Greetings from Granville with John and Natasha Deane

Join Kosta and his guests:  John and Natasha Deane owners of Wildwood Resort and Marina located on Cordell Hull Lake in Granville, TN.

In this episode: How John and Natasha met, when they moved to Tennessee, and what brought them to Granville. What the process of renovation looked like transforming The Old Granville Marina into Wildwood Resort starting in 2018. What John and Natasha wish visitors and residents knew about Granville tourism, attractions, and Wildwood.

Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.

Find Out More About John, Natasha, and Wildwood Resort:
https://wildwoodresorttn.com/

Find out more about Kosta and all the ways we're better together:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/

Transcript

John Deane: 0:01

My advice would be aspired to do it all. Find the magic formula that allows you to do well by doing good. And I think we're proof that that's possible.

Morgan Franklin: 0:15

Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation, making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 0:34

Hey, y'all, this is Kosta and today I'm here with my guest, John and Natasha Deane, owners of Wildwood Resort and Marina located on Cordell Hull Lake in Granville, Tennessee. Natasha. Before we get started, I'd like to begin this episode with a brief overview of how you met when you move to Tennessee. And what brought you to the upper Cumberland specifically?

Natasha Deane: 0:55

Okay, well, John and I met when we were both out of college and both working in one form or another at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Oh, nice. I was doing cancer research and he was on the hospital side. He actually worked for my dad, as it happened. My dad introduced us. Shortly after that, within probably a year he got a job in Galveston, Texas. So we both moved away. So we ended up in Galveston, Texas had two kids had a wonderful life a sailboat. And then what do you know now the job Okay, now we're going to Nashville, Tennessee. So this is about 1992.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 1:35

Okay, well, part of Nashville. We started

Natasha Deane: 1:37

in Greenhills and later moved. I got an appointment at Vanderbilt. So I had gotten my graduate degree in virology at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and got an appointment at Vanderbilt to continue cancer research. And so I did that for 25 years while raising our kids and going to church and being involved. And John was growing a business. He was part of a healthcare entrepreneurial venture and then went out on his own started his own business was wildly successful, and we just honestly needed a place to get back to the water. We missed being on the water, we bought a houseboat kept it at Old Hickory lake. And we found that a three day weekend, coming up river with anchoring out with the kids and cooking on the river and watching the stars and I'm a mountain dulcimer player. So I was playing my dulcimer on the

Kosta Yepifantsev: 2:37

I mean, you were on the water for three days. Yeah, that's how we would do it. Didn't you never like do you ever got off the boat? You were around? Where we

Natasha Deane: 2:44

would get off the boat was in Granville. Amazing. That's how we discovered it. This is around 1996.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 2:51

Wow. And so obviously Nashville in 1992 was like, like a different place. Very different was Granville like 90

Natasha Deane: 2:59

Very different. I mean, there was the beginnings of historic Granville, and they had the festival, the heritage day festival. That was the only one they had at that time. And so we were in on the beginnings of that. And we actually got involved with the Bluegrass contest in particular. Oh, wow. brought some of my dulcimer friends out. You know, I enjoyed picking with the Fiddler's and the banjo players and just fell in love. I just absolutely fell in love bought six acres sold the boat. What year was that? That was probably 1998 ish, because I think our we are the home was built around 1999. And so we've had home out there for over 20 years. And most of the time we were both John was growing his business. I was on the faculty at Vanderbilt. Kids were growing up. It was a place for us to just step away from the craziness.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 3:53

Yeah, so you didn't live there full time. You obviously lived in Nashville. When did you guys decide to move full time with the upper Cumberland.

Natasha Deane: 3:59

We were heavily splitting our time after I retired in 2016. And then 2018 We finally decided that was nuts. And in 2020 We sold our place in Nashville and moved out here all full time.

John Deane: 4:14

It was a great place to be during COVID away from the craziness of Nashville, at that point in time we lived in a condo and the goal Oh wow. You do not want to live in a condo Yeah, with you know an elevator ride during a COVID panoramic at our home and Granville we have a little guest house and a little main house which they're both about same size about 1000 square feet. And while we were there we had a friend of ours renovate the main house into a 13 150 square foot home you know with a bathroom that would allow us both to brush our teeth at the same time. Absolutely a walk in closet the essentials of life and it's turned out beautifully. We really enjoy living here waking up in this beautiful scenery And with the wildlife and we're only about three miles from work. So our commute is really short.

