to her. I'm like almost, uh, adding to the friction rather than, you know, blending into the family.
Speaker 2:
So what you said there is is true, it's hard to be in it I know john has said in the past he's like the 90s are like a blur to me because he's like was just well in construction too was booming, Basically from 90 to 97, there was a big construction boom in Southern Utah thanks to air conditioning, yeah.
Speaker 3:
I started. I became self-employed in 96.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
And so I've been self-employed for a lot of years and yeah, if you're not working, you're not making money, so it's been fun though.
Speaker 1:
So North Star Restoration was like the main business that you built. It has been. It's been fun, though. So North star restoration was like the main business it has been for the last quite a few years.
Speaker 3:
Yes, uh, I've been a restoration contractor since 2000. I I did a short stint working for someone else, kind of got me into the business, but I was considered a commission employee, so I was pretty much self-employed. And then, uh, I started North Star and we've just been very busy for a lot of years. Reputation is everything, and so I've got four guys besides myself and we just stay busy taking care of floods and fires. We've built relationships with St George city and the school district and you know a lot of uh, insurance agents, you know things like that. But we've stayed small as far as dealing with customers and not wanting to grow to be so big that we can't still have that personal touch but we've, we've done well.
Speaker 1:
That's awesome, man. And so how old are? How old's the youngest kid? Um youngest kid.
Speaker 2:
Youngest kid is 20. 20. Is that right?
Speaker 1:
21. 21. Just turned, 21. Happy birthday.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Boy girl.
Speaker 2:
Girl yeah, so we have six. We have three boys, three girls. Nice, good balance. Yeah, everybody is pretty married, pretty much married, except for my oldest, and then I've got a daughter that's dating pretty seriously. But yeah, we've got 10 grandkids right now, yeah, and then nine with one on the way, one on the way, we just found that out.
Speaker 1:
the other day.
Speaker 2:
Just found that out the other day. Yeah, yeah, that was really cool.
Speaker 1:
Fun surprise, yeah. So now kids are out of the house, obviously now, so it seems like you want to stay busy too. So where did the idea of Hidden Springs like the RV park? How did like from idea to where you're at today? How did that come about?
Speaker 3:
So nine and a half years ago we had that property. It's been in our family for generations, and so my great-great-grandfather actually helped build the highway going through around 19. Old Highway 91. Old Highway 91.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So just for listeners that aren't familiar with Southern Utah, in 1973 is when they connected St George to Littlefield, Arizona, where I-15 then continues from basically Southern California all the way to Canada. Right, Correct?
Speaker 3:
And so that section, that was the main highway, that old Highway 91.
Speaker 1:
So before 1591 is how you would route down to Vegas from here, and it's right on the old Highway 91, right.
Speaker 3:
Yes, that property yeah, and so he helped just run a team of horses with a blade working that road. He also helped from a. They built a dam along the Santa Clara River and they brought water along through the Chivwit Reservation and into Ivins, which helped actually start the town of Ivins so that they had running water there and they could farm and do what they were going to do.
Speaker 1:
So in trade for that he was able to get this piece of land, I think it was like for like I mean obviously from settlement right the city of Santa Clara till Ivan's had water. It was almost 40 years, I think, yeah, where Ivan's just didn't have water there, so it was they actually the Santa Clara bench and then they changed it to the town of Ivan's, named after Anthony Ivans.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, um, but it was just called the Santa Clara bench, and so our kids, our family, always calls that property the bench. Yeah, so we've just it's always been the bench, and so nobody knows.
Speaker 1:
Parkway used to be turtle road.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, still isn't it yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:
That's what we call it To the locals. For me, I just heard that for the first time this was when we recorded with Chantry Abbott for our real estate update. He's like I always knew it as Turtle Road because he's from Delta. Right, he's been here his whole life and yeah, turtle Road. I didn't know about that until just even a week ago. So yeah, the bench is the Ivan's.
Speaker 3:
Bench.
Speaker 3:
The Ivan's Bench yeah that's what they call it. So we had that as farm property as a little kid. We grew alfalfa on it. We ran our cattle either over the backside of Utah Hill down towards Beaver Dam and Littlefield or in the summertime we'd run them out towards Enterprise and our property was kind of a pass-through on the seasons. We would grow some hay and then between time they would come in and we'd have about 80 head of cattle there, and so we always just used that as our farm property.
Speaker 3:
And so then, after my grandparents passed away, the next generation was my dad and his four siblings. Grandparents passed away. The next generation was my dad and his four siblings, and so the properties that they had throughout Santa Clara and Ivins they started selling off to get their inheritance out of it. They divided it up and those that got, some sold and some didn't, and this was the last piece. And for about 10 or 15 years I had been farming it after my grandpa passed away. While my grandma was still alive, she told me I could just tinker. So I had a gentleman's farm myself. I had about a dozen cows and some horses and I would grow my own alfalfa and honestly, it was just a thing to keep my kids busy.
Speaker 2:
Keep them out of trouble.
Speaker 3:
I want them to understand where milk came from, where beef came from, just those kind of things that a lot of kids don't know, and so you know, create a work ethic around them you know like so that they could learn how to work.
Speaker 2:
And we grew a garden up there. We had a small orchard, you know like. We just tried to use the property as much as we possibly could.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's amazing, the statelyms. They do their farm camp every summer and they do four weeks and if you don't sign up immediately it's gone, there's not enough spaces and it's four weeks. Hundreds of kids. But my boys love it, they absolutely love it, but they get those, you know, over a week period time. Obviously it's different than you know showing them seasons and having them understand you know all those different factors, but it's a good, you know, window into that world and my boys love it. But it's so good for them I think it's essential, right, and so that's cool that you guys did that.
Speaker 3:
So we always had a dairy cow. Um, even my girls know how to milk a cow. Uh, as as we bought a machine so they could actually just hook up the suction cups, it was a lot easier.
Speaker 1:
So we did that, and then you didn't tell them about that until after they learned the other ways, Like no no you got to do it this way.
Speaker 3:
There's no machine Sometimes the machine would be broken and they'd have to milk the cacao. They'd have to do it anyway, so they knew so after, as we were talking, my aunts and uncles started discussing that they wanted to sell some properties, and so actually, I believe where you live now, we owned that and grew hay on that property.
Speaker 3:
And they sold that and it went and it became a development and they were talking about selling the piece that I had been playing with for my whole, basically, while I raised my kids. And I was kind of heartbroken, you know, and I was talking to a good friend of mine and we were actually camping up there right down off the hill, down in the bottom, and it felt like we were miles away from anywhere. And yet we were three miles from Harmon's, from the grocery store. So we were down there talking one night and I said, man, I've got to figure out some way for this place to make money so that I can still enjoy it. But not, uh, you know, if I develop it into housing, then it's all going to be sold off and gone. If I do the same thing with commercial real estate, same thing, it'll be sold and gone. Commercial real estate same thing It'll be sold and gone.
