Looking for a New Building
Summer, 1987

1987 was the year I went looking for my own building. I was sick of staying at Dance Arts Unlimited. The place was not working out for a variety of reasons. We had outgrown the space of two rooms in the back. The air conditioner didn’t work, the place was always dirty, it was run-down, and we needed more room. I had an excellent relationship with Glen Hunsucker, owner of Dance Arts, for the first six years, but now in 1987 he and I began to quarrel. I felt totally taken advantage of, probably because I was!  What I was not aware of was that Glen had a serious drug problem that would put him in prison for most of the 90s.

Miserable as I was, I had enough money to buy a building in the $250,000 range. I went looking. Believe it or not, at one point or another in the span of a year, I put contracts down on 7 different buildings!  And not one deal went through!  Can you imagine that?  Here was someone with enough cash to buy at that level, no credit problems, yet not one deal went through. After 1987 passed, all but one of the 7 were still for sale!  It is obvious I had little flair for real estate. As I look back, the whole darn year was one big waste of time.

I would be hard-pressed to locate all 7 today. There was one building however I will never forget: My Castle!  Just like a beautiful woman can cast a spell over a man, I was helpless from the moment I saw this place. It captured my heart!  I loved that place. I still do. The architecture made it look like a medieval castle. 16,000 square feet. Compare that to our location here with 6,000 square feet. The place was absolutely gorgeous. Any time you want to see it, go look at the corner of Greenridge and Beverly Hills. Someone has bought it and fixed it up. It still looks great!

The original idea was for me to buy one wing of the building for a price I could afford. I would share the maintenance of the overall building with these other buyers who wanted parts as well. One day I went to the building for a big meeting with sellers. Since they were from Nevada, they found it less expensive to put their office right there on the premises.

During the meeting, I raised several points about what guaranteed me protection from abuses by these other unseen buyers. The two guys said I was a terrific business man. It looked to them like the smartest thing for me to do was to buy the whole place myself and rent out the parts I didn't need. My own Kingdom!  I was intoxicated.

The two sellers spent a couple hours hammering out a great deal for me including low payments for a couple years and a huge balloon payment after I got settled in. The next thing you know, I agreed to buy the place for $557,000 !!!!  Mind you this was only about $300,000 out of my league. But the place was HOT!  I mean it was a physically beautiful building. It was so pretty!  I still get all mushy inside whenever I drive past the place 16 years after the fact.

Nevertheless I was so far out of my league it was ridiculous. I was worried sick. I knew I was taking a big gamble. I gave them my $7,000 earnest money and went home to raise the down payment of $70,000 (my entire life savings).

However on the way out the oddest thing happened. A drain spout fell off one of the walls for no reason as I walked by. That was so peculiar. As it crashed to the ground, I remember thinking what a strange omen. I was reminded of one of my favorite movies, "The Man Who Would Be King". Sean Connery is forbidden to marry a woman, but he decides to do it anyway. Birds fall from the air, crops die, plague strikes, and his bride-to-be has a seizure during the wedding ritual. Talk about bad omens !  I couldn't get the thought of that drain spout out of my mind.

I came by the next day to look things over with my carpenter. He was appalled!   The only air conditioner in the entire complex that worked was in the seller's office. A bum lived in the third level. There were signs of termite damage in the some of the walls. There was water all over the basement. He was very negative about my building, but then he wasn't in love.

What worried me the most, however, was my inability to reach a key investor. The day I agreed to purchase the building, the two men had told me of a major investor. He was said to be the owner of a security systems firm with ties to the defense industry. In their words, this guy had wanted to buy a third of the place himself, they said, but didn’t have the capital for the whole place. When they mentioned I was going to buy the whole place, the sellers had contacted him to see what he thought about it. They said this man would be thrilled to rent the areas I had absolutely no interest in. It was the potential of this rent that would give me the chance to make a go of this deal. So naturally I asked for his number and promptly received it. That afternoon I called. Not a working number. Hmm. Then it started to rain very hard. As I drove to the studio, I thought about the bad phone number. Another bad omen.