Natasha Deane: 5:06

In our views amazing.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 5:07

We're about to talk about the marina and the renovation that you did. So, John in January of 2018, you purchased the old Granville Marina and started the renovation and construction of Wildwood resort. What did the process look like? And what was your ultimate vision?

John Deane: 5:23

So these marinas there, about 50 of them in a 10 state area, are actually owned by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. And so the deal is you purchase the assets, all the buildings, the furniture, fixtures, equipment, the slips from the previous quote, unquote, owner, and you concurrently you sign a lease. In our case, it was a 25 year renewable lease with the US Army Corps of Engineers, so the Corps has to approve us as a lease holder. And that took a little time, we probably started that process in July of 2017. Okay, and were awarded the right to enter into the transaction with the previous owner on January 28, of 2018. So you have to be approved, we have to be approved. Wow. So it's a two interest that double edged thing, you know, that quote unquote, owner needs to give to reach an agreement for the purchase of the assets. And then, you know, the court needs to approve you as an owner. What was it like before he started the renovation, it was a scruffy little Marina, you know, it was cute, but the problem with it was it was not financially sustainable. It was designed to make money about 30 nights and weekends in the summertime when it wasn't raining. Okay, and if it rained, you know, everybody canceled it or visit, you know, they just wouldn't come. We had a little cheeseburger shack. And for two bedroom cabins for hotel style lodge rooms that I would have been a little bit embarrassed to show you in terms of the condition that they were in and 14 or 616 RV spots and a small campground that was totally subscale, but it had septic it had water and electricity. And so we kind of lived in that for a while we the first thing we did was Natasha said we have to renovate the lodge, the four room Lodge. And that was so successful, everybody was just nuts over how great that went. That it gave us the confidence to do the bigger project. We engaged in architect who is known to us for 20 years van pond. And our house he built designed our house and Nashville mean in Granville, excuse me, and he has his wonderful sensibilities in the back and forth between he and us really helped to perfect a plan that was just fantastic. And we're enjoying the benefits of that now.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 7:47

So what all did you have to renovate, give us like the highlights?

John Deane: 7:51

Well, it was a pretty total makeover. Okay. And so I'll just sort of walk across the campus and geographically in my mind, we needed a place to store kayaks, canoes, and stand up paddle boards for rent. So we built a kayak barn, we needed an event room where we could host groups that would pay us money during the week, to have their strategic planning retreats like a corporate retreat, or a family reunion or whatever that might be we needed a vent room. And the architect van showed us how to have an event room that would double as a weekend dining room. And so it converts and serves both purposes. We built next to that and honest a blog home pavilion. That's been amazing space for musical events and for dining opportunities. We attached a small food trailer to it that offers low cost sort of Marina fare. And then we we expanded the kitchen, which desperately needed to be enlarged, built a nice big walk in fridge and freezer. It was a dry county when we got there. So we had a beer license but no liquor, no wine route was not going to work. So we went and got a bill passed in the state legislature with resistance of our state senator and legislatures and they passed a bill that gave us the right to serve alcohol. It's called a Premier Resort status, kind of a funny way to get a liquor license. And so that was transformational. Well, we got that license and then the existing facility had room for a bar that was about two feet wide. And so now we have a beautiful bar

Kosta Yepifantsev: 9:25

the entire like Marina I've been there I think last year it was and it is a nominal I would have never guessed that something like that would be in the middle of grid and not to say that Granville doesn't have its own type of charm. But I mean this is a really kind of high upscale type of establish surprises

John Deane: 9:44

you when you come upon it because you're not expecting it. Quite what it is that Tasha really led the renovation on the lodge on the four bedroom Lodge. And with that confidence we built a expansive in two story in with 14 rooms, beautiful King bedrooms, four star quality. Oh wow, we believe in a really good night's sleep as being super important. So a 400 thread count linen, Belgian flex, coverlets, quiet mini split air conditioning and heating unit. So you get just the right temperature and a beautiful deck on front of every room. There's a Brazilian hardwood rocker that you can sit down and watch the sunset. You

Kosta Yepifantsev: 10:24

know, my wife made me buy a new mattress that and I had my other mattress for 15 years. And so you talking about like wonderful sleeping arrangements. I may have to go sleep there tonight so I can get a good night's sleep.

