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Dream Merchants The News & Observer September 12, 1999 The News & Observer
September 12, 1999
Dream merchants
Raleigh -- One was a nuclear engineer who did research for the government. Another was a life insurance salesman who hated his job. A third made his living selling computer systems across eastern North Carolina. But Mike Young, Charles "Woody" Teague and Jon Rufty all switched careers to build dreams for a living - expensive dream homes for other people costing up to $2 million or more.
"It's not that I didn't enjoy engineering, but there's not a day that goes by that I don't enjoy getting up in the morning and wish there were a couple more hours in the day," Young said. "I can't say that I felt the same way about nuclear engineering."
The three, whose career changes were influenced by summer construction jobs when they were young men, are capitalizing on the biggest boom in custom-home construction in Triangle history. Home building here has proceeded at a record pace since 1996, and the rarified market for mansions with movie theaters and multi-car garages has exploded.
Five years ago, only 17 houses were built here that cost $500,000 or more, according to Market Opportunity Research Enterprises, a Rocky Mount company that tracks residential construction trends in the Triangle. But in the 12 months ending June 30, 119 homes were built in the same price range, a 700 percent increase.
"Three years ago, there were no million-dollar houses being built in Wake County," Rufty said. "Now there are 30 costing $1 million or more."
Some are being built by Young, Teague and Rufty, who are among a group of about 15 builders responsible for all the custom homes going up here. They deal with well-heeled clients used to getting their way, and endure sleepless nights while some of their mansions await buyers. But in return, they have the satisfaction of working in a fantasy land in which the more money a client has, the more fantastic a house can be.
Need marble counter tops? No problem. Ditto for Brazilian cherry floors.
How about a front door carved from a slab of original growth wood dredged up after 200 years on the bottom of Lake Erie. You can have that, too, for about $6,000. Teague was smitten with a captain's walk he spotted atop a home during a recent visit to Beaufort. So, on a whim, he added one to the roof of a $960,000, three-story house he's building in Wakefield Plantation.
"Every house is a puzzle," Teague said. "A smaller home is 100,000 pieces. A larger home is a million pieces."
"People say, 'What's standard trim?' We don't have any," Rufty said. "Every house is different." Rufty, Teague and Young don't perform the actual work. They spend up to 80 hours a week directing a symphony of tradesmen laying tile and installing custom cabinets and cut glass. The rest of the builders' job involves spending lots of time attending to their wealthy clients' needs.
Rufty's clients have included Pam Valvano, wife of former N.C. State basketball coach Jim Valvano, who died of cancer, and Charles Hora, the president of Lord Corp., an international company based in Cary that had $390 million in sales last year. But most buyers don't have household names, just plenty of money.
And while the builders said their clients generally are easy to get along with, there usually comes a point early on when two issues need to be clarified: In the case of a couple, they must choose whether the husband or wife is running things, and the buyers must learn that they won't get everything they want even though they are paying big bucks.
True, $1 million may buy a 6,000-square-foot home with walk-in closets and a three-car garage. But toss in a wine cellar, a safe room that's secure from attack by robbers or terrorists and an indoor pool, and the cost goes way up.
"People think, 'If I'm spending $1 million, I can get anything,'" Rufty said. "You can't. The hardest part of my job is making expectations meet reality."
The "spec" home experience isn't for the faint of heart among builders, either. Most homes are commissioned in advance by clients. But some builders take a chance and build very expensive homes on a speculative basis.
This year, Young is building three "spec" homes with a total value of $1.61 million. Teague has built two with a total value of $1.76 million.
Until a spec home is sold, the builders can only bite their nails while they watch thousands of dollars in interest pile up on their sizable construction loans.
"If it's not sold by the time it's finished, you have sleepless nights," said Rufty, who builds 10 percent of his homes without buyers. Still, the three builders said they wouldn't do anything else - and they've tried.
Young, 48, who holds a master's degree in nuclear engineering, worked as a researcher for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for six years. But he returned to custom-home building, which he learned from the ground up in construction jobs during high school and college. "Home building lured me out," said Young, who moved from Maryland and began building here in 1988. His company, Young Homes Inc., now build 10 homes a year costing $400,000 to $2 million. "At the NRC, we'd process lots of data, crunch lots of numbers and be near an end result, and the government would cut the funds off," Young said."You'd never see the end product and it was on to something else.
"Here, problems always come up that need solutions," Young said as he oversaw construction of two houses in Madison Park, a subdivision of Charleston-style homes going up off Strickland Road in North Raleigh. "You can let the light bulb come on in your head." For Bill and Susan Burnette, Young's attention to details convinced them to buy a $495,000 house he'd built. "He came in and did things I would not have thought about," Susan Burnette said. "We bought this house in three hours."
Teague, 46, always worked in construction jobs while growing up in Raleigh. His first job, at age 16, was as a laborer at Crabtree Valley, and he later had jobs in heating and air conditioning and working for an electrician.
But after graduating from East Carolina University with a business degree, Teague took a job selling insurance. After four months, he absolutely hated it. "I got to where I couldn't stand to see the sun come up," Teague said. "I had to push it on people who didn't want it. I did not enjoy wearing a coat and a tie. It was not me. I enjoyed working with my hands." Teague buckled on a carpenter's belt and found a job at Wrightsville Beach. Less than two years later, he moved back to Raleigh and found a succession of jobs as a carpenter before going to work for a custom-home builder for eight years.
Six years ago, Teague formed his own company, Woody Teague Custom Homes. This year, he expects to build five homes costing $750,000 to $1.4 million. And he gets great satisfaction from watching his homes come out of the ground. "Money is an object - you've got to have it to live - but it's not the main driving force," Teague said. "I love what I do." That includes customer service.
Susanne Azrak remembered how Teague sent out a crew to fix a leaky pipe free of charge even though she and her husband had purchased their home near Holly Springs four years earlier. “Woody said, 'If it's my fault, I want to fix it, and if something happens in 10 years, I want you to come back to me,'" Azrak said. "He's not obligated at all to do that."
Rufty, 44, helped build custom homes on summer jobs while growing up in Salisbury. But after graduating from N.C. State with a business degree, he worked for nine years selling automated office products and sophisticated computer systems across eastern North Carolina. As a sideline, Rufty began financing another custom-home builder. In 1990, he took the plunge himself.
"I wanted to do unique homes and do it better," Rufty said. He staked his life savings on a $360,000 spec home in MacGregor West, a subdivision then being developed in Cary. Fortunately, the home sold right away. Now, Rufty Homes of Cary builds about 14 houses a year priced at $500,000 to $2 million.
Joe Colson, a retired Lucent engineer, hired Rufty to build a 6,000-square-foot house about three years ago. He didn't learn of Rufty's former career selling expensive computer systems until midway into the project, but said the same thoroughness spilled over into building his home, which cost more than $600,000. "Not knowing his background, the first thing that impressed me was Jon's organization and professionalism. Everything was so organized it appealed to my engineering background," Colson said. "It really turned out almost better than we expected. Usually, houses turn out not as good as you expected." Then again, Rufty's business is building dreams.
"We roll the dice every year," Rufty said. But "sitting down and creating a vision and having a client say, 'Let's build that vision,' and seeing it come out of the ground is very satisfying."
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