Speaker 3:
So what can I do to still tell my story? Sorry, get emotional. What can I do to tell my story and to still enjoy the land? And as I thought about it I was like, well, maybe I could do some sort of a resort. And I was talking to a friend of mine, david and he said you know, resorts require a lot of work. You have to have housing for the people. You have to. You're dealing with high-end people. They want to be catered to. Why don't you build an RV resort? They bring their own home, they want to be left alone, they want it to be nice, but they don't demand a lot of attention. Why don't you check into that? So I went home and I told my wife about it and that idea stuck.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'm usually the person that's like shooting the ideas out of the air you know going no, that doesn't work. And then you're the black hat.
Speaker 1:
You're the realist, yeah, yeah, you're saying okay, well, let's, let's look at the finer details it's great to have a vision, but let's poke holes in this thing which is good.
Speaker 3:
That's good balance. So nine and a half years ago, we came up with the idea and he came home and I was like I think you have something Like I will get on board with that.
Speaker 1:
Ooh, I like that idea.
Speaker 3:
It was still owned by the family. We had a lot of negotiating and dealing with. A couple of my aunts took some different property. My uncle said I'm not interested in doing it, but I believe in what you're doing and so if you can find someone to buy me out, I would be happy to. I had one aunt that said I'm in. My parents said they were in, and so we started working through the process. The land was worth about $2 million at the time.
Speaker 2:
No, it was actually worth $984,000. That's right.
Speaker 1:
When we came, up Per the appraisal or whatever.
Speaker 2:
The appraised value.
Speaker 3:
The appraised value was about $980,000. And so we went to the city and we thought oh, this is going to be easy, it's rural farmland.
Speaker 2:
It makes sense.
Speaker 3:
We just want to change it. It makes sense. We're going to bring in customers for the town. They're going to stay for a few days and leave. They'll bring revenue to the town.
Speaker 1:
It's not disrupting neighborhoods.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I think everyone's going to love it. I mean, it seems like such a great idea and we had no idea how thick our skin would have to become.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, the idea for you guys, is not the idea that, once you got to the city level, is that where you're saying that the idea the whole poking starts of, like why we don't want this right, and so going back to the RV resort, so that idea, I mean, it says it's Hidden Springs, so what's unique, what's really unique about that as a if you're going to come camp, like what's unique about that?
Speaker 2:
So yeah, so Hidden Springs we have springs that are actually on the property, that come out of the hill, so we're a multi-level resort.
Speaker 1:
It's tiered up a little bit yeah.
Speaker 2:
The property is 22 acres, 22 and a half acres, and it's like kind of three different levels. And along the hillside we have natural springs that come out of the hill and we kind of had we hadn't really tapped into those, we didn't know exactly how much water was coming out, but we had created a pond in the bottom of the property, just pushing dirt, you know, to stop the water, and it was able to fill up and we're like, oh, that's cool, you know. But when we actually got into it and started excavating we ran into water all over the place on the property. We had to put probably like 900 feet.
Speaker 2:
At least At least Maybe 1,200. I can't remember but a lot of French drains in the bottom to keep the ground from just getting soggy and we had to kind of channel that water to different areas to make sure that we could actually put roads and stuff in.
Speaker 1:
Was that going back? Oh no, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 3:
I was just going to say day one, the excavator sunk a D8 dozer up to the cab. Day two, they dug it out with a big track hoe. Day three, they sunk it again and you look at it now and you think, oh, this is a nice little flat piece of ground. No, there's water everywhere that we've had to put pipe in and channel at different directions.
Speaker 2:
I mean, it's such a rarity to have water on property here in the desert, so it was like a no brainer hidden springs, because you really couldn't see it from the road. No one has any idea that we have water on the property.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, when you first started putting up the framing of the main building, I slowed down and I stopped and I looked and I was like, oh man, there's like tree, it goes down there pretty far and there's some pretty good sized trees down there. I looked and I was like, oh man, there's like tree, it goes down there pretty far and there's some pretty good sized trees down there. Like you just couldn't tell until until you started leveling it off to where, even pulling off the road, you would have had to get out of the car and like walk kind of to the edge to see it. But as you kind of started shifting it around, I was like, oh man, that I didn't realize it was going to go all the way down there. And I was. I was like cool idea, because you're just, yeah, tucked away yeah, you know totally tucked away, but you're right you're still.
Speaker 2:
You're on the main drag yeah, we're like so close to everything. So close to everything.
Speaker 1:
We have like such a great location for people to come and enjoy, you know and if you have a, especially on the west side, right as I like, we're the west siders on the west side there's not really a whole, there's zero options I'm aware of. We are the only option west of like saint george boulevard yeah, so for the most magnificent red rock in the world, it's the west side, and if you want to pull the trailer and stay there to watch it, yours is gonna be the only spot right and the views.
Speaker 3:
360 degrees are absolutely breathtaking everywhere, everywhere, yeah mountain, biking out the back gate, hiking out the back gate, literally right out our back gate.
Speaker 1:
So I'm going to take us back to the water, though. So the water rights that you have on the property did that come into like a factor that you would have as part of the negotiation with the city or even the water district, like knowing that there's that much water on it? Has there been discussion with, like the water district about that water, how much so there's?
Speaker 3:
there's two different parts to the water. The springs that come out are not our water, owned by the state of Utah. They flow into our property and they flow out of our property. Right, we just get to use them as a beautifying thing. Uh, we don't own those rights. We've tried to buy the rights, but the state of Utah has an interesting law in place that they don't sell water rights.
Speaker 3:
So you can say acquire once they acquire them, they do not sell them ever. So you can buy a water right from another person, but if it hasn't been used in seven years, it's automatically gone back to the state of Utah without even them knowing. So I looked around to try and buy water rights. And it's very hard to buy water rights because if it's not actively used and you purchase it, you've basically spent money on nothing. So we don't own the water rights, we have goals.
Speaker 1:
You got to get a good real estate agent that knows how to do that.
Speaker 2:
Water rights yeah.
Speaker 1:
So you can call me if you want to have more questions about that.
Speaker 3:
We'll talk more about that, because I do want to acquire those rights.
Speaker 2:
We would love to get those yeah.
Speaker 3:
We have 43 and a half irrigation shares, and so each share is an acre foot. So if you can imagine a football field which is about an acre, we've got 43 and a half.
Speaker 1:
So we could fill up a football field.
Speaker 3:
So one foot of water on top of a football field is one acre foot, yeah, or one acre for a year for a year's usage. Yes, for one year's usage, and so we have 43 and a half shares. Uh, we're not the largest, but we're one of the largest in town.
Speaker 1:
And that's the irrigation shares for Ivins right, and there's lots of people that are also included in those shares.
Speaker 3:
Yes, correct.
Speaker 1:
And then is it getting the water? It's on a weekly basis. It's basically the shares turn on and turn off.