John Deane: 10:38

You know, things like mattresses. I mean, you know, you don't think about it. But we were very fortunate a young woman who worked for me 40 years ago, ended up marrying the head of the Four Seasons hotel chain for North and South America. He's like the head of the whole thing started out as the General Manager in Washington, DC of the Georgetown four seasons. And he mentored us, okay, and gave us guidance. And one of the big value ads that he brought to us was a woman who supplies all the mattresses for all of America's hotels, as well as other things. And so we found these amazing quality mattresses and an amazing price, you know, working through her so we really benefited from some of those relationships. And that has made a huge difference. I mean, people love their overnight experience. So the in the renovation of the lodge, we kept two of the four rustic cabins. Turns out today they're among our most popular offerings. They are pet friendly, about half the campus is pet friendly. We had a bunch of empty slips. And several of them were houseboat size. So we bought some house boats with no motors, and we stuck them out on the end of the dark. And you can climb up on the roof and see the beautiful Cumberland wilderness and the sunsets and sunrises and we made those accommodations. So we now have three of those. I love that. It's a great idea. And then the campground, it was 2% of our revenue and 20% of our headaches, we could just could not make those people happy for their $29 a night fee. You know, they were just never happy with us. And we're getting five star reviews on the cabins. And so we shut it down. And Natasha had the idea of doing Airstreams Can I pass it to you?

Natasha Deane: 12:23

Sure. Instead of having people bring their own RV that we would put a really iconic looking, you know, Silver Bullet Airstream set of them up there and put the same linens in there. Give everybody a firepit you know, a couple of chairs. You know, John just got on it in a moment. So he loves the idea. So they're permanently set. You don't have to mess with them. And you know, the thing is, is just like the houseboats. People are getting away from wanting to own it. Because if you own it, you have to take it home, you have to have somewhere to put it you have to clean it up in the spring. You have to shut it down in the fall. We do all that.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 13:02

I mean, boat, man. I mean, the maintenance on both that's why Jessica and I don't have any boats and jet skis. We don't have it because I mean just the amount of maintenance that goes into those types of vehicles is takes it

Natasha Deane: 13:15

all away and they love to come and stay in you know, it's very Instagrammable an Airstream And so John found one that was completely restored 1962 model. We found a 1985 model and a 2012 model. Each one has its own personality. We've named them after the women country music stores is the Dolly the Emmylou the Loretto. Yeah, the Rebus people love it. And what I love is these, there's just one group of women who come out every year and they bring a big TV set and they set it up in front of the air streams. They rent all the air streams, and they tailgate the UT game, and they have a ball. I love it. Yeah.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 13:55

So Natasha Wildwood resort is helping to put Granville on the map in a whole new way. What do you wish visitors and nearby residents knew about Granville, tourism, attractions and events?

Natasha Deane: 14:09

You know, you alluded to this earlier, when we were talking informally. It is one of the friendliest places on the planet. It really is. You know, when we started building this thing, people came out of the woodwork and just said, we're not exactly sure what you're doing, but we want to be a part of it. I mean, I can't say 100% But I feel like 90% of our people are really in it because it delights them to do the work.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 14:35

You're carrying Greenville into the 21st century. This resort is the catalyst that's bringing Granville like to the next stage. The thing

John Deane: 14:44

to understand about Granville is we have historic Granville, from the mid 1700s And we have the only authentic 1890 country store that's alive and functioning. It was named by Country Living Magazine is one of the Top 10 most charming country stores in America and as a live bluegrass radio show every Saturday night with a meat and three meal to go with it. And it's an indoor outdoor museum about what life was like 100 years ago. And it's awesome. Where the ying and the yang, the counterbalance to that the modern facility that offers time on the water with boats and, you know, spectacular views of the sunset and all that. But I'd say 70% of our guests make historic Granville, a half a day event in their weekend. Oh, wow. They really enjoy seeing it.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 15:35

Where are your guests? Typically coming from Natasha.

