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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When he left the office and got into the car, Sherwood was charged up. He had the feeling that he was almost there, and he wanted to move quickly. “Now, what I’m gonna do,” he said, “I’m gonna call Stiles tonight and say, ‘Look, baby doll, please just sit tight for a couple of days.’” He squinted contemplatively and shifted his grip on the steering wheel. He came to a red light and wanted to turn right, but there was a yellow Toyota stopped in front of him in the right lane, its turn signal blinking. Sherwood frowned. “Come on, dammit, you Toyota,” he said. “Get competitive!”
On Saturday, June 23, Peter Shaddock drove out to Sherwood’s house and dropped off a copy of a contract for the sale of 201.723 gross acres in the County of Collin from Stiles Land Corporation to Sherwood Blount, Trustee and/or Assigns, for the sum of $7 million, or $35,000 an acre.
Monday morning Sherwood took the contract to Stiles’ office, a one-story building far north on Preston Road. He parked and walked in the side door and found Norman Medlen, who took him into Stiles’ sanctum, a big, deep-pile-carpeted room with assorted plaques (What It Takes to Be Number One by Vince Lombardi), photographs (Stiles by Gittings; Stiles with his wife; Stiles with Rosalynn Carter), and stuffed heads of exotic deerlike animals on the walls. Stiles himself sat behind his desk, a vast, thick slab of wood set on a chrome pedestal, on which rested a few papers and a worn copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People. He was wearing cowboy boots, blue jeans, a work shirt, and a belt with a horse on the buckle and his initials on the back.
“Fellas,” said Sherwood after everyone sat down, “I am pleased to present . . .”
“Come on, Sherwood,” said Stiles. “Just give it here.”
Sherwood persisted. “Fellas, I am pleased to give you a contract from one of our city’s finest builder-developers,” he said, and gave Stiles and Norman each a copy of the contract.
Stiles glanced at it for a moment. “You’re the trustee?” he said.
“That’s right,” said Sherwood.
“He doesn’t want me to know he’s buying it?”
“He says if you knew you wouldn’t sell at any price.”
“He’s crazy. I’m not proud.”
Stiles lapsed into an enigmatic silence. He glanced through the contract, looking extremely tired, just on the verge of falling asleep. Sherwood began to outline various minor aspects of Shaddock’s offer, but Stiles appeared to be off in some dream world where he couldn’t hear any of it. When Sherwood finished talking, Stiles continued to stare down at his hands, looking mournful. Finally he mumbled, “What is he thinking about that I wouldn’t sell it to him? Doesn’t he know that I know it’s him?”
“Uh-uh,” said Sherwood. “He hasn’t figured that out yet. And I don’t think it should be a factor in the negotiations.”
“No, I don’t either. It just surprises me.” Stiles lapsed into another long, dolorous silence, as if to imply that Shaddock’s secrecy constituted some shattering revelation to him about the ignobility of human nature. “I’d been hoping for a straight eight million,” he said at last, disappointment in his voice.
“Look, Jerry,” said Sherwood, “I have really had to get him off the McKamy land. I have had to get him to focus his attention on this property. And now he’s finally done it. But I don’t know if he can get more money.”
“Well,” said Stiles, “if he can’t, we better forget it. Right, Norm?”
“That’s right,” said Norman.
Stiles raised his eyebrows. “We’re gonna be late. Let’s go.”
“Let me have your thoughts,” said Sherwood.
“Let’s go.”
“Will I have a counter to the contract?”
“Yeah,” said Stiles. “I’ll counter it tomorrow or the next day.”
Sherwood and Stiles got up and went out together to look over another piece of property. On the way they could, under the unwritten laws of real estate dealing, let down their respective guards and talk, like opposing lawyers who have lunch together during courtroom recess. Sherwood didn’t have to pitch, and Stiles didn’t have to be skeptical, although those are close to the natural attitudes of the two men.
“Let me tell you, Jerry,” said Sherwood, “whatever happens in this deal, it’s great to have the opportunity to experience your and Peter’s philosophy. To really experience what it is that makes you build two hundred houses a year, while he chooses to build seventy-five.”