Speaker 3:
It used to be that way. But now that it's pressurized, you just have a meter and you have X amount of water shares that you can use, you know, depending on how many you own.
Speaker 1:
It's on all the time.
Speaker 3:
Now they do turn it off in the wintertime. Santa Clara actually keeps their shares on all year, but ours, right now, ivan's, are just in the summer. Got it Okay? And so we have 43 and a half. As soon as we went to the city, they asked for them. If you ever sell your water shares to the city, they become the cities and they cannot sell them either. Uh, the water conservancy district asked to purchase them. Same thing If they ever purchased by the water conservancy district, they cannot be sold back to the public, right?
Speaker 2:
The moral of the story. If you own water shares or rights, and you want to sell them call me find a private person to sell them to.
Speaker 1:
Don't give them to the government entities. I think that's a great note.
Speaker 2:
Everybody write that down, yeah.
Speaker 1:
At least in Utah.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:
So going back to the water, so they wanted to buy them. You're like no, no, no, I don't want you to buy them, but there's no leverage to that Is no leverage to that is there leverage to that at all?
Speaker 2:
like no, do you need that many shares? We do, because we're going to use them for all of our landscaping okay we've actually set up our park so that they are on the irrigation and all of our landscaping will be watered, and then we have two acres on our property that we are keeping as agricultural okay, so we will have pastures and gardens.
Speaker 1:
Oh cool.
Speaker 2:
Sorry. That's okay, pastures, gardens, orchard, that will be on that, two acres where we'll have some animals and stuff, where we were still going to water those and keep them Cool. And that'll be, you know, one of our amenities, where people can kind of see just farming a little bit still.
Speaker 1:
And so you can keep it in the family. Exactly, keep the kids going to staley farms without having to go to staley farms.
Speaker 2:
It's the graph farm Right, and so we'll use the water for that as well. Cool.
Speaker 3:
We're actually related to the staley's too, oh yeah. All of that whole crowd came from Switzerland. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:
That's right. So then, going back to so you're talking about the city. I figured water was going to be part of the conversation with the development. So why do you think I'm thinking of the vision and I listen to you tell the story. Why do you think the city felt like in opposition to it? Can you help me maybe understand like what were they saying no about? Maybe?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think the biggest thing Sorry, I think the biggest thing, that at least it stands out to me throughout the process was that Ivan City had worked really hard to get to more of a resort status city. They had initially allowed a lot of trailer parks into their town, so kind of a lower income demographic.
Speaker 1:
It was a trailer park town.
Speaker 2:
And so like they had a lot of those that were just right in the center of town.
Speaker 1:
And.
Speaker 2:
I think that that's what they were afraid of. They were afraid of that that's what we were going to create, and so we had to really sell. No, this is going to be resort status. This is going to be just overnight stays. You know we will not have permanent residence, like we really had to sell our vision of what we were trying to create, that that wasn't what we were trying to bring into the city, but I think that was the main resistance. Is that you know these?
Speaker 1:
They didn't want a mobile home park.
Speaker 2:
These, yeah, these members of city council and the planning and zoning. You know they'd been working for maybe 10 years ahead of us coming in and asking for this to try and get the city to that resort status feeling.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think the 20 year plan, the last-year plan that I saw going back that far, is about where, like resort, the economic, primary economic driver of Ivins is resort, Meaning vacation. You know, people from out of the area coming vacationing here, enjoying the recreational amenities that the city just naturally has, but that is also investing in as well amenities that the city art just naturally has, but that is also investing in as well, but that that is their main economic driver in order to maintain a bedroom, neighborhood community, which is what you know, the nobody. They don't. Most of ivan's the survey went out and it's very clear 90 of ivan's. They want just homes. Don't put businesses, the less people the better. Right, and that's that's what everybody who currently lives there wants. So to fund that resort was going to be the solution to that right. So vacation rentals, though, 20 years ago, the idea of vrbo, and you know the craze that ended up happening around that wasn't quite connecting right to that.
Speaker 1:
So, as we've transitioned into oh wait a minute this vacation rental thing is not exactly what we had envisioned. So there's this weird shift that I feel like is is coming about to where it's like okay, well, so how do we fund essential services? Right, because we already share services with santa clara. Um, how do we fund those things? And there's this battle going on, right, and so, once, once you pitch that vision clear enough to where they could see where it was going, were there any other hurdles that you felt like that were along the way, whether intentional or unintentional? Right.
Speaker 2:
What else happened? I'll let John elaborate on that process.
Speaker 1:
I'm like salivating, because we've kind of teetered on what some of these challenges are. We haven't gotten into the specifics, so we we.
Speaker 3:
We went through all of the details, we had a plan drawn up and we went to planning and zoning and, like we told you, we thought we had a slam dunk deal. I mean, this is going to bring some revenue to the city, people are going to come visit this beautiful area and leave Movara is right by it.
Speaker 1:
So it's like there's already an existing, pre-existing business.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so we thought it was going to be great and the planning and zoning commission talked about it, had a lot of meetings about it and the five of them decided we're not interested.
Speaker 2:
Five out of five against.
Speaker 3:
Five out of five All said we are not interested in anything like this. We are going to recommend to the city council that we vote no. And we were heartbroken because we, first of all, we're trying to figure out how to keep the land, and this is all we could think of and, second of all, we thought we had a good idea. I mean, bring revenue to the city and not impact with houses, and so uh, we or or or like brick and mortar retail.
Speaker 1:
You know it's not. You know something that, as shops would go, if any could even maintain a business right because of the population, what other thing would go there? Right, If it's not a house, what other thing would go there?
Speaker 3:
Their arguments were well, you're going to bring transient people in, they're going to ruin our area, and I would just chuckle. I mean, I'd literally smile and go. These people that are coming in are like you and I. They have coaches that are probably worth as much or more than our homes. And they're traveling in to visit the area. Why not have a place for them to stay?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it's not like they're the gypsies, like it's this, you know vagabond of people that are just roaming around the, you know the Western United States, in the desert. Like well, I can't imagine what are they thinking.
Speaker 3:
So, we still are a little lost on that, but we then went to city council.
Speaker 1:
So did they give you like a specific? This idea in general is just a straight no, or it was like these elements are the main reason. Why Did they tell you that, in direct terms or no? Just a?
Speaker 2:
straight no, just a straight no Okay.
Speaker 3:
So then the head of the planning and zoning there's one representative and he showed up at city council and we presented our plan to the city council, council, and but before we could present it they just talked about it. And then he stood up and said we have uh, we as the planning and zoning commission have listened and we've decided this is not good for our community. And so that was the end of that. And then the city council let us talk. And we tried to sell them again, and there were a few different meetings back and forth. We had to show them renderings of what we were envisioning, we showed them color palettes of what we were envisioning, and in the end they voted and it was three to two and we passed, and so, but there's never been an RV resort or RV park in Ivins, and so there was no ordinance for it. So planning and zoning writes ordinances. So then it was kicked back to the planning and zoning commission to write the ordinance.