Natasha Deane: 15:39

We have a real mix. I'm happy to say one of the my favorite things about wintertime is how much time we get to spend with local and regional people. And you know, I've had people tell me to come in, sit down. They're buying me a drink, because they're so happy that we did this. Yes. And that they have someplace to go. And so that is delightful. Then the other thing is we were 30 years in Nashville, and all our friends are coming out to see

John Deane: 16:06

all of our church they're telling our friends, their friends, and

Natasha Deane: 16:09

you know, so we get quite a few from Nashville.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 16:12

Anybody's buying houses and property and building or buying house building. Yeah, good. Yeah, you've got that little spot in Greenville. I was telling you guys about earlier and I would pull off at the gas station there and I would go run up Eagle Mountain mountain. We live on top of Eagle. Okay. Yes. So I mean, beautiful views, beautiful looking homes, just the environment. It kind of reminds me a little bit and I haven't been up there in a while, but it kind of reminds me of like, Sedona maybe. Okay, yeah, a little bit more like Western vibe, you know, West Coast vibe. And I always wonder like, who lives in these houses? Do they live here full time now I know. So I guess your friends are like buying property around there as well. And

Natasha Deane: 16:52

every year there's a new house going up. And it almost seems like the pace is picking up to maybe two houses and the

John Deane: 16:59

markets hot. It's hard to find spots. You know, I wouldn't want to leave out the fact that you know, our Nashville friends have told their friends so we're getting a substantial following from the Nashville area. Murphysboro, you know, Gallatin, Hendersonville and Juliet, that and now you know, today, I met a couple that just arrived a couple of hours ago, and they're from Knoxville. And so we're seeing more of that. Chattanooga I think is an occasional visitor. Memphis is an occasional visitor, and then occasionally we get people from out of state. We had a couple from Ohio that wanted to get married at well, what was very important to her to get married on the water in Tennessee. I love it. Here we go.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 17:38

So John, what can visitors expect from Wildwood because you aren't just a resort and Marina like you've alluded, you offer retreats, luxury spa services, waterfront dining and boating excursions?

John Deane: 17:52

That's right, we consider ourselves a boutique destination resort. So we have a prominent state official shall remain nameless, who comes to Wildwood repeatedly and hangs out on the porch and reads books. I mean, this is her retreat, and she loves it. And she loves the service and she loves the restaurant and all that we have others that concentrate on the water activities and renting boats and bring their own boats. By the way, we're on navigable water. So we have visitors by boat from as far away as Minnesota, St. Louis, Orleans and New York.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 18:26

So is it the Cumberland River? Okay, so the Cumberland River, you can take it all the way to Minnesota,

John Deane: 18:31

you can take it all the way to the coast of England. It's navigable water. I love that. And so adventuresome, voters are finding us there's a older lady in her 90s named Mrs. Quinby, who publishes Quimby's cruising guide to the inland waterways. We were Marina of the month on their website for about a year. And we started getting these visitors from all over the place. The destination resort means that you've got all kinds of choices about how you spend your time, you can never leave campus, and there's a 2.9 mile hiking trail right across the street. There's the kayaks, the canoes, the paddle boards and the tritoon motor boats that you can drag your kids to being on or just motor over to the dam and see what that's all about, or drop an anchor and go swimming. And then we've got this fantastic restaurant. We did a national search for a chef, we got 95 applicants on LinkedIn. Oh, wow. My mentor helped us with this. And how do you narrow the list? Well, we threw out everybody who hadn't held a job more than three years, chefs turnover a lot. And that got to seven. We zoomed with the seven because it was during COVID that we did this. And then we invited three to come cook for us in our kitchen. And the guy that we chose is Chef Chris Maxwell, who has lived in Baxter his entire life. Wow. And everyone loves his food. As a matter of fact, we're having a problem in the middle The summer on the Saturday night when to more than 200 people will come for dinner. The kitchen just couldn't get the output. And so that's what led us to the food trailer I mentioned earlier that we could decant the volume from the fine dining experience and take care of the folks that want a cheeseburger.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 20:15

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is hard to find. establishments like yourselves in the upper Cumberland that offer fine dining, because I don't think I've encountered any.

