Return to America

There were many challenges to moving back to America after so many years living abroad.  There was first the question of where to live.  The obvious choice was Los Angeles where I was born and raised, still had family–most significantly my mother–and where I owned rental property next to the family homestead.  But LA was ruled out.  After all, it was scarcely the city I knew whilst growing up.  Congestion had gotten so bad that a leisurely drive around town had become a lost art.  What’s more, illegal immigrants had invaded the Southland in biblical proportions. LA was now Mexico.

The logical choice was my late father’s hometown of Savannah, Georgia– a city known for its solidity of colonial structures, mossy cemeteries, and restless ghosts that wonder the cobblestone pathways at night, or so we are told. As history reminds us, Atlanta was reduced to ashes at wars end. General Sherman, on his infamous scorched-earth campaign across the state, was so smitten by Savannah that he offered her up to President Lincoln a Christmas gift, thus preserving the city.  Today, novelist, filmmakers, and high-spirited tour guides regale visitors with tails of the regions' most intriguing past.  

To me, none of this mattered.  

My only concern was the period house I purchased– sight unseen– at the behest of relatives who wanted to keep in in the family.   

Somehow I seem drawn to older structures, or they to me.  The Los Angeles home where I was raised  was built in 1900. A generation later I purchased the house next door built in 1895.  A few years after that, I acquired a row of houses in Savannah built in 1920.  These investments were made while I still lived in Japan, where money fell from the sky like April showers.  Otherwise Savannah itself did not interest me. 

In those days—and indeed my whole adult life—the notion of living anywhere in the South excited me about as much as a rectal exam.  Country drawls, mindless wit, and torch-carrying mobs were ingrained images that were hard to shake.  And yet, as time went on, a sense of destiny would tame these mindless fears. So in 2008, following the closure of my Japan business, I loaded up the truck and headed off to see the house I had purchased in "the Coastal Empire".  It was an adventurous cross country road trip; one that ended in an unpleasant surprise.

But first, some background.  Savannah, as it turns out, is more than just a window to the region’s Antebellum past. It is an industrial center.  While tourism drives the local economy, Savannah is also home to the third largest sea-port in North America.  And that’s just the beginning. According to the Savannah Area Chamber, Gulfstream, a jet aircraft manufacturer, employs 11,000 people.  Located just adjacent to the Savannah International airport, the company is not only a major training center for commercial pilots, but its flagship aircraft, the G700, is a highly sought-after private jet for Saudi royals, business dignitaries, and hall of fame athletes.  As I stumbled into the short-term housing  business, many of my early clients were Gulfstream pilots and engineers.  

More of my clients arrived from Savannah College of Art and Design, or SCAD, one of Georgia’s most prominent academic institutions and one of the top design schools in the country.  Founded in 1978 the school occupies 70 distinctive buildings in and around the picturesque city. The university also boasts campuses in Europe, Atlanta and Hong Kong, with enrollment of 14000 students. 

I also became involved with Savannah State University, the states oldest historically black college (HBCU).  Founded in 1890, my first book, 21 Years of Wisdom, was a part of the curriculum in the department of Business Communications for the 2017-18 academic school year.   

– Continued