Q & A with Michael Meldman of Discovery Land Company

Publisher Michael Dee chats with Meldman of Discovery Land Company about upcoming projects, his epic Halloween party and more. (Continued from our latest feature in Arizona Foothills Magazine.)

MM: And there’s likes a lot of competition in Vail and certain things like that so and it’s got a lot of real outdoor activities so it fits right into to everything we do. We have a huge organic farm.

MD: How many houses do you think?

MM: There’s probably about 280 to 300.

MD: Oh wow. That’s a big budget.

MM: And then we have one in the Hamptons we’re doing. We’ve got a beachfront…and then we got 500 acres, about 8,000 running crops.

MD: So is this the first time you’ve really branched out to the East Coast?

MM: Well, the Bahamas and North Carolina but not on this scale and like the crazy thing about the Palms is how elite it is…and you need a password to get in there and certainly not family-friendly. You can’t have jeans on and you’ve got to wear a coat.

MD: Like Toronto and they were talking about you can’t go outside unless you have a jacket on. It’s very nice.

MM: Yeah, super nice.

MD: When did you start seeing the month of change [in real estate]?

MM: Well, 2008 we bought Yellowstone

MD: Why Yellowstone in 2008, when the market was quite falling apart?

MM: Right and since then we’ve probably done more than two billion in sales. Last year, alone we did about 113 sales.

MD: Where are your buyers coming from? What parts of the country?

MM: Yellowstone they come from everywhere; you know Yellowstone’s big in California, LA, San Francisco, not much in Arizona. Couple people from Arizona. Texas…and a lot of Florida, New York, Boston, and Philly--all the big cities.

MD: I think in Mirabel, you walk back and it was barren there before. You took the whole course out and the clubhouse is great.

MM: Yeah, I did that from-scratch. It’s still one of the great clubhouses.

MD: It’s an honor to look at the club house. Are you doing anything else in other parts of the world?

MM: Yeah I’m working on stuff in China and doing the Middle East and Dubai. I’ve been off and on there for years. We’re looking to Russia…and Sochi and get involved.

MD: What’s your favorite one?

MM: That’s a hard one.

MD: Where can we find you at the holidays?

MM: Christmas, I do Yellowstone; Cabo in spring break and usually Bahamas.

MD: See, there’s that tradition.

MM: Hawaii, Bahamas and Gozzer. Gozzer’s a big summer place; it’s got the lake; it’s got the mountains and great golf great.

MD: In an average month, what is your month like? 

MM: I went to the Bahamas the last 10 days and then I had a dinner in LA, breakfast in LA. Then I go to Toronto. I’ve got to go downtown.

MD: How did you come up with your Halloween party ideas?

MM: It took a life of it’s own. I think it’s a great party.

MD: Yeah it’s a great party.

MM: Well, this past year there were 600 people and it seemed like it was empty because last year there were 1,200 people and you couldn’t even move. Usually, it’s the backyard and everywhere in the house. Yeah, so it was so much better this year because one year before we started walling off the yard. We had probably 500 people in our front yard who weren’t invited.

MD: It’s a great party it’s the best I’ve ever been to it was like amazing. Even when I had just moved here, Estancia was always the private club and it was hard to get in and you had to really know someone whereas all these other one’s advertise and market a lot.

MM: So my attitude lies in, get the people while they’re there. Instead of putting up the sign at the Phoenix airport that says Estancia, which never made any sense to me, you’d rather get them while they are here which means if they’re playing golf at Estancia, a member of golf you know they come to Scottsdale. You know and you spend all your money making sure your experience is great. So they either buy or tell a friend. It’s a lot better in person. You know a lot of time you have to spend all this money.

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Continue reading to the next page to learn Meldman's top nine favorite courses around the world.