John Deane: 20:27

But we've got some great restaurants in Jackson County, I must say, you know, we have the bull in the soul. Yeah, he's we're on the stolen coin, both of which are favorites of ours. And then Cookeville is blessed with some nice restaurants as well.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 20:40

I went to stolen coin for the first time last week to have lunch with Mayor Hedy and I've never been there always hangs out. Right. And so I had no idea that they serve raw oysters. Yes, and the only place unless you buy it unless you get flown in from the Northeast, the only place in the upper column that I have been able to find actual raw oysters that are not frozen, but flown in weekly and it was actually really good food.

John Deane: 21:07

They broke the code on how to intercept the oysters that were coming from New England to South Florida real and they catch them into Charlotte airport and divert them to Gainsborough, Tennessee, and they are delicious. And they arrive on Thursday. So Thursday, Friday and Saturday are great times to order those oysters.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 21:24

I'm gonna I'm gonna write down a question that I want to ask you guys at the end of all of this, but I want to talk about the ventures that you guys are doing in downtown Gainsborough. So Natasha, you've transitioned Wildwood resort into a year round destination and you're expansion into downtown Gainsborough? With Miss Sally's market and honest Jon's frozen custard. When will the shops open? And what can customers look forward to?

Natasha Deane: 21:47

No boy, it's so exciting. We plan to open honest John's by Memorial Day, so that it'll be open all summer. You know, John and I met in St. Louis, Missouri, which is home of some of the best frozen custard on the planet. And we've been we've been big fans of Ted, the place called Ted Drewes. Since we were dating, and every time we go back to St. Louis, we stop at Ted Cruz. You know, we were reorienting away from Nashville going to Nashville to get errands done, and we were doing more of our errands in Gainsborough. And I kept thinking this place is just calling out for a market like we used to have. We used to enjoy really fresh farm to table stuff in Nashville. It's so ironic because here we are surrounded by all these farms. And we can't get farm to table and our guests come to rent one of our cabins and they want to provision and we're sending them to Dollar General and Walmart. And that's not very special. Yeah, it's just been on my heart to highlight some of the goodness that we produce right here in Jackson County. And John, I said, John, I know this is a crazy idea. But this is just every time I come here, it's speaking to me and John said this, I love it. He said, I never met a crazy idea I didn't love you should go for it. So we bought an old building. Yeah, it's it part of the historic district and we're restoring it. As I said to my daughter who's helping me with the logo, you know, I want the vibe to be that I'm excited to go to the store. And she said mom, you mean like when I was little and you would take me to the produce place and I would say can we get some fruit leather because they had this fruit leather so I'm looking for that kind of excitement about healthy snacks that aren't full of preservatives that are made here as much as possible. And so that's the idea and then John is a very enthusiastic person so as we were looking at the building and acquiring the building and talking about these plans, kept looking across the street at the old cable company office which is a basically a prefab home on a corner in downtown Gainsborough in a had a bagel For Sale sign on it and I knew I knew what was happening. He said that would make a great Frozen Custard shop and then you know it was just it was a foregone thing and the next thing I knew he was calling the number and then he was acquiring it. So his shop is going to open may 1, I'm going to be supplying him with fresh blueberries and strawberries to mix in with that frozen custard he Yes, he is going to do the candy in there too. But it's going to be very fresh and wholesome and you're not going to feel weighed down by having this one bowl snack and then you'll be able to come across the street to the market which the target our target date for opening that is September 1. We won't be in any way trying to compete with Walmart or Dollar General we will be having local primarily local and regional things if they're not local and regional. There'll be organic or something specialty that you can't get absolutely at those places. You know, we're also going to putting a kitchen in so we'll do some taken bake.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 24:48

Oh, it's a healthy alternative and there's not really that many healthy alternatives in games but I think there's a Dairy Queen and I save a lot

John Deane: 24:55

exists. Yeah, we're talking about fresh fruit. fresh batch. Yes. Dairy from local farms and meats, and taken back so dinner's always available, you won't have a choice of 10 things. It'll be that thing for that night. But maybe you'll like what they're having on Thursday night, instead of Wednesday night, we'll do

