Sherwood Blount’s First Million
Poor Texas boys used to get rich running cattle or drilling for oil. Now they get rich doing real estate deals out on the urban frontier. And those deals all start with someone deciding he doesn’t want to be poor—ever again.
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“Okay. How about this? Eight million, flat. Fifty thousand earnest money, flat.” This way, if the multifamily zoning were turned down and Shaddock backed out, Stiles could at least pocket the $50,000 earnest money.
“I haven’t seen a contract like that,” said Stiles. “No, wait a minute—yes, I have. Isn’t that the contract we went back with the first time? Why didn’t they make this deal when I was in the mood to make it? Now, Sherwood, you might go back to your client . . .”
“Customer.”
“. . . and tell him to be back here this afternoon with the kind of deal I want to do.”
Sherwood was so wound up when he left that he couldn’t say anything until he was most of the way to Shaddock’s office. Then he turned to Buck. “See, you can’t ever let the ball hit the ground,” he said. “You got to keep it in the air. Or else you’re dead.”
He told Shaddock the situation straight and in a hurry. “I said to him, ‘Jerry, will you close that deal at eight million, fifty thousand earnest money?’ He said, ‘Let me think about it.’”
“So you’re saying, eight and fifty no matter what the zoning is,” said Shaddock.
“We are at the end of the dance card, Peter. The lights are getting dim. Let’s take one last pop at this deal. You put up twenty-five thousand of the earnest money, and I’ll get Weale to put up the other twenty-five or I’ll put it up myself.”
“Sherwood, let me tell you what it boils down to: the possibility of getting it zoned. And he’s not gonna get his zoning. If I thought he was gonna get it, I’d take the damn chance. But I don’t.”
If this was meant to be a final no, Sherwood certainly didn’t take it that way. “Let me do this,” he said. “Let me go back out there. Let me see if he’ll put something in black and white for me.” And he walked out and got in the Cadillac without a contract, without Shaddock having agreed to the latest terms, without, in fact, even Stiles having agreed, without any earnest money, fully confident that he was about to close the deal.
“Sherwood?” said Buck on the way out. “I’ve been with you a month now, and I’ve been thinking about my future and everything, and, well, I think I’d like to join you in the real estate business after graduation, if you’ll have me.”
“Well, I’d have to break a few rules, now, to do that,” said Sherwood. “Bringing in a UT boy. We’d have to lower our standards.” He looked at Buck with mock seriousness for a moment, then broke into a wide grin. “But I think we could find a way.”
Sherwood’s strategy when he talked to Stiles for the last time was to wing it. He offered $8 million for the property, with $25,000 earnest money, knowing he could come up with the $25,000 out of his own pocket if necessary, gambling that he could talk Shaddock into the $8 million later.
Stiles looked at him evenly, saying nothing, stroking his beard, occasionally exchanging cryptic glances with Norman. When Sherwood was finished talking he looked at Norman again. “Still doesn’t seem like that good a deal, does it?” he said.
“The eight million is strong,” said Norman, “but the twenty-five thousand isn’t.”
“So do I need to sell?” Stiles asked, shrugging. “I don’t know, man. It’s two million dollars profit. But I still don’t have a guaranteed sale. We don’t get the zoning, then he doesn’t close the deal and all I’ve got’s twenty-five thousand. He’s a bigger spender than that. I mean, that guy! He’s got to have fifty thousand dollars.”
“Is it worth it if it can be fifty grand?” Sherwood asked.
“Seems like it always has been.”
“Then let’s write a contract, and give me till noon tomorrow to get it for you.”
“No, Sherwood, I don’t want to do that.” Stiles looked exhausted, and his voice was completely flat. “See, they screwed around with my mind for so long, and now I don’t know if I’ll still do what I said I’d do. I wish they’d have signed my first counter and ended my misery. You tell them if I counter at all I won’t counter for another week.”
The ball had hit the ground. The deal was dead.
“I thought I was going to get him to sign a contract this afternoon,” Sherwood told Buck on his way back to the office. “I really did. I really, really did.”
“Seemed to me like he didn’t know what he wants to do,” said Buck.
Hearing that somehow made Sherwood brighten. “Hey,” he said, “it’s America. Nobody does.”
