The Marshall Plan
July/August 2007
DEVELOPER MARSHALL R. CHESROWN is CEO and sole owner of The Club at Black Rock on
Why'd you drop out of school, what'd you learn selling cars and how did you get into this business? I had a music scholarship to
North Idaho is arguably the best part of the United States, why did it take so long to get noticed? It's grown like crazy, primarily in high end and what makes our market sustainable is we already had the labor force. You can still buy a new home in
What is most important in your business, and how do you provide it? We spend a lot of time in design to end up with really quality projects. I live in the development, and every member knows how to get a hold of me. We're non-equity and run for majority interest. Members didn’t join the Black Rock to sit on a committee and talk about the size of the hamburgers we're going to have.
When did you feel like you "made it?" I haven't made it yet. Financially, I've just been fortunate. When I was 18, I made $90,000 the first year (1976), and that was the worst year I ever had. It was nice, because I never grew up with money and bought into my first dealership at age 20, the youngest Chrysler dealer in
Why own a NASCAR team? I was in the car biz in a big way so I bought a racetrack and got a talented driver and next thing you know we were one of the first teams with Craftsman Truck Series. I did it 11 years.
Anyone you admire in business? I worked with Wayne Huizinga, merged my car company with his. I didn't fit in with corporate
What are your other favorite business endeavors? I still have an auto dealership but life-wise I’ve moved on. One that makes no money but I'm passionate about is cutting horses. We have a breeding outfit on a ranch at the river mouth of
"MARSHALL DOES NOT COMPROMISE ON QUALITY AS A PERSON OR IN HIS BUSINESS, THIS IS REFLECTED IN EVERY ASPECT OF THE CLUB AT BLACK ROCK FROM THE GREETER AT THE FRONT DOORS OF THE CLUBHOUSE TO THE LANDSCAPING CREW, ONLY THE BEST IS GOOD ENOUGH." - John Elway
What gets you out of bed, drives you to succeed? I'm out of bed by 5:30 and love going to work. I was lucky, a mentor told me the definition of success is when you get out of bed and go to work because you want to not because you have to. The money is more of report card. I have a lot of great people that get paid well and work hard. The joke around the company is that I dream the shit up, they execute it and I take all the credit for it.
What's your relationship with Elway? John and I knew each other from the car biz in
What does the future hold for luxury communities and where is the resort-lifestyle trend taking us? If I was to re-do Black Rock I would make it more exclusive, smaller numbers. This demographic really wants something everyone else doesn't have and the better you make them the more successful they’re going to be. The Achilles heel in this business is the level of speculation - it's dangerous for the industry because you only need a few of those guys and everybody experiences depreciation - where people end up selling against themselves by the end of the project. I know one (community) that's had golf for 5 years and still sold only 20 homes. People have figured out if you can’t get to them you can’t use them. Golfers are social. If you have to go somewhere remote and nobody is there and you have to bring your own foursome, long term I don't see how those clubs work financially. You go to some of these clubs and you're the only people there. Exclusive is nice but in reality it's not a place your family will want to hang out and it's a family business because of the average age of buyer. Today it's 49; it can't be dad's golf club anymore.