Natasha Deane: 25:14

a vegetarian option and a meat option to try to have people experience some other ways of eating. And I'll have books on healthy eating. And so

Kosta Yepifantsev: 25:23

and taken bake is phenomenal. I mean, there used to be a place here in town called Blue rooster canteen, and I used to eat there all the time. You just take, you take a casserole home and you heat it up that, you know, especially when you got a ton of kids and you know, a lot of mouths to feed. It's pretty great. So, John, you've provided a public four year Community Impact Report spanning from 2018 to 2021, outlining the Community Development facilitated by the resort. Will you speak on the growth of not only wages, visitor spending and tax revenue gained, but the Economic and Community Impact of Wildwood,

John Deane: 26:03

one of our goals in doing Wildwood and acquiring a former Granville Marina was to make a difference in a community that we love. It didn't go unnoticed by us. When the mayor explained that Jackson County was on the top 10 most economically distressed counties list and we sort of peel that back to understand that, you know, poverty was high, unemployment was high. The number of kids leaving the community and not returning was high, you know, age was up, wages were low, just any to any measure you were interested in education level. It turns out that when you build a destination, Boutique Resort, visitors come and they don't come from Jackson County, they come from elsewhere. Now, Jackson County residents are locals, they come to our restaurant, they rent our boats. I don't mean to discount that at all. But the preponderance of visitors are coming from outside the county. They're bringing their hard earned money and they're spending it here. And when they do that magic happens for the county because the sales tax revenues increase. It gives us the wherewithal to raise wages, you know, wages, which started out at the average, I didn't did the math, it was like$11.12, from the general manager all the way on down to the Dark Hand. Right. And so we've been able to raise wages 40% Oh, wow. In the last five years in honor of Wildwood, the county commission passed a hotel motel tax, which we encourage them to do. Yeah. And we are now 69% of the annual hotel, motel tax revenue for the county, the legislation and kudos to the air b&b all over the county that are erupting as they see the success of Wildwood lodging, that, you know, they're generating the balance of that which is not insignificant. So we appreciate those folks. But that's made a huge difference. And then it turns out that all the furniture and equipment that we bought to do this renovation, when it's delivered to Jackson County addresses, it credits the sales tax revenue to the county. So we've had a major impact, great, and nearly doubling the sales tax revenue, particularly during that construction expansion area when we were doing all this by and then there were other opportunities. The it turns out that living on a river, you know, all of the debris that ends up, not thrown away properly ends up in the river somehow and it floats right down and ends up on our shoreline. We have collected with 600 volunteer hours under Natasha's leadership and in partnership with the adoptive stream folks in Nashville that are regional. We've collected 10,000 pounds of garbage off of the shoreline and that includes pieces of trash as well as tires and refrigerators and mattresses, mattresses and chairs and and it's incredible what you see. Wow. And so our shoreline is beautiful. Now, this is a uniquely beautiful place. It just needed a little love. And I had to put on the economic report my most favorite statistic, which is that at the end of the four year mark, we had served 8000 soft serve ice cream treats.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 29:15

I love that. So Natasha, what's your vision for Wildwood, Granville and Gainsborough moving forward? And what are you working towards right now?

Natasha Deane: 29:23

The thing about Wildwood is that it does bring these opportunities to the county. So we have used for instance, local builders to build some tiny homes. We used a local builder to build us a 80 foot long kitchen vegetable garden. So more nurturing with freshness and goodness, more nurturing of the community by using as much local services as possible. You know if Granville were ever to get a laundry, you know, or if they we had a baker that could supply cookies or how can we bring opera tunity to others not, not in terms of owning everything. We have no desire to be king and queen of Granville, if you know what I mean, it's just not. It's not what it's about. But what we love to see is when people get inspired by what we're doing,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 30:14

do you guys ever get any negative feedback for being perceived in that capacity? And and that ties into the question that I have, and I was going to wait to ask it, but I just can't wait anymore. The community's

