If I Had To Build Live Oak Lake All Over Again… (Part 2)
By Isaac French
Welcome to Part 2 on how I'd build Live Oak Lake if I had to do it all over series.
I’ve spent over 6 hours on all 11 steps, and I think you're gonna love it! (You can find part 1 here if you just joined the list or missed it last week). I'll warn you, this is a bit dense, but I'm packing a lot in.
First, a quick review from last week...
Step 1: Start Telling Our Story (summarized)
Begin sharing our journey publicly. Authentic storytelling attracts guests, investors, and partners. Use Instagram and TikTok to post consistent updates showcasing behind-the-scenes content. Authenticity and consistency are key, as this can significantly boost our brand and property value, and most importantly build the muscles now, before we even start!
Step 2: Figure Out Finances (summarized)
Pitch our dream to potential investors, proposing a 50/50 equity split for a $400,000 loan. Outline the opportunity, plans, and comparisons like Live Oak Lake. Secure funds while establishing a solid financial and operational foundation.
With limited funds, we’ll pitch our dream to potential investors (friends, family, anyone with resources we think might be interested), proposing a 50/50 equity split for a ~$400,000 loan. Our pitch includes the opportunity, plans, and comps like Live Oak Lake. The goal is to secure funds while establishing a solid financial and operational foundation.
And now, here are steps 3 and 4...
Step 3: Find Land
Of course, we could renovate an old motor lodge or an abandoned summer camp, and have a really cool and experiential micro-hotel. Benefit there? A built-in story (everybody loves redemption)! And, potentially the ability to operate a multi-unit hospitality property in what would otherwise be an overnight-lodging disallowed jurisdiction (zoning, regulations).
But the downside is that there might be a lot of givens that aren't ideal.
On our project, we're going to do it the (slightly) harder way: from the ground up.
BUT, this means we get to build everything exactly how we want it, and we're going to take full advantage of this opportunity.
So, time to look for raw land.
We need to identify a market that is:
Ideally not too constrained by seasonality. There will be plenty of ways to work around slow seasons by creating a destination, but in general a more temperate climate will be easiest, since this is our first project
Within ~2 hours of a metro area of 1M+ people
Within ~15 minutes to a small-medium-size town with at least one decent restaurant (bonus points if there's a great coffee shop / breakfast place there, too).
In a state that isn't crazy in their regulations of new development. And in a county within that state that is as hands-off as we can find with new development outside city limits (Texas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Maine are a few that come to mind, but there are plenty others, too). Researching these criteria starts with a ChatGPT conversation, then zooming in to specific regions and combing through county websites for developer documents. A quick phone call and meeting with the planning department is in order, finally.
Once we've identified a few potential areas, we get on Zillow. Of course, we could also get creative and direct-mail property owners for off-market opportunities, but we'll save that in the back pocket for our next project.
For our first micro-resort, we want to build 5 cabins. Maybe more in the future, but Phase 1 (if not the whole thing) will be 5 cabins. 4-8 units is an easily-attainable sweet spot that provides both scale economies in build cost/effort, AND enough intimacy to create a magical experience for guests, plus insanely high occupancy (80-90%).
For 5 cabins, we want ~0.5-1 acre apiece, so 5 acres would be perfect. We're going to set a search filter for properties that are 3-10 acres (with at least some trees). If we really want to get fancy, we could also call up a local realtor and have them customize an MLS search for this that will send us daily results within our criteria.
Alright, now we've set our bait, we've cast our line, and it's time to slowly real it in...
Small tug. Is this a bit?? Nope...just a weed (ha!—quite literally sometimes).
But after a few casts, we finally get one!
It's a small plot of land with plenty of character and potential, just outside the city limits of a small-ish city, but in proximity to a big-ish city (or two). We submit an offer with a 60 day due diligence period. Offer accepted.
We're now under contract with $1,000 of earnest money down, and it's time to do due diligence.
We already know the generalities of what's allowable from our earlier market research. Now it's time to check off the details for this specific piece.
Though we need to stay directly involved in this process, we can leverage our realtor's connections, knowledge and eagerness to close this deal in helping us track down what's relevant in this local jurisdiction.
In addition to zoning regulations, this includes looking into septic, water, and power availability.
After a few meetings, and some creative explanations, we're good to go!
Step 4: Design a Resort (and brand it, too)
Ha! There's a lot of work in those first three words, but we don't need to figure out most of it right off the bat. We just need to interpret that burning dream—together with the land we're now under contract to purchase—into something magical (and buildable). (Take careful note of the order there—don't ever let utilitarianism get in the way of dreams!)
We're going to spend a couple days on the property, just immersing ourselves in the space: observing the lay of the land, the trees, views (good and/or bad), and potential water features (pond, streams, fountains, pools).
We want the land to speak to us. I know that sounds corny, but trust me, it's not.
Slowly, in bursts, and then all at once... our dream is taking form!
We're going to madly sketch different layouts of a site plan on a drone or satellite image. Procreate on iPad with Apple Pencil is the best (and easiest) way to do this. It's simple, efficient, but powerful enough to create professional drawings if we're so inclined.
Now doing all this design ourselves will save us hundreds of thousands of dollars. At this state it might very well make sense to hire a consultant (or someone who's successfully built a micro-resort) to come onsite and help us lay out unit locations, roads, amenities, a laundry facility (out of sight), etc.
Nothing like the advice from someone who's already been down this road...(the Experiential Hospitality Community is full of such folks who can help us with this).
In any case, we're going to manifest our dreams on paper, after receiving input from the land.
Now for the last good while, as this dream has been knocking on our hearts, we've been collecting ideas from all over: Pinterest, Instagram, places we've been before, and others we only saw in a book.
We've been intentionally observing, just like the one-and-only Hans Lorei has instructed.
We're going to story-board a simple palette of colors, inspirational photos from other properties, building materials we like, lifestyle experiences (kayaking, fire pit time, hammocks, etc), and, that's about it.
We gather all these elements on somewhere (Pinterest, maybe), and then ask:
What do we like?
What resonates with us?
What is the vision that will carry us through a big, complex project?
Remember, if it inspires and moves us, chances are, it’ll inspire and move others, too.
Codifying this concept into a "design bible" gives us a clear roadmap. It's going to guide every little (and big) decision throughout our journey.
The units themselves—though we could arguably go with a great prefab option (and there are some great ones)—will be built from scratch, but very similar to each other.
We’ve come up with a 300-500 square foot design (some 2 BR, some 1 BR), with an open floor plan and plenty of glass.
There’ll be small but capable kitchenettes at each, with an outdoor grill as well. This will facilitate guest cooking, which will actually be a big part of the potential experience here. We’ll sell locally-sourced meal kits, prepared daily by a local chef, in a small commissary at the commons area. This way we don’t need any F&B onsite…
At least one of the units will be ADA, and we’re going to install EV chargers at each of them. Showers AND tubs (extremely nice and well-positioned ones…remember, huge photo/content op here).
Sleek, stunning design, inside and out.
The whole property needs to come together into one, cohesive, magical, experience.
Every detail needs to be intentional.
And as a final note here: there's nothing like having someone with exceptionally great tastes—ideally different from your own—to be a sounding board throughout the whole process of design. Can transform you from a wobbly, fearful noob to a confident, decisive design boss (but keep in mind at least some of the credit goes to them:).
Design complete (well, the "map" is, anyway).
Next, we'll cover finding a lender, and then building!!