Speaker 1:
That just denied you yeah.
Speaker 3:
That had just denied us, and so they had to write an ordinance that they didn't want in the first place ordinance that they didn't want in the first place. And after about seven and a half months of writing an ordinance that every city in America already has, I finally called up the mayor and I said Mayor, I need to talk to you about something. The Planning and Zoning Commission has been working on this for seven and a half months and this is not something new. Every city in America already has it. And if I would have been hired to do this I'm self-employed If I would have been hired to do this and I took seven and a half months to write something, I would have been fired.
Speaker 3:
And if I was going to school and had to write something like this seven and a half months later, I would have gotten an F. Going to school and had to write something like this seven and a half months later, I would have gotten an F. So, in my opinion, I'm really disgusted and I need a resolution. He said it will be done this week. I will make sure of it. We showed up to the next planning and zoning meeting. He sat next to me in the planning and zoning meeting and it was finished. Then it was sent over to city council. They made some refinements and we moved on.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, so holy cow. There's so many directions I could go Shout out to Mayor Hart.
Speaker 2:
He's been wonderful. He's been our one advocate in Ivan City. He's been wonderful.
Speaker 1:
I mean truthfully, he's also been invested in this same. I mean going back to the vision, right, if we're talking about we want to move in a direction over a long period of time in an era of, you know, insane growth, right, he's been really consistent with that message. Is that that message? I'm going to continue on what those city council people had passed previously, because they're all different people now, right, 20 years later. But he's been a constant throughout that whole thing.
Speaker 1:
And this is where the term limit conversation to me. I start to have a breakdown of being like okay, I understand having new faces on a regular basis, but how do we maintain a vision if a lot of people are always changing out? Right, you end up can get a little lost in the weeds because developments take time and communities take time to grow. And so I battle with that same ideas like okay, do we want politicians in seats for long periods of time? There's pros and there's cons to that, right, and so I can see both sides of it, right, I'm still cons to that Right, and so I can see both sides of it. Right, I'm still, generally speaking, term limits are where, where I land, but that, that vision, it's kind of necessary. Ivins couldn't continue to operate with, you know, fire and and police and parks and safety and all those things, if businesses aren't created. So it's. It's just kind of weird that we're fighting against each other like that.
Speaker 3:
So they pass it, they create the ordinance, then you start your work, and that's when you've Then a lawsuit was filed by the next door neighbors against the city of Ivins for passing an RV resort. And so everything went on hold. The city hired an attorney from salt lake, a state representative, to travel down and meet with the neighbors and try and work out a deal. The resolution mayor hart was wonderful again.
Speaker 1:
He said you know what, let's just get us all together and talk, and so because 99 of the time, if that's if just start there, we could solve most of thenosed about we don't want it.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and they were worried. Same thing transient people. We have our family here, We've lived here since the early eighties and we don't want a business next door to us that's going to have your type of business.
Speaker 1:
I might put you on the spot along the way. Did you ever think, just you going to them and saying, hey, this is an idea I have, we're gonna, you know, not that what you say is gonna matter, right, because we are going to do this, we just want your feeling on it. Did you ever have the thought of like maybe I should talk to the neighbor about this?
Speaker 3:
I should have, I didn't I actually, like I said, in my mind, I was thinking this is such a great idea.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
I'm bringing people. I love going camping with my family. I've got so many fun memories of staying in RV parks with my kids, and so I just thought this is a slam dunk yeah.
Speaker 2:
Well, and we thought, you know I mean out of all the development that we could do on the property, like this felt like the best case scenario to keep the property as close to what it was originally Like.
Speaker 2:
We literally could not keep the property the way it was because of the growth. The value of the property was going up like leaps and bounds every year. It was like getting further and further out of our reach and it's like if we weren't able to do this, there was no way for us to actually keep the property in our family. That's what it was down to.
Speaker 2:
And so, you know, we were just like this is the best case scenario to keep that farm fill, to keep, you know, but still keep the property. And and we had no other solution really.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah so.
Speaker 2:
I mean, I don't know, john's not real clear, but I think we had talked to the neighbors and kind of told them what was our vision, and they had been to all of the meetings.
Speaker 1:
So they knew what we had presented. This wasn't, like you know, surprise Opportunities to like see you face to face and be like, hey, you know, I was thinking about this thing and it's really, I'm really not behind it, and none of that conversation happened, right.
Speaker 3:
Only in the meetings, only in the meetings, only in the meetings, only in the meetings.
Speaker 2:
Right, there was a lot of emotion and we just tried to stay positive and we understand, like we've been here a long time too, and we knew these people, you know, like they were our neighbors for years.
Speaker 3:
I helped him install a window in his house.
Speaker 2:
So you know it wasn't like we were trying to keep good feelings and still be able to keep our property. So there was a balance there and the development was going to come either way, right. If we sell that property off, someone else is going to come in and put something else which might be worse. You know, who wants a three-story commercial building, which is what it had been zoned for.
Speaker 1:
So when you get out of the table you get everybody together. Mayor Hart leads the way, gets everybody on the table. How did that conversation go? He was wonderful.
Speaker 3:
He just said let's resolve this, let's work this out. What do you want? And they asked for 108. So their home is 180 feet away from the property line.
Speaker 3:
They said we want you to go 180 feet into your property as a buffer and keep that as agricultural. And at first I was like, oh man, think of how many RV sites we're going to lose. Of course you did, but as I thought about it, I'm leaving it agricultural, I'm putting a barn there, I'm putting an orchard there, I'm putting a pasture area there and it's basically a buffer between the two of us and it's still a place that I can go, tinker and do what I love, which is, you know, just a gentleman's farm. I'm going to have a vineyard, I'm going to have all these beautiful things. That is still agricultural, but it'll be seen from the RV resort and people will be able to. You know, I want them to feel like they're coming home to grandma's farm.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I love that. So so you know, in in the moment you're thinking, man, that's a lot of sites that maybe you already had planned, or you're just thinking of that total amount of space being quite a bit. But when you readjust the vision right Based off what they're wanting, you can still make it. Yeah, I, based off what they're wanting.
Speaker 3:
I'm so grateful you can still make it. Yeah, I'm actually grateful that it happened.
Speaker 1:
That's cool, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:
So then that lawsuit's filed, but we're now a year in, I'm guessing by this point we're probably almost like three years in from the time that we had the first division From ideation to and then submissions to the city.
Speaker 1:
Now you're a year into that and then the lawsuit happens. You know, a year into that and then the lawsuit happens.
Speaker 3:
We were about 18 months when the lawsuit started with the neighbors. Within about probably six weeks to two months that was over.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so that was resolved pretty quick yeah.
Speaker 3:
And then we had to. We were trying to work out some of the deals with my dad's siblings figuring out who was going to take what land, because there were a bunch of different pieces. And we got that resolved and then, I don't know, it took a long time. When I look back then, talking to banks being just an average person not worth millions of dollars, even when we took the land to the banks and said this is paid for, free and clear, they would still say, well, you're just not quite worth enough. And so we had to go back and forth with a lot of different banks probably 15 different lenders.