John Deane: 30:25

been so supportive. It's really amazing. Yeah. Occasionally, you get a little bit of pushback. You know, we started out a hamburger was dollars and 99 cents. And when we first opened Wildwood, we got a lot of complaints about the$4.99 cent burgers way too expensive. The burger now is$14.99. Yeah, it's gonna say that's a pretty inexpensive, but then we get no complaints. But we only get compliments on the burger. And so what happened is that customer base shifted. Now we offer a 10% discount for all the 275 volunteers at historic Granville to help lower the price point, I think the food trailer was a was masterful in the sense that it created an opportunity for a $12 dinner instead of a $40 dinner in fine dining. And so we're trying to be sensitive to not everybody's pocketbook is the same and but at the same time, we can't serve everyone. And we have this huge overwhelming opportunity to employ local people and pay them better wages, create a tax base and prosper the county. And that depends on offering what that group of visitors should wants. And they want high quality and they're not as concerned about price. Because this is their discretionary income, they're here to have a good time. And just like many of us, when we go on vacation, we kind of release our pocketbooks a bit. They're on vacation, right? And so they're a little bit more free to spend and we want to give them the experience they want and charge them a fair price for it. The other thing is this business of being able to put the property to use Sunday night through Friday morning has been magical. We did 40 corporate retreats last year. And the feedback from those guests has been fantastic. They love the food. They love the sleep. They love the meeting room on the lake. They love the boat ride we gave them you know, it just adds up to a fantastic experience

Kosta Yepifantsev: 32:21

and Jackson counties no longer distress County.

John Deane: 32:23

Correct? That's right, we're off the list.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 32:25

So here's the question. You guys aren't from Jackson County. The people that open Boland thistle and stolen coin aren't from Jackson County. Why? Jackson County? First off, why Jackson County, and why bring the passion and the love. And also I mean, when I say that you are successful in not just business but operations combining all of the elements that somebody would pay millions and millions and millions of dollars for so you could run their organization, you decided scratch all of that. I'll take all of my years of experience. And I'm going to go to Jackson County and open up a resort. Why? Well, I

Natasha Deane: 33:06

have to just say that Jackson County loved us first. We came to Jackson County, tired after, you know, dual careers, raising kids. Even church was wearing us out in a way. You know, we were both in leadership. We were we were just doing too much. We were just loved on not just by the people. But by the place. We do a retreat every year at Wildwood, and I had a moment we were talking about what each of us brings to the Wildwood experience. In that moment, I wasn't really sure what I brought anymore, because I had done the decorating. And that was kind of behind us. And it wasn't really sure what my role was going to be. And we were walking around outside. And I mean, I'm a biologist by nature. And so I like to look at the nature and I found this beautiful frog leopard frog. And I don't know if you look at frogs very often, but I was kind of checking them out. This guy's eyes were golden. They have have a golden Iris. And maybe it was the way the sun was on it. Or, or maybe the Lord was just kind of speaking to me to say, You know what, there's a vision here. And that vision is here that Jackson County is important. It's rich. We're so rich in Jackson County that even our frogs have golden eyes. And so this is a very rich place in sounds and nature and wonderful food and wonderful friendliness, the origins of country music, all of this is embodied in this place. And so we're really just here to share it with people wasn't really being used, and now it's being used and appreciated. It was being used, but it was people were hanging their heads a little bit.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 34:51

Yeah, yeah. I think in a lot of ways you are creating the foundation for the next generation so that they don't leave Jack Some County, you are actually creating the infrastructure for them to remain and continue to call Jackson County home. Because, you know, when you look at it, you know, counties like Jackson, like Pickett, you know, distressed counties, a lot of times, the reason why they're distressed is because they can't retain their talent. And so when you create establishments, like the restaurants that you're going to be opening, like the resort that you open, you are building the foundation to keep that talent in Jack's, can