“He never built seventy-five houses in a year,” said Stiles sharply. “You know, back in ’75 he almost semiretired. He was in some speculation deals, and then his father died, and they were very close, and Peter started thinking maybe he oughta be smelling the roses more.”
“What do you think made him stay in?”
“His basic competitiveness. He saw what Talmadge and me were doing and he wanted to go along. He wanted to win. It’s like . . . did you see Barbara Jordan on TV last night?”
Sherwood said he hadn’t.
“Well, they asked her, was it more fun getting there or doing it once you got there? And she said, ‘Getting there. When I got there I was bored.’ And that’s exactly right. You think it’s interesting, building houses? I just always had a terrible fear of being a failure, so I had to make myself a success. But if I ever get it all put together in the business, you know what I’d like to do?”
“What?”
“Be a country-and-western singer. You know? I was a music major for a while at North Texas State. That would be fun.”
“But Jerry,” said Sherwood, a little taken aback by this kind of talk, “you’ve got to say that we’re two guys who have been successful. That’s undeniable. You more than me, of course, but then you’re so much older, too.”
“Yeah,” said Stiles, “screw you.” And they both laughed, the thorny issue of motivation having been laid to rest.
The Way It’s Done
Most of the people Sherwood knows in Dallas share certain attributes. They have a marked affection for SMU, particularly its athletic programs, and for sports generally, particularly football. Most of them have personally dedicated their lives to the service of Jesus Christ. On the subjects of SMU, sports, the free enterprise system, and religion, they are serious to the point of piety; on everything else though, tough and ironic. They work in the business world, give money to good nonpolitical causes, are usually married. What distinguishes them from most Americans, besides having a lot more money, is the extent to which their lives are defined by deals. They spend their days discussing deals over their car phones, having deal-oriented breakfast meetings, doing deals in each other’s offices; they live in houses that were good deals themselves when purchased. Although making deals is a competitive matter, it also has a generous element of personal loyalty: somehow in a deal it often turns out to be important whose daughter you married, or what fraternity you were in, or where you played ball. Economists can say what they want about the absolute rationality of the free market, but the associations formed in college, church, or neighborhood pay off. For instance, the appeal to Sherwood of his lawyer, Wayne Miller, lies not only in Wayne’s legal skill but also in their having played ball together at SMU—and it doesn’t hurt that Wayne is married to the mayor’s daughter. That’s the way Dallas works.
One morning in June Sherwood drove the Cadillac down to a white office building on Stemmons Freeway to call on Max Christian. Christian played ball at SMU in the fifties and then started an insurance company called Unimark with a friend of his from school, Charles Terrell, who once served on the Dallas City Council. Christian and Terrell are legendarily close partners. They work behind a single, immense desk and confront visitors as a pair—Christian huge, bald, and jovial; Terrell small, wiry, and inquisitive.
Sherwood sat before the huge desk, over toward Christian’s side because it was Christian that he had business with. “Max, I’ll be real direct and not take much of your time,” he said. “I’m here as chairman of the capital funds drive for the Town North YMCA. Now the Dallas Metropolitan Y is trying to raise nine point eight million dollars, and Town North’s goal is a hundred thousand. We’re gonna build some new tennis courts out there. Can you help us?”
Christian smiled, puffed on his cigar, and looked at Sherwood over the rims of his half-moon glasses. “You know, Sherwood, Charlie and I write the insurance for the Houston Metropolitan Y”—he looked over at Terrell and winked—“but I don’t know who writes it for the Dallas Y. It sure isn’t us.” He leaned back in his chair. “Sherwood, I’m not going to help you right now.”
Sherwood forced a smile. “Okay, Max. Could you just sign this pledge card for me? Just write down a zero right there and sign it.”
Christian took the card, signed it, and handed it back.
“Ya’ll doing any real estate deals these days?” Sherwood asked.
“When we do real estate,” said Christian, “we do it with John Eulich.”
When he got back to the office, Sherwood picked up a stack of pink message slips, returned phone calls for half an hour, and then took the elevator downstairs to the fifth floor and went in a door on which was embossed:
MWJ Corporation
Sterling Projects
Jackson Exploration
My Library
