Our Holiday Gift to You: The Story of Taylor’s Trees

Most everyone who knew Taylor Emmons marveled at his athletic abilities, sense of sportsmanship, love of the outdoors, and his empathetic nature. His untimely passing was felt by thousands, as evidenced by the capacity crowd at his celebration of life service. Thanks to his purpose-driven father, a ton of collective effort, and some foresight from Taylor himself, the passions that marked this great kid’s life will be perpetuated through the Taylor Emmons Scholarship Fund and Taylor’s Trees. At the heart of these dual philanthropic tributes is a rich parcel of Maine timberland.

This whole process started before Taylor died, and it just kind of dovetailed into his legacy,” says his father, Mike Emmons. Some seven years ago, the family moved from Maine to Sarasota so that Taylor’s older brother, Mikey, could develop his baseball skills at the world renowned IMG Academy. Taylor was enrolled at The Out-of-Door Academy (ODA), and he flourished at the college prep school. The National Honor Society member was captain of the golf team, co-captain of the baseball team, and named Homecoming King by his schoolmates. “He loved The Out-of-Door Academy,” says his dad. “He did well academically, did very well in sports, and was just a very popular kid.”

Taylor graduated from ODA and was a University of Miami sophomore when he was fatally struck by an SUV near the Coral Gables campus in December 2010. He was 19.

“The thing about Taylor — and it’s easy for me to say because I was his dad — but you talk to anybody and they’ll tell you that even though he was a really good looking kid and a good athlete, he treated everybody the same. He liked everybody, and everybody liked him. I don’t know what the final number was, but when he died, the funeral home had never seen a crowd that big.”

Emmons, a 30-year veteran of the land game, got his start with Harry Patten in 1980 (see Land Report Summer 2009). He also pursued investments on his own. A few years ago, he came across the parcel of timberland from which Taylor’s Trees would evolve.

“I had an acquisitions guy who was out looking for property,” Emmons recalls. “I had moved to Florida and went up to Maine for a week to Sugarloaf to go skiing, and he said, ‘Mike, I think you ought to come take a look at this piece of property. It seems like a pretty good deal.’

“So I skipped a day of skiing and went and looked at this piece of property in Maine. It was a great deal, and I bought it. It was 9,000 acres. It didn’t really have any timber value. About 2,000 acres had been put into a conservation easement to protect the two streams. I took the other 7,000 acres and subdivided it into some 500-acre tracts and just never got around to selling it. The more time I spent up there, the more I fell in love with the place. The idea of owning 7,000 acres and growing timber on it and passing it on to my kids started appealing to me. So I decided not to sell it,” he says.

During his junior year, Taylor had participated in an Out-of-Door Academy program in which the school’s students stuffed backpacks with basic school necessities for kids without the means to buy them themselves. The experience was an eye-opener, and the teen expressed concern about the thousands of homeless kids in otherwise affluent Sarasota.

“Taylor said, ‘there seems to me there’s something we ought to be able to do,’” recalls his dad. “It really bothered him.” The thought stuck with Mike as well:

“I got to thinking about it from time to time, and then one day I got a call from Josh Rhodes, who hunts bear on our property in Maine. Josh says, ‘do you mind if my wife goes tipping on your property?’ I said, ‘Under one condition. You’ve got to send me a wreath.’ So two weeks later, I get this absolutely beautiful wreath from the clippings off my property, and it smells just like Maine. I got to thinking that maybe we could grow some Christmas trees and ship them down here and the kids from the academy, in conjunction with the underprivileged kids, could sell them [as a fundraiser].” After factoring in the logistics of clearing the land, planting 1,000 trees per acre, and shipping the harvested ones from Maine to Florida, Emmons realized it could be more than a moneymaker. As Taylor had hoped, it could be a great way to help others.

While the first crop of trees grew in, wreath sales would provide a little cash flow. At the same time they would help develop a customer base.

“Originally my thought was to raise money for the school as well as the disadvantaged kids,” he says.