Speaker 3:
We were told, no, and we just kept plugging along because we knew we had a great idea and we knew that we had something that was wonderful and we had talked to several investors as well.
Speaker 2:
right, so we're like trying to find money anywhere we can and we're taking our ideas to the investors and saying, hey, look at this vision that we have. And literally no one ever told us it was a bad idea. And almost every investor we talked to said, well, let me just buy it from you guys.
Speaker 3:
This is great idea like we'd love to do this you know, and let's, let's partner, or or partner. We don't even need you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, they would just say what they don't need and they were and or they would say I. The only way I'll come into this is if I'm over 50 owner and we weren't willing to give that up right yeah that um say around the property yeah because the whole point of keeping the whole purpose to keep the property.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, because the whole point of keeping it was to keep the property.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, so we ran into that all the time through that process.
Speaker 3:
And then we found we finally found a bank that would lend us the money. And then COVID hit.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, shout out to Kelly West at Cache Valley Bank.
Speaker 1:
Cache Valley. I was going to say because when it comes to land and business ideas, business ideas, cash valley bank, at least in southern utah, for sure, and kelly west was the first guy that we had talked to and he was like I love this vision.
Speaker 2:
He's like I hope you guys can make this happen. And he went through three different banks before he ended up at cash valley. And while we're doing our thing, we, you know, we come full circle back to him and we're like what do you think?
Speaker 3:
and he's like I'll present it, let's see what we can figure out you know, but we went through a lot of steps before he was at one bank and then it merged with another bank and then he quit and went to work for cash valley.
Speaker 2:
And this is over a long, like years, yeah yeah, we're talking five years time, right like we're trying to find the landing at this point, now that we've finally gotten through city and and then and then finding someone to purchase my uncle out.
Speaker 3:
Um, just, we had, we had been friends with, uh, josh and Heidi gun for a long time and they actually used to come up.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, they knew the property, they knew the property because they would bring their kids up. We I grew up with Josh and they would bring their kids up and take turns milking our cow with us, cause, you know, because when you've got a cow you don't want to Do that every day. You're married to it Twice a day to milk a cow. So I would farm it out and have about five or six different families that would take the milk. They would milk the cow and take the milk home with them and I grew the feed. So that wasn't a big deal and so Josh had been doing that for years.
Speaker 3:
He has eight kids, so he had a lot of milk. He was going through Uh. So Josh would come and milk the cow and he and I had been friends, like I said, since we were growing up and he's a chiropractor in St George and it just worked out that he had a building that he was sell, that sold and he had some capital and he was able to buy my uncle out and become the partner that we needed nice, so perfect I'll tell you that was a godsend yeah, that was a moment, not only for the money, but the quality of friends that we have.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that believed in us was just absolutely great. That's awesome that's awesome.
Speaker 1:
it's what honestly like, southern utah is a community, dixie Spirit we've talked about it on the podcast a bunch of different times, but, like what that actually means is that you know what I mean? You don't. There's not a whole lot of places. You know, I guess there is a lot of places, but they're not the biggest cities, they're not the biggest towns, and a lot of them happen to be in Utah, from my experience at least.
Speaker 3:
Well, yeah, towns, and, and a lot of them happen to be in utah, from my experience at least. Well, yeah, definitely grateful to josh and heidi for believing in our dream.
Speaker 2:
And yeah, and just yeah, because it was a big risk for them yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:
So, um, now you start start digging, you sink, you sink a excavator, and so now, uh, you anticipate costs. Right, you put it on a pnl, you put it on a P&L, you put it on a pro forma, like, hey, we think this is what it's going to be worth, and then, nine times out of 10, that gets holes blown all over it, right, yeah, so in that development process, what other challenges had you had in kind of figuring those things out?
Speaker 2:
I mean as far as like development wise and getting us to where we needed to be. We actually had two other partners prior to the guns that had come on and, just about the time, cash Valley. We were ready to all sign the paperwork. Covid hit.
Speaker 1:
Oh, right right.
Speaker 2:
And it literally threw a spiral into everything because those two investors were doctors and their practices were shut down. And, like, about three months into it, they came to us and they bailed, even though we had signed like operating agreements and everything like.
Speaker 2:
we were literally like signing paperwork and getting ready to roll, and so that set us back for another year and a half before we found Josh. And, like you know, I mean it's all things happen for a reason, you know. And it's like I can see the timing now of why things have happened. And I've always said from the beginning I'm like if this happens, like it's literally because God wants it to happen, because there's been so many challenges to get us to where we're at right now that there's no other way that it could have happened. And the timing of everything and getting the guns on us as partners, like it's just, it's worked out for the best, but going through it it was really hard.
Speaker 2:
You know, every time we hit a roadblock it was like are we crazy? Why are we even continuing this, this project, you know? And we just would get up the next day and keep trying for the you know like, what can we do today to make this happen?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, Ignore the drunk monkey Some people call it the drunk monkey that's hanging around us being like nah, you don't need to do that, Just scrap it Well and we're still raising our kids and I still have my day job.
Speaker 2:
And.
Speaker 3:
Nicole decided to go back to school and get her bachelor's degree. So we were still moving along with life, but this was always happening.
Speaker 1:
You lay down in bed and you're thinking about it.
Speaker 3:
And our friends. I'm sure they were sick of us talking about it. Yeah, we're going to be building an RV resort 10 years later they're like you guys probably need therapy.
Speaker 2:
Actually, all of our friends.
Speaker 3:
Now they just call us up and they're like we're driving by, it is so cool, it's bigger than I imagined. It's prettier than I imagined, it's awesome.
Speaker 1:
That is so cool. So we're at the finish line. You guys are about ready.
Speaker 2:
COVID hits, everything falls apart. We start all over again, honestly, with the lending and trying to figure it out. Then josh and heidi come into the picture. We get them on and and then we get through that and john's dad passes away. Um, during that time he actually had covet and passed away. And then, sorry, it's okay, and passed away, and then sorry, it's okay, that's when things actually start happening After he died, and like we just know, like we just had help, you know from the other side honestly.
Speaker 1:
Because it just felt like it wasn't ever going to happen.
Speaker 2:
Hey can we get?
Speaker 1:
some tissue. Sorry, no, that's okay.
Speaker 2:
Anyway. So then we I guess it was probably 10 months after he passed away we finally got the okay. It was like all the paperwork, all of the finality, and Kelly West was like we got it. You know, he took it to Cache Valley and they approved it and, luckily, their president is an RVer and he could see the vision of what we were trying to do. You know, it's just the right people at the right time. And they approved it and he called us and I was like I literally can't believe it. I'm like I'm not going to believe it until the paperwork signed, cause we've been to this point, you know, so many times of like, yeah, great idea, let's make it happen. But then it never happened. And so, um, we signed the paperwork in, uh, december of 2022 and broke ground in March of 23.