John Deane: 35:30

I tell you, our employees are amazing. And there's nine of them, as of last year who are enrolled in higher education programs, we've developed a scholarship program for them, to help them financially above and beyond their wages. We also are seeing huge potential in the largest number of our employees. And so we're looking at them as investments, you're mentoring them or mentoring them. And Coach, you know, we're serving as life coach to some of them, and creating the opportunity for the end. It's an individual tailored thing. The other thing is why, why do it when we had Elvis background and experience of doing big things elsewhere. That moment, I retired in my head, from my career in health care, and I had a fantastic career in healthcare more fun than anybody deserves to have the speaker at a meeting I was at and really doesn't even matter what the meaning was about just these words, struck. The opposite of more is not less, the opposite of more is enough. And so in my hand, I said, You know what, enough, we've done enough of this big city, you've done enough for this big company, we've done enough of curing cancer, you know, now there's an opportunity, now that we're in our early 60s, and have the next chapter of our life in front of us to do something totally different. And maybe the skills we have developed over the course of our careers will help us, maybe they won't, maybe we'll develop new skills as a result of this experience. But we certainly don't need to keep doing what we've been doing to prove anything to anybody, least of all ourselves. And so I think it was good call. And I would commend that to your listeners absolutely to listen to because inertia is a powerful force. And letting go of your life and reinventing yourself is not easily done, but can be immensely rewarding.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 37:24

So what is your advice to entrepreneurs on honoring their passion and building a business that will impact your community and the bottom line,

John Deane: 37:34

my advice would be aspire to do it all. Find the magic formula that allows you to do well by doing good. And I think we're proof that that's possible. There's nothing magic about us. I mean, we're just humans, like everybody else coming to work every day putting one foot in front of the other. But find that set of circumstances where you can make a difference in your local community. You know, the reason it needs to pencil out from a financial perspective is not so that you can make gobs of money. That's not really the point. The point is, it needs to be sustainable. And if things aren't profitable, there's no money to reinvest in them, right die. And my biggest hope for Wildwood is that it has 100 year future, because we've built a model that sustainable and that might even grow in the future as needs dictate. And Natasha and I will take great pride in having started that.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 38:31

So 100 years from now you want Wildwood resort to be like the Ozarks?

Natasha Deane: 38:41

I grew up in the Ozarks, I think, no, there's an element of not wanting it to change too much, right. It's a special place 100 years from now, if it could just maintain that atmosphere of visitors feel like this is our place. Yeah, that we're a part of it. And I know the staff, they know my name,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 39:01

a special club. There's,

John Deane: 39:04

there's room to grow, but not too much. It's 16 acres of land and an equivalent amount of water. There's room for adding, you know, half again, as many slips there's room for adding half again, or maybe doubling the number of beds, but it will not be much bigger than that. And we probably won't be the people to take it to that level. Just because we've done what we can do. And we're enjoying seeing it operate and prosper at the level it's at.

Natasha Deane: 39:35

We still have quite a lot of capacity. You know, what could we do in the wintertime that brings people out because honestly, it's fantastic in the wintertime. I love that.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 39:45

So we always like to end the show on a high note. Who is someone that makes you better when you're together?

John Deane: 39:53

Well, the obvious answer is Natasha, this has been a transformational thing in our lives. See the two of us. All throughout our career raising children and whatnot, I traveled four or five days a week. And we enjoyed round day viewing on the weekends with the kids and all that. Now we work together every day. It's really special. It's not that we're joined at the hip 1215 20 hours a day, because we come and go, and we have different responsibilities and different contributions that we're making. But we're working together every day. And she has an amazing ability to drill down deep. Because she's a researcher, right? It's a mile deep, maybe an inch wide. I've always been a mile wide and a half inch deep. So it's she's a fantastic compliment. And I'm really grateful that she's chosen to do this with me.

Natasha Deane: 40:49

And then for me, I mean, obviously, I would feel the same way. I mean, John's I think one of the things that we've been exploring lately is how much ambition John has. He brings out the confidence in me that I can do things like start a market, you know, instead of just talking about it every time we're in town, do it. So that kind of thing has really allowed me to shine. And I would also have to say that for both of us, again, we're not in this business alone, I wouldn't have been attracted to Gainsborough if it wasn't for the wonderful owners of the other businesses around the square and Mayor Headey, the county commissioners and the whole Jackson County family that just took us in. And the energy there is just all about what can we do you know, and it's very fun. And it's better that we're not doing it on our own, but that we're part of something like that. So it really makes it fun.

Morgan Franklin: 41:41

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you've enjoyed listening and you want to hear more, make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Leave us a review or better yet, share this episode with a friend. Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a Kosta Yepifantsev Production. Today's episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin post production mixing and editing by Mike Franklin. Want to know more about Kosta visit us at kostayepifantsev.com We're better together.