Emmons and David Mahler, headmaster at ODA, held a series of meetings to discuss the project. Mahler was intrigued with the idea and encouraged Emmons to pursue it. “We talked about it before Taylor’s passing, the idea of using some of the proceeds from the tree farm to help these kids,” says Mahler. Today, Emmons’s long-term goal is to create a place in Maine where students from ODA and underprivileged kids from Sarasota can experience the great outdoors while hunting, fishing, pulling lobster traps, and, of course, planting trees.

“It takes about six years for a planted pine to become marketable,” Emmons says. “My daughter, Samantha, was moving from the Lower School to the Upper School, and I said, ‘wouldn’t that be cool if the kids who were in sixth grade actually participated in planting the trees, then six years later, when they’re harvested, they’re actually selling the trees that they helped plant six years before?’”

As summer 2010 got underway, Emmons’s crew cleared the land and planted the first 4,000 trees. Six months later, Taylor’s life was tragically cut short. In lieu of flowers or other tokens of sympathy, the family established the Taylor William Emmons Scholarship Fund and asked for donations in Taylor’s name.

“We’ve received over $136,000 in donations from family, friends, and people we didn’t even know,” Emmons says. “The outpouring was just incredible. To this day the money still pours in.”

In keeping with the legacy, the memorial foundation has partnered with All Faiths Food Bank to sell handmade wreaths from Taylor’s Trees in Maine. All proceeds from the sale of the 22-inch double-sided wreaths will go to the Taylor William Emmons Scholarship Fund and the corresponding backpack program, which feeds hungry children through the food bank.

This past June, the ODA’s baseball field was dedicated in Taylor’s honor. Topping off the ceremony was the announcement of Desmond Lindsay as the first recipient of a Taylor William Emmons Scholarship.

“Desmond possesses a lot of Taylor’s qualities. We have no doubt … he is going to carry on his name perfectly,” says Taylor’s mom, Katie.

“What I want is that every year a kid gets to go to the academy because of Taylor,” Mike Emmons says. “I want to have four kids in the school on scholarship in Taylor’s name. One in every class.” To that end, Emmons has set a goal to generate $1 million so that the scholarship fund can be self-sustaining.

Says David Mahler, “Taylor was a great kid: a strong student, an exceptional athlete, fun-loving, friendly, and outgoing. The Taylor Emmons Scholarship Fund is an incredible way to maintain Taylor’s legacy. It’s really a testament to Mike and Katie and the strength of the Emmons family that in a time of such sorrow and sadness, they’ve decided to changes lives for the better. This scholarship will change innumerable lives going forward.”

The Emmons family also has a living, breathing memento of Taylor’s big-heartedness. Through a Facebook connection, Taylor rescued a dog while in college. When he brought Bella home for Thanksgiving, Mike insisted that Taylor take her to the local shelter in Bradenton. His message was a simple one: college is no place to raise a pet.

The day after Taylor’s tragic accident, his older brother, Mikey, rallied the family to call the shelter and get Bella back. Though she had already been adopted, the shelter understood the family’s circumstances, and made the necessary arrangements for Bella to come home. Another timeless reminder of this wonderful life. — Nancy Myers

To place a wreath order, log on to www.temmons.org. To learn more about the Taylor Emmons Scholarship Fund, call Executive Director Sandy Albano at (941) 915-9249 or send her an email at salbano@temmons.org.

Land Report November 2011 Newsletter

Take a moment to scan the November edition of The Land Report newsletter. You’ll be amazed at the amount of activity going on in land markets currently.

Impending auctions of key parcels, record-setting new listings, fire-sale prices on bankrupt holdings – the number of transactions taking place in all sectors is quite encouraging and, as you will soon read, in all parts of the country.

For more up to the minute reports on listings, auctions, sales, and breaking news pertaining to land and landowners, be sure to follow The Magazine of the American Landowner on Facebook and Twitter.

P.S. Our award-winning quarterly magazine is available in a print version via subscription.

On the Block: 600+ Acres in Kentucky and Tennessee

Five tracts in Western Tennessee and Kentucky totaling more than 600 acres will be auctioned on October 27. In addition to a considerable recreational component, the tracts are heavily timbered. According to Roebuck Auctions founder John Roebuck, these tracts are ideal investment opportunities that feature great hunting. A past president of the National Auctioneers Association, Roebuck has spent more than three decades in the auctioneering profession.