Speaker 2:
And we've just been working our tails off the last 18 months to get it to where it's at right now. So yeah.
Speaker 1:
So, thinking about, I agree with you when I look back at my life, right, I think everybody's kind of had that experience of you know you look hindsight, being 2020. You're like, oh, that was why that happened and and in that it's powerful, it's pretty unique. So, going through it, now you get through the construction. We could kind of get in the weeds on like all the little struggles and things like that. So now you're right on the cusp of, you know, bringing on travelers, what's left before. How long do you think it's going to last or take before you can start bringing people in?
Speaker 3:
Well, we'd like to open our doors right away, like today.
Speaker 2:
Like today, if you could, we really are or next week, like ready for guests.
Speaker 3:
We've got all of our asphalt in, we've got all of our sites leveled out, we have sewer, water and electrical.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I was driving through there last night too, and checking out. The pool is super cool.
Speaker 3:
The swimming pool is gorgeous. The clubhouse is completely finished. We have a little general store that we're ready to start taking customers in Nice. We have a game room. We have a big relaxing area in the back, so all of that's finished. The landscaping around the clubhouse is finished. The biggest dilemma that we've got is that with any construction project costs, there are always unforeseen things and between different fees that the cities charged us that we weren't expecting or extending a water line, Different infrastructure.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah extending a water line to nowhere just for future use for the city, and we didn't know we were going to have to do that. We thought we could just stub in, but we had to run it 2,000 feet and that cost us a lot more money. There were just a lot of little things that we were like ah, so at this point we've exhausted pretty much all of our funds for the construction, but we're ready to open. The drawback is that we don't have all of our landscaping in. We're just getting started on that, but it would be wonderful to have people stay there with nice raked off dirt areas. We start making revenue and keep the vision going finishing the landscaping, making sure that we have everything finished the way we want it. I was laughing when I was talking to the city the other day. A couple of the city people I said you know, honestly, I don't care a lot what Ivan City thinks of my place, I care what my customers think place.
Speaker 1:
I care of what my customers think.
Speaker 3:
I care about what my reviews from google or you know spot you have a clear incentive that the consumer, the customer I want the consumers to love this place.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I know you have an invested interest in that being that way right, far more than the city ever would once you have you as a burden, you as a property and business owner right
Speaker 1:
we have the burden of like the investment that we wanting people to keep coming back wanting to be able to, to set set a a good price where demand is meeting the supply that you have, because the experience is so great. Right, and so you know that that is far, that experience is far more valuable than what the city would ever get out of that they don't care, and it's not that we don't care what the city thinks.
Speaker 2:
It's just that it's like for them to think that we wouldn't finish or that our investment is so huge at this point. But you know, like our investment is so huge at this point, Like we don't need them to monitor and take care of every facet of it in order for it to be a success. So, that's more of what we're saying. You know, is that.
Speaker 1:
So what? And then to kind of take a step back. So you would like to start taking people today, but currently you can't. Right Correct, because there's a few, there's a few other hoops, or you know checklists that need to be marked by certain people and that checklist isn't complete. Is that what you're saying? And then? So now you cannot host somebody and make money on those, those guests, because that checklist isn't completed. Is that what's happening?
Speaker 3:
Okay. So, and they're minor things, I mean landscaping is one, our front wall, which will be finished in a few days.
Speaker 1:
the pathway along the highway, the landscaping along the highway the pathway from the entrance of the park to the street that pathway, no, the pathway that runs the entire frontage of our property.
Speaker 3:
We have to have a paved city trail that just ends at nowhere on the west side and ends at nowhere on the east side.
Speaker 1:
So far because they're like well, in the future, this trail is going to go all the way, because on the other side of the street right they've finally connected it.
Speaker 3:
And truthfully, as a value, I love it. No, I'm sure too.
Speaker 1:
Like I want that there. I'm okay with that there.
Speaker 3:
And we are too Saying that.
Speaker 2:
I can't have anybody over, because that path isn't finished. And we're working on that.
Speaker 3:
We actually will have that finished here in the next few weeks. Right, there's just little things. One of the issues is the planning and zoning wrote the ordinance years ago saying that every site had to be concrete. I would love to be able to concrete every site, but I also have been in a lot of RV resorts around the country. I'm talking from Florida to.
Speaker 2:
North Dakota, california, california, oregon. We've been all over the place looking at these.
Speaker 1:
What about in Washington County? Are there other RV parks in Washington County that are like that?
Speaker 3:
There's one RV park that's all concrete and paved roads and that is Willow Wind, which has been there since the 60s or 70s, and I don't think that they had everything concrete originally. I think that they've just added concrete as they had money revenue coming in. So they wrote it that way and we thought, well, we're not going to argue with them at this point, we'll just take what we can, and hopefully we can do the concrete.
Speaker 3:
But the costs have come in so high that we can't afford to put concrete in every site Concrete is insanely expensive.
Speaker 1:
Yes, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:
It was the difference between like $150,000 for gravel to $660,000 for concrete to do all the sites.
Speaker 3:
And to be able to roll that's not chump change.
Speaker 2:
No, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money.
Speaker 3:
And so, if we can get the city, we're hoping to go before the city here in the next week or two and plead our case that we're not against concrete, we just want to be able to open our doors and then, as revenue comes in, put the concrete in, and it may take us five years, it may take us seven years, I don't know. But I don't have any intention, like I said before, of making this an RV park or an RV resort that people aren't going to talk about and say, wow, this is the nicest place I've ever been to. And so that's why I say I care about what my customers, the consumers, say and I will make sure that it's nice. But I can also see the city's point where they have been taken advantage of. They've had people say developers say, hey, we're gonna do this and this and this, and they take their word for it and it doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:
So I see where the city counts Lots of examples.
Speaker 1:
There's lots of examples of that, lots of examples Whether it's residential or whether you know any type of development. You know what the ideation and the approval of the project, and then what the final result is is there's a, there's a gap there, and sometimes it's extreme, and sometimes they don't finish it and they're like, oh sorry, we, uh we ran out of money and we're not gonna. It's gonna look like something horrible for a year, two years, five years, right, I think, elam valley out in uh dixie springs, where it was like just roads and trees but like no houses, like it was just like this For like 15 years.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, For like 15 years. I remember the first time I was driving out there I was like what is this place? What is going on here? And then it's like oh, it looks seems like a development went upside down 2008 development went upside down 2008,. It was the entire county right, and so I can see that.
Speaker 3:
I totally see that, so we understand. But we're also hoping that they will recognize and see where we're at right now, and what? Our intentions are and give us a little bit of leeway there to be able to finish it. And, like I said, we're not against setting deadlines, we just need them a little further out and let us open the doors to bring some revenue. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
It seems reasonable, right, as long as like the safety items and you know the fundamental infrastructure, for it not to be a problem for the city. But knowing that, hey, there's some timelines here that we do need you to meet right Tentatively upon, you know, having people go there, yeah, but it's a. Do you have to change the ordinance in order to get it passed? We might.