The Chosen Few
At the end of that day Sherwood had a visitor at his office—a small, immaculately groomed, sincere, gimlet-eyed man in his fifties named Dr. Bill Bright. Dr. Bright is the founder and head of the Campus Crusade for Christ, and Sherwood had met him at a Campus Crusade dinner the previous weekend, which he had attended at the invitation of the oil man Bunker Hunt. Dr. Bright had called Sherwood earlier in the week and asked if he could come by and talk. He brought with him a tall, pale young man named Bob Simmons.
Sherwood poured sugar-free Sprites all around and chatted awhile with Dr. Bright and Bob about Texas athletes who were also Christians. Dr. Bright radiated a beatific calm that had an immediate effect on Sherwood; all the toughness and hard bargaining of the day was suddenly gone and he was a new man, quiet and reverent.
Presently Dr. Bright cleared his throat and leaned forward, signaling that it was time to get down to business. “You know,” he said, “Dallas and Houston are the two most strategic cities in the world, in terms of Christ. Dallas is one of the most blessed cities in all the world.”
“Amen,” said Sherwood.
“People talk about the healthy economy of Dallas and Houston,” said Dr. Bright, “and I think the business climate here is blessed because God has blessed it. Because the people believe. Now New York City, New York City is one of the most corrupt, decadent cities in the world. It’s a Sodom and Gomorah. And that’s why its economy is declining. It’s a cesspool. It’s a garbage pail. And it’ll continue to be a millstone around the neck of this nation because of its decadence.
“Now Sherwood,” Dr. Bright went on, “we’ve militarily become a paper tiger. We’re impotent. We’re in a great spiritual crisis. There’s no optimism anywhere. There’s no hope. We need an awakening. And frankly, that’s why I’ve come here today. My one great objective is to mobilize men, Sherwood, like yourself. I’m looking for a thousand men like you and Bunker who will put their shoulders to the wheel. It’s always only a handful of people.”
“You can count on me,” said Sherwood. “Tell me your needs, and I’ll try to respond.”
“Basically,” said Dr. Bright, “I’m looking for a thousand men who will give or raise a million dollars each.” A billion dollars. Sherwood didn’t blink. “We have to move faster than we’ve ever moved. We have to do things we’ve never done. We want to set up training centers in every city of over fifty thousand people in the world. We need millions of decisions for Christ. We’re working in Colombia. In Kenya. In India. In Korea. Getting decisions for the Lord.”
“Let me say this to you,’ said Sherwood. “Dr. Bright, I cant’ give you a million dollars today. I have made a lot of money by anyone’s standards but I’ve never made a million dollars in a year. I may soon. But not now. But I want you to know I’m with you and I’ll put my wallet where my mouth is.”
Dr. Bright smiled a wan, holy smile. “I want to lay before you a challenging, exciting way to pray,” he said. “You can say, ‘Lord, you’ve given me everything I have.’ You can say, ‘I would like to make a faith promise. If you give me a million dollars, Lord, I’ll know what do with it.’”
“Well, I’ll accept your challenge,” said Sherwood reverently. This was a special moment for him; it was an honor to be asked to give a million dollars and to have your name mentioned in the same breath with that of a man like Bunker Hunt, and it also meant that all the hustle of the business day was a sign not of greed, but of faith. “It would not be a miracle for that to happen in my life. I’ll pray that prayer, Dr. Bright.”
After Dr. Bright and Bob Simmons left, Sherwood sat for a moment, dazed, then carefully gathered up the Styrofoam cups in his office and washed and dried them. Then he shook his head and allowed himself a small grin. “Imagine that,” he said. “Him asking an old East Dallas boy like me for a million dollars.” He poked his head out into the hall. “Anybody still here?” he asked. “Alden? Rick? Ya’ll make any money today?”
Epilogue
On July 12, the Dallas City Plan Commission zoned 46 of Jerry Stiles’ 201 acres multifamily and the rest single-family, although city staff had recommended that all the land be zoned single-family. The next day, Peter Shaddock submitted to Stiles, through Sherwood, a contract for the sale of the land for $8 million, with $50,000 earnest money. Stiles turned the offer down. He had decided to develop the tract out himself.
In August Sherwood arranged the sale of the 46 multifamily acres from Stiles to Bruce Weale for $3.4 million, and the sale of a nearby 150-acre tract of land on the Dallas North Freeway to Peter Shaddock for $3.6 million. Sherwood’s commissions on the two deals totaled $250,000.
On September 1, in a small private ceremony, Sherwood Blount, Jr., and Phyllis Bisch became husband and wife.
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