People: David Johnson
SHOWTIME FOR THE MUD MAN
There are buildings, and there's the Empire State. There are resorts, and there's Bay Harbor near Petoskey. There are developers, and there's David V. Johnson, '71, president of Victor International, Southfield. His current project has the media agog.
Bay Harbor covers five miles of waterfront at Little Traverse Bay, site of a former cement plant. The 1,056-acre complex has some 500 lots ranging from $300,000 to $1 million each, and includes a world-class marina and yacht club, a neo-classical village area with shops, and 27 holes of golf designed by MSU alumnus Art Hills, 'golf's hottest architect.'
'There are some great resorts in northern Michigan,' says Johnson. 'But none of them have golf and a harbor twice the size of Round Lake in Charlevoix . . . There's nothing like it in Michigan or the Midwest.'
The brisk sales of lots so far has validated his strategy. 'My philosophy,' he explains, 'is that there is a market that will pay for a higher quality product, for more land and less density. I also believe in the importance of the unique feature. In this case it's water and we have the ultimate piece in the Midwest.'
David's partner in Bay Harbor is CMS Capital Inc., the parent company of Consumers Power Co. To bring the project home, he has assembled a team that includes several key Spartans: Mark Hubbard, '82, is project accountant and CEO of Victor International; lead attorney Cameron Piggott, '71, of Dykema-Gossett, was David's fraternity brother at MSU; Steve Kircher '86, head of Michigan operations for Boyne resorts and former MSU golfer, is co-managing the golf construction; and Don Vidosh, who attended MSU prior to heading a nationally- known landscape business in Brighton, is one of David's main contractors.
A native of Detroit, David credits his success partly to his days at MSU, which he calls 'absolutely wonderful, the greatest experience in my life.'
He majored in packaging and now, he says with a chuckle, 'I package real estate deals.'
As a senior at MSU, he bought a gas station and eventually owned a chain of seven stations. After selling them, he moved to Birmingham and used the profit the establish his real estate business. He remains a strong supporter of MSU, having funded research in fisheries and wildlife. 'I come back to about one football game a year,' he says. 'This fall I came back to see the Rolling Stones. It was great. I love how they keep hanging on.'
David himself knows something about hanging on and tenacity. In 1978 he broke his neck in a pool accident at his Bloomfield Hills home and was told he'd never walk again. 'I said I was going skiing in Aspen,' he recalls, 'and eight months later, I did.'
Today he's married with one child and lives in a horse farm in Clarkston. He especially enjoys riding in South Fox Island, 30 miles west of Charlevoix, two-thirds of which he owns. As he puts it, 'Horses are my legs.'
On his way to becoming one of the state's biggest builders and developers, David, now 44, acquired the nickname 'the Mud Man' for his propensity to get out, rain or shine, to inspect his projects at close range. He says he rather likes the nickname, even though the contrast with Bay Harbor, the ultimate luxury resort, remains stark. Many people await the successful completion of Bay Harbor. They include those in the area who can't wait for the cement plant eye-sore to disappear, and golfers who are hear advance description of Bay Harbor as the Pebble Beach of Michigan. With that kind of accolades, fanatic golfers are counting the days to its opening in 1996.