Speaker 2:
We hope not. We're hoping we can just extend the time on the conditional use permit. Instead of actually changing the ordinance, but we may have to change the ordinance.
Speaker 1:
Which is more time and more meetings and more convincing, you know, of all those things.
Speaker 3:
While we're doing all that, we're sitting for months.
Speaker 1:
As costs continue to keep going up.
Speaker 3:
With the hefty payment that we've got to cover. So we're grateful for those that have believed in us. We're grateful for those that have worked hard for us. Like I said, Mayor Hart was amazing. I haven't said this, but my mother has been a huge advocate and fan for us and she comes up three or four times a week just to make sure it's all good, and she has a huge investment in it.
Speaker 3:
She basically gave up her inheritance or retirement. Um, to believe in our dream. Yeah, my aunt's the same way. So basically my partners are my wife and I, josh and heidi gunn, my aunt and my mother and it's all family, it's all family yeah, well, I consider josh and heidi family for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool, that's cool.
Speaker 1:
So, um, even now, like, because now your kids too, they're, they're, it's the family business. Now it's not. North star restoration is the no, is the? The idea is that this rv park is going to be what you guys do on a daily basis right, I want to be the guy that drives around in the golf cart and tells my story like the camp host. Yeah, the camp host.
Speaker 3:
I want to talk about the neat places to go visit.
Speaker 2:
Close that's awesome that's what I want to be um we've, we've got it's like five star concierge, but at an rv park, yeah, and I think that, like the timing that we were talking about earlier, everything was there for a reason because now our kids are all grown up, they all all have their own skill sets, their own talents and their abilities that they're bringing to this project, and all six of them have been involved in this project, you know. So it's like Tanner is our general manager, josh is doing the marketing and sales, haley's doing social media just because our graphic designer, and she's done all of the branding and the website. Our son, jacob, has been helping us financially and he's got a lot of tech experience, you know. And who am I forgetting? Lindsay has literally helped me. She's helped me with interior design and get the store ready. You know, even though you know, and they all brought these skill sets and nine years ago they would have all been teenagers or little kids.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
And now they're all adults and they're bringing, like all this, you know, new energy and knowledge and value to the project that there's no way that John and I could have done it at this point. What's happened in the last eight to 10 months to get it to where it's at without them, you know. And so it's like now they're invested, they're excited and they're going to keep doing this, you know, for the next generation. And as we host people to come in, like we're just so excited to have people come and enjoy this property, Like there's literally a vibration on this property.
Speaker 1:
You're making me choke. I'm getting choked up over here.
Speaker 2:
It has so much energy and like love and like stories underneath it and we just want people to be part of that and to continue on with this, you know, and just come and love and enjoy this area the way we do.
Speaker 1:
Yeah it's. I can't help but be like. This is the American dream you know when people talk about. See, you got me all choked up when people talk about what they want for their life, that this is what they want, Right, yeah, it's not. You know the big bad developer contractors coming in. It's not the PGA tour golf course, it's not those things, it's, it's this thing.
Speaker 1:
This is what people really I think is the American dream. Right, there's elements of that at the PGA tour. Right, for you know people in different situations. Right, there is an element of that. But I think, when you take the bell curve of the country as a whole, this is, this is what they envision in their mind. I think, yeah, it's it's so fun.
Speaker 3:
You walk through our clubhouse. There's photographs of my great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather my parents, my grandparents, like um the gun family. Like the pictures that we have in there are either from local artists or members of the family or photographs of family members, I mean from way back. We've got black and whites that we've had to clean up a little bit to get them a little bigger and digitally clean them up. But it's so fun to be able to have people walk in and go wow, there's a history to this place, it's not just another place.
Speaker 2:
Here's. The thing is like I don't feel like that we're the owners of this property. I feel like we're the stewards of it. Now, you know, because the property will be here, like when you look at those old photos and you see the red mount in the background with his great grandpa in it, and you realize that, like this is the property is like what is the value? And it gets passed down and passed down and it has like, um, you're a steward of it while you have it in your possession and then you give it to the next person. Hopefully you've prepared those people to keep that stewardship so that you can have value and life around that property. And so that's what we are hoping for for our kids and for our grandkids, you know, is that that piece of property remains in the family and that they each get to be a part of that story yeah, yeah, man, this is such a great idea.
Speaker 1:
It uh, I can't help but be kind of, because you just mentioned like you're running low on financing. You know what I mean? The money. I would hate to see like that be the reason. Yeah, it it's halted and then you know we're another 10 years away from this or whatever, maybe worst case scenario. It's like we have to, we have to sell it off or we can't. We cannot do this like. I would hate to see that scenario happen. So if you're listening in at ivan's and you come to the city council to support, if this is like the vision of what you want for your town, they got to. The city council has got to see that too, right.
Speaker 1:
So, if they just see you here and they're just going off of what they're elected to do is like, hey, I'm, I'm here to enforce the specific rules of order that we're trying to maintain. And, granted, we want to give you know benefit of the doubt as often as we can, but we also need to operate within a framework to get that exception. If there is an exception to it, they have to have the support of the community right. And so if you're in Ivins on August, 1st August.
Speaker 2:
1st August, 1st at the city council meeting 5.30 PM and if you're against it.
Speaker 1:
you can stay home, you can stay home. There's no reason we need to hear from you. You can stay home. You can stay home. There's no reason we need to hear from you.
Speaker 3:
They got plenty of naysayers out there.
Speaker 1:
We got plenty of those.
Speaker 3:
Y'all can stay home. We just hope that the people that have been concerned about it have seen what we've created and actually recognize and realize that the blood sweat tears, that we wanted it to be nice, not for them but for us and hopefully they enjoy it and we're not an outside developer.
Speaker 2:
We have a vested interest in this property, we are local, we have seen the growth over the last 30 years and how much it's exploded and changed and that's affected us too and trying to figure out how to keep the property, how to still make it nice, beautiful, because we want to stay here, we want our kids to be able to stay here. We love this area. So you know, we've put a lot of thought and ideas into making this a place where people can actually come and enjoy and appreciate the area, because we love it too, and we're not just a developer that you know is trying to get a dime out of it.
Speaker 1:
So I'm going to ask this on that lead, you don't have to answer me what are you financially in getting it up? I mean, obviously there's the hours and there's the. You know nickels and dimes here or there, but what do you? What are you in to the project to get it to the point where it's ready to go? How much money are you into it?
Speaker 3:
About $10.5 million. If you take the value of the land, remember I told you that the land was worth $980-something thousand. Yeah, when we got our financing, it appraised for $3.8 million, who can buy? That.
Speaker 2:
Who can buy that?