The breakdown on the tracts by location is as follows:

• 243± acres in McNairy County, Tennessee
• 195± acres in Hardeman County, Tennessee
• 9± acres in Hardeman County, Tennessee
• 58± acres in Hardin County, Tennessee
• 103± Acres in Calloway County, Kentucky

More details on the tracts, which will be auctioned by Roebuck Auctions on Thursday, October 27, is available HERE.

Date:  Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 6:07 p.m. CDT

Location:
Selmer Airport Hanger (SZY)
2282 Airport Rd
Selmer, TN 38375

Roebuck Auctions
(901) 763-2825

Market Watch: Rayonier to Acquire 250,000 Acres

Rayonier (RYN) has signed an agreement to acquire some 250,000 acres of timberlands from Joshua Timberlands LLC and Oklahoma Timber LLC for $330 million. Timberlands included in the sale are located in located in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.

“The quality and location of these timberlands make them an excellent strategic fit for Rayonier. This transaction is a major step forward in our strategy to grow and diversify Rayonier’s timberland ownership while allowing for further expansion of our rural land sales program,” said Lee M. Thomas, Rayonier’s chairman and chief executive officer.

Once the deal closes, the Jacksonville-based company will own, lease, or manage 2.7 million acres of timber and land in the U.S. and New Zealand. Rayonier reported net income of $56 million in the second quarter of 2011, an increase of nearly 44 percent from $39 million in the second quarter of 2010.

Read the complete press release and learn more about Rayonier HERE.

On the Block: South Carolina’s Patriots Plantation

The creators of Patriots Plantation envisioned a special place where nature, friends and families could come together to enjoy the beautiful Low Country outdoors in a tranquil setting where rush hours and daily routines simply don’t exist. That vision became a reality is obvious to anyone who visits these extraordinary 1,886± acres in historic Williamsburg County, South Carolina. Now someone will have the opportunity to make this plantation their own on August 25 when it will be offered to the highest bidders at an absolute auction, regardless of price. This one-of-a-kind opportunity will be conducted by The National Auction Group, Inc. of Gadsden, Alabama, a company with years of experience marketing farms and ranches.

Located at the southern tip of South Carolina’s Pee Dee district and only 45 minutes from Myrtle Beach, Patriots Plantation is one of the finest facilities of its kind in the South. Fenced and gated, the property is blessed with roughly 7 miles of water frontage, plus lakes and ponds. More than 15 miles of maintained roads are already in place. The main entry gate can be conveniently controlled with remotes, a key pad, or a cell phone.

Patriots Plantation is well known for its duck, quail, and deer hunting as well as its trophy fishing. The highlight is the beautiful and spacious main house that was built with the finest materials and with meticulous attention to detail. The centerpiece of the home is a massive den that blends perfectly with the gorgeous natural setting. Its special features include a stone wood-burning fireplace, a large bar with refrigerator and ice maker, and a 10-person dining table for large family or corporate gatherings. Equally special are the fully-equipped gourmet kitchen with wine captain and the huge master suite that features a marble steam shower, a pair of walk-in closets, an office and a gym. There are also two additional bedrooms with their own baths and sitting areas, a large laundry room and both a screened porch and deck.

Numerous other structures and amenities can be found on the plantation.

“This is a very unique plantation that is not only beautiful but with a superb location just minutes from Myrtle Beach,” said National Auction Group president William Bone. “With no minimum bid required, this is an unparalleled opportunity to purchase a special lifestyle that might remain in a family for generations.”

National Auction Group
(800) 650-8720

 

For Sale: NC Waterfront Development Opportunity

Ever considered owning your own business on the water? Then take a close look at this one-of-a-kind opportunity to acquire a prime .66-acre parcel on the Atlantic seaboard in the heart of one of North Carolina’s most popular tourist venues.

IMPROVEMENTS

The structures consist of a fully restored 1926 Sears & Roebuck Craftsman home and an adjacent boathouse. The home features 5 bedrooms, 3 full baths, kitchen, dining and living rooms. There is a covered front porch and a large deck on the rear of the house. The house itself has been highlighted in promotional literature for the area and is ideally suited for development as a bed and breakfast.

