David Byard is driving as fast as he's talking as we speed down the curvy, hilly roads of Fairfield Bay. I feel increasingly queasy on this hot day after having had a big lunch prior to speaking to the Rotary Club at Indian Hills Golf Resort.
I put down my pad and stop taking notes. But that pad is already filled with the things Byard told me. And considering that we've been in a pandemic since March 2020, it's an amazing story.
In Sunday's column, I outlined the history of this sprawling resort that's in both Van Buren and Cleburne counties on the north shore of Greers Ferry Lake. After decades of stagnation, Fairfield Bay is coming back to life.
"I've had a house over here for 21 years," says Byard, who owns a vending company in the Memphis area. Greers Ferry has long been a draw for Memphis residents.
He tells me that his twin sons became interested in golf several years ago, leading him to buy a second house on a golf course at Fairfield Bay. Fascinated by the real estate development opportunities here--thousands of people purchased lots through the decades but never built on them--Byard began buying lots from out-of-state owners who were tired of paying property taxes on land they didn't use.
In many cases, their parents had purchased land in the 1960s and 1970s from the slick-talking salesmen who were once a Fairfield Bay trademark.
Byard is overseeing a housing development on formerly forested land that he calls the Forgotten Peninsula.
"I bought 130 lots," he says. "I've already sold 30 of them. In five years, we should have 50 lakefront houses and 40 boat slips."
In 1967, Fairfield Communities Inc., which developed the resort and retirement community, formed the Community Club. The club was a property owners' association with the responsibility of collecting amenity dues and later operating some of those amenities. Byard now serves as board president and is acting general manager of the Community Club's successor.
"I once averaged five days a week in Tennessee and two days a week over here," he says. "Now, it's just the opposite."
With his rapid-fire delivery, Byard tells me that golf rounds are up 30 percent since the pandemic began. In addition to Indian Hills, Fairfield Bay is home to Mountain Ranch Golf Club.
He shows me the museum known as the Old Log Cabin, the Indian Rock House Cave and a store that will have four gas pumps and sell beer and wine to take advantage of the fact that Van Buren County voters chose to go wet last November.
These efforts come at the same time as the rebirth being seen by the Fairfield Bay Conference Center, which sat empty for more than a decade before reopening in October 2013. DMC International LLC entered into a long-term lease agreement last year with the city to operate the center. The company also built an adjacent Cobblestone Inn & Suites, making it easier to attract conventions.
A primary investor in DMC is NBA basketball player DeMarre Carroll, a nephew of former University of Arkansas head basketball coach Mike Anderson. Carroll, 35, played college basketball at Vanderbilt University and the University of Missouri. He transferred to Missouri in 2006 to play for Anderson and helped lead the Tigers to the Elite Eight in 2009.
Anderson introduced Carroll to this part of Arkansas, and Carroll viewed it as a prime investment opportunity.
In 2018, DMC announced that it would open the 63-room Cobblestone, making it the first hotel at Fairfield Bay. The hotel opened in May 2019. It offers amenities not normally found in a rural area. There's a spa known as Spa Serenity at the Bay and an upscale restaurant known as the Bayside. The restaurant, which has a French chef, offers a tapas menu from 4 p.m. until 6 p.m. each day.
DMC's operations manager, Ginger Simpson, was living in Florida when she began visiting a sister who had a home at Fairfield Bay. Simpson, a Michigan native who spent 26 years in the U.S. Navy beginning in 1968 and rose to the position of master chief petty officer, later worked for Federal Express. She was named the business woman of the year for the city of Memphis.
Simpson oversaw completion of the hotel and then guided it through the pandemic.
"The owners wanted a spa, and I didn't know anything about spas," Simpson says. "We managed to put it together. The spa has been in the black since the day it opened. And then we hired our chef, Yann Peron, from Hollywood Park Casino in California."
Simpson believes that having the same organization operate both the hotel and conference center will allow DMC to streamline the operation and "begin to build new venues to bring in additional business. The merger will mean that groups who use the conference center and book the hotel will experience seamless processes on a single campus."
Simpson hit a home run last October when she hired Benny Baker, one of the best-known figures in the Arkansas hospitality industry. Baker, who's the DMC sales director, earlier headed sales for the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa at Hot Springs.
"He knows the hospitality industry inside and out, has a history of increasing sales for conference center operations and is familiar with this area," Simpson said at the time Baker was hired. "He has a background in building wonderful personal and business relationships that garner trust, respect and repeat business."
Despite the pandemic and an often testy relationship between Byard and city of Fairfield Bay officials, this old resort is on a roll.
Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.