Speaker 3:
That wasn't changing anything except for the economy changed in St George and possibly changing the zoning. But yeah, it went from a million dollars basically to four million dollars over the time that we started, from the time we started working on the idea till we finally got the financing. So you know, I would love to just have it.
Speaker 1:
Buy dirt. Isn't that the song? Buy dirt, they're not making any more of it is what they say, I guess.
Speaker 1:
so okay, 10 million dollars, 10 and a half is such a big number to me yeah because I I just think of, like, what does it cost to just have a business, the american dream, like what's the cost? Right and right. So there's all that emotional and the stars aligning and all those things, and then there's 10 million dollars that you got to get to before you make a penny, before one dollar come through the door, yeah, and so the risk is huge, I mean john and I have literally been working for free for nine and a half years.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and the even the development and construction. Neither one of us are getting paid over the last 18 months since we broke ground and we're up there every day, 18 hours a day, you know, and there's no price on that right like how do you even equate um? How to make that?
Speaker 1:
so if we paid, ourselves putting that on an excel spreadsheet doesn't look great, that's what I'm saying?
Speaker 3:
no, but we believe in it you believe yeah and we love it and we think that people that come and stay will love it too.
Speaker 2:
I know they'll love it.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
Because there's like, it's just like I said, the vibration. It's literally just so electric when you're there.
Speaker 1:
There's something else I was going to because I wanted to ask that financial and I had another question, but I'm off track now. Oh so, oh, dang. What, what else? What else do I need to know? What else? What am I missing that we haven't talked about?
Speaker 2:
I don't know honestly, that's our story, yeah, uh honestly, I guess for me is that John and I both had like these quaint upbringings in these small rural towns. You know, in the in like he had a set of grandparents. I had a set of grandparents that were more in the business world, owned their own businesses, and then we both had a set of grandparents that were more farm oriented and, you know, raised their own food and had animals and that kind of thing. So we both had that background and so the vision for Hidden Springs RV Resort was that we want you to come home to your grandma's house, like just that nostalgia around your grandparents and like how you feel comfortable and the freedom of like running around in fields and like or in the backyard and like not feeling the pressure but just having like this freedom to show up at your grandparents and know that you're loved, accepted and that you have some freedom to just explore and see, you know life and what's going on.
Speaker 2:
And I think that, like a lot of that is getting lost in our technological world. If you didn't grow up in a rural area, if you grew up in a city, you don't have the feeling of that and we wanted to try to maintain and retain some of that feeling in this project and in the property, and so that's kind of like where we came up with the ideas around Hidden Springs, as far as the clubhouse and the farm and just being where we're at is. It's just this got this beautiful feeling of like coming home to grandma's house, um, and so, you know, we just hope that everybody that comes here gets that same feeling. Even if they don't know it or they've never had it before, they're gonna feel it. They're gonna feel like welcome when they walk through our front doors, because we just we love, love people and we're going to maintain that and our kids love people and we just have, like this heart for hospitality and we're so excited to host people and welcome them to Southern Utah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome and that's you know when, when you think of, okay, what do you want for a city to, if you take a step back into the kind of the city's perspective, you know, having to jump through all these hoops, you deter, I guess, the.
Speaker 1:
I guess maybe I'm changing my mind in real time here, but I'm thinking the best ideas are going to jump through these hoops, right, and so, you know, some of these roadblocks are kind of a requirement, you know the price of entry, right, to be able to, you know, commit to this idea, and so the best ideas can stand the tests that are ahead. But I couldn't help but thinking, but think to myself, you know, as what the purposes of why I have these conversations with you know, people in Southern Utah and like focusing on what is Southern Utah, our precinct. So I'm the chair for the Republican Party for Precinct 7, which is in Ivins. There's 690 registered Republicans in that precinct and I organized the sheet as to when they were registered in Utah or as a Republican, and it's like 70, less than 70 were before 2020. Wow, 2020. So it's like four years, of the 700 residents that are there, you know, 600 plus of them moved to southern utah from 2020 and later yeah which is crazy.
Speaker 1:
Or at least they registered as republican, which when, when you register, it's typically you're just coming from one state to another and then that's when they've registered. But that that to me was mind-blowing, how that the shift in population and Ivan's has changed so much in such a short amount of time. And so it's these kinds of things like this is how we hold on to maintaining, you know, Ivan's as the the past, you know and present, and then into the future. So that was something I was just thinking about that thought was really fascinating. So that was something I was just thinking about, that I thought was really fascinating. So you know, once the project gets going I mean running the place is going to be full time, but it's going to be way less than what you're doing now. What?
Speaker 3:
else are you going to fill your time with? We're actually going to. We've sold about everything we had to get this going, but as soon as we can afford it, we're going to get an RV and start traveling.
Speaker 1:
Nice, Sweet. Get some ideas as you go along too.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I mean our our kids are all capable and we've got them all in positions to manage it. I have a niece that's helping with the store and and, uh, we're excited and, one of the most important things, I want people. Well, I would just like to invite the general public. You drive by all the time. Stop in, stop in.
Speaker 3:
Come say hi All of us any of us that work there will stop what we're doing and walk you around the place. We want everyone to understand exactly what the place is and what it's about, and I have people pull in every day and just say what are you doing here? And to be able to show them is really fun.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, super fun. So if, if they want to find you, where do they go? Google yeah.
Speaker 2:
Google us, but I mean our Instagram and Facebook is hidden springs RV, at hidden springs RV, um, and then our website is at, or is hidden Springs RV dot camp.
Speaker 3:
Dot camp C-A-M-P. I didn't know that you could get a dot camp. You can get a dot anything, but I think it's really cool.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, cause we're a camping area.
Speaker 2:
Yeah so hidden Springs RV dot camp and we, we are taking bookings, so hopefully we can get you know Ivan City to approve us actually opening our doors. But we've been taking bookings from August 1st on and that's what we've been advertising and you know we can host guests right now really. You know we have the infrastructure for it and so. But you know we have a lot of things happening in Southern Utah that are coming up. We have the, the PGA tour that's coming up in.
Speaker 2:
October We've got the marathon coming up. In October we have Swiss days, which is a big event in Santa Clara.
Speaker 1:
Yep, we need to, we need to hit in Springs, yeah, and you know, and there's, and there's just all kinds of things happening in Southern Utah.
Speaker 2:
There's so many events like tournaments ball tournaments soccer tournaments, you know, and we want to host those people Like we're so close to like all the fields and the high school out here and it's just such a great location for people to come and stay when they come to Southern Utah.
Speaker 1:
For sure Get a little bit of the West side. Yeah, because a lot Get a little bit of the West side. Yeah, because a lot of people don't get the West side. No, no, and they're missing out, they're missing out, they are missing out. Yeah Well, I appreciate you guys coming and chatting and telling the story and I want to wish you luck.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, thank you so much, thanks for having us we love.
Speaker 1:
Okay, hope you enjoyed that everybody. We'll see you out there.