The large 30′ x 40′ boathouse was used by the original owner for building boats. This is a unique structure and would be ideal for many different uses.  On the water at the back of the property stands a pier with six boat slips. Currently there are six sailboats moored in the slips and and a seventh at the end of the pier. The slips rent for $1,000 per year (payable in January) and produce a steady revenue stream.

LOCATION

Manteo can be found in the heart of North Carolina’s Outer Banks on the eastern side of Roanoke Island along Shallowbag Bay. Dare County is prime tourist destination. These .66 acres are adjacent to downtown Manteo within walking distance of the waterfront boardwalk and a short distance from Festival Park. Nearby tourism interests, businesses, and parking are already in place. The Lost Colony and the beaches of the Outer Banks are only a few minutes away, including high traffic attractions such as Nags Head and Kitty Hawk.

DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

This .66-acre tract is zoned B-1, which includes bed and breakfasts, apartments, hotels, motels, and similar businesses that provide overnight accommodations. B-1 also includes restaurants and retail businesses.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Please contact Briggs Neal at (252) 480-1200 or email Briggs at sailmanteo@gmail.com.

 

Land Report 100: The Fanjul Family

The Fanjul family ranked No. 61 on the 2010 Land Report 100. Headquartered in Florida’s Palm Beach County, the Fanjuls’ privately owned Florida Crystals is the first (and only) domestic producer of certified organic sugar. The company has a tradition of proactively pursuing eco-friendly production innovations and has worked tirelessly on sustainability initiatives and efforts such as Everglades restoration.

“I love land so much even my hobbies revolve around land. I spend every free weekend at Amistad, my 2,500-acre private shooting preserve,” says J. Pepe Fanjul, company vice chairman, president, and chief operating officer.

“Amistad was honored with the Florida Agriculture Board’s award of excellence for the way we environmentally manage the land. This recognition was truly special to me, because Amistad is the namesake of one of our family’s ranches in my home country Cuba that was lost after the Communist takeover.”

Trump Buys Kluge Winery at Auction

Donald Trump has increased his holdings in the heart of Virginia’s horse country when he paid $6.2 million for the 776-acre Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard. Trump bought the majority of the vineyard holdings at an April 7 foreclosure auction conducted by J.P. King Auction Company. Auction sales totaled $8.02 million.

“I’m really interested in good real estate, not so much in wine,” Trump told the Washington Post. “This place had a $28 million mortgage on it, and I bought it for $6.2 million. It’s a Trump deal!”

According to the Post, Trump will keep former owner Patricia Kluge, 62, and her husband, William Moses, on board to run the winery. Said Trump, “She has a great instinct for wine, which I don’t.”

Read the entire story HERE.

 

America’s Top Brokerages and Auction Houses: Farmers National Company

Farmers National Company was begun in 1929—historically not a banner year for starting new businesses, but over 80 years have passed and the company is thriving. Originally, the company’s core business was farm management, and today it’s the largest, fastest-growing and most successful farm management company in the U.S. The full-service real estate company offers traditional listing services as well as auction services.

Where: Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Operates in 23 states, covering a wide swath of the middle of the country. Its newest office was just added in Washington state.

Why: “We completed nearly 200 successful auctions of over 41,000 acres in 2010,” say Lee Vermeer, VP of Real Estate Operations. The sheer reach of Farmers and impressive closed sale numbers are overwhelming.

Wow: “Farmers National Company has sold over 2,600 farms and ranches and completed 750 successful auctions, resulting in over $1.25 billion in sales in the last four years,” says Vermeer. “We have over 200 licensed agents, all of whom can offer full auction services.”

Farmers National Company
$135 million (2010 auction revenues)
www.farmersnational.com

$5 Million Hilton Head Easement Acquisition

Several funding entities, including Beaufort County and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, have pooled resources to acquire several key conservation easements on St. Helena Island as well as outright ownership of 19 acres on Hilton Head. According to news releases, these acquisitions will keep these lands from being turned into developments that would include some 300+ homes. In addition, the three easements allow the current property owners to continue farming the historic Beaufort County lands. More details of the transaction are available HERE.

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