After class that night I took some people from the studio over to look at the place. Except for the bum who scared the daylights out of all of us and the underground level that was completely under 4 feet of water, my friends from the studio were very impressed. They agreed this was a gorgeous place and they knew how unhappy I was in my present location. The group expressed a lot of support. I was encouraged.

While I was there, I decided to try a little trick. The two sellers had given me a master key after I handed them my $7,000 check. Testing the key, sure enough it worked!   I walked into their office and went straight for the rolodex the man had gotten the number from. I was interested to note I had been given the wrong number deliberately. The number I was given was one card removed from the correct phone number. Plus they had given me the wrong area code. They had said my guy lived in Austin, but as I studied the number it was apparent he lived right here in Houston.

To this day, I will never know what came over me, but I will say one thing - Damn that building was pretty!

Caveat Emptor which in my case translated into: Beware the powers of seduction of a beautiful woman over a lonely man.

The incident above occurred in 1987. Here is the original write-up from an old July 1987 document I ran across.

A NEVER-BEFORE TOLD STORY. Speaking of rip-offs, about 2 summers ago I took complete and total leave of my senses. SSQQ hasn't always been this large. As recently as 14 months ago, we were offering maybe 27 classes every two months as compared to our current 80+. We shared our location with a jazz dance studio and taught 90% of our classes in two back rooms. We had been doing this since 1980. The air conditioner didn't work, the place was dirty, run-down, & we needed more room, so I was trying to buy a building. Believe it or not, at some point or another, I put contracts down on 7 different buildings, most of which are still for sale. But one, unfortunately, captured my heart. It looked like a medieval castle. 16,000 square feet! (our location here is 6,000). The place was absolutely gorgeous. Any time you want to see it, it's at Greenridge/Beverly Hills. The original idea was for me to buy one wing of the building for something I could afford and share the place with these other buyers, but during the meeting, I raised several points about guaranteeing me protection from abuses by these other unseen buyers. The two guys said I was a terrific businessman and it looked to them like the smartest thing to do was to just go ahead and buy the whole damn place myself and rent out the rest. My own Kingdom! They spent a couple hours hammering out a great deal for me and the next thing you know, total price $557,000!!!!! Mind you, this was only about $300 thousand out of my league, but the place was HOT! I gave them my $7,000 earnest money and prepared to raise the down payment of $70,00 (my entire life savings) when all kinds of odd things started happening. Drain spouts would down in front of me. None of the air conditioners worked. A bum lived in the third level. There were signs of termites in the underground level. There was water all over the basement. But most important, I couldn't get ahold of the major investor that they had told me about the owner of a major security systems firm with ties to the defense industry. You see, this guy wanted to buy a third of the place himself, they said, but didn't have the capital and would be thrilled just to be allowed to rent from me! Not only that, but he wanted to rent the areas I had absolutely no interest in. It was his rent that would give me the chance to make a go of this deal. So naturally I asked for his number and promptly received it. That afternoon I called. Not a working number. Hmmmm. Then it started raining very hard. That night I took some people from the studio over to look at the place. Except for the bum who scared the ... out of all of us & the ground level completely under 4 feet of water, they were verrrry impressed.

Nevertheless my gut told me something was very wrong. I decided to try a trick - the owners had given me a master key after I handed them my $7,000 check. I broke into their office and went straight for the rolodex the man had gotten the number from. Sure enough, the number he gave me was for a guy who lived in Austin. My guy was the next guy listed...& both numbers were obviously Houston-area numbers. So home I went and called him- midnight- and he answered. The whole thing was a hoax. They had tried the same routine on him. The place had flood problems, foundation problems, the owner was being sued, it had once been condemned by the city of Houston...a complete nightmare!

Scared out of my wits I called my realtor at 1 am & found out you can cancel an earnest money contract any time within 72 hours after signing, so at hour 71, I sent them a telegram & after MUCH arguing I was able to get my 7 thou back.

To this day, I'll never know what came over me.