CULTURE CLASH: Real estate pro David Couch's vision for a pastoral development divides a Triad suburb.

• Author: Burritt, Chris

As soon as he was old enough to drive, David Couch discovered he enjoyed raising beef catde more than mowing yards in Asheboro, where his father was a dentist and his mother served on City Council. He bought calves at auction and nursed them with a bottle. An elderly widow let the teenager graze his cows on her pastures in Randolph County. In exchange, he tended her property.

"I actually liked the hard work," says Couch, who turns 61 in July. "I just felt free. That's when I knew that farming would play a part in my life."

Success in real estate has enabled him to pursue that passion at Summerfield Farms, an events venue and working farm where he raises cattle on the nearly 1,000 acres he's acquired over the past 25 years. It s among the trophies collected as Couch emerged as one of the state's most prominent residential real estate developers.

After starting out selling town houses in Greensboro, he co-founded High Point-based Blue Ridge Cos. with partner Chris Dunbar in 1997. They have developed more than $2 billion of projects, including 11,500 apartment units at about 40 sites, mostly in the Carolinas and Virginia and with a buy-and-hold approach. Blue Ridge also has a general contracting business and has developed commercial properties largely focused in the West Wendover Avenue-N.C. 68 area in Greensboro and High Point.

Summerfield Farms in northwest Guilford County is where Couch lives with his wife, Stephanie Quayle, a country singer and songwriter whom he met in 2012 and married three years later. It features a refurbished barn with rough-hewn beams and walls that is the centerpiece of their events business. The enterprise hosts horse riding clinics for children, stages weddings under the sprawling branches of an ancient oak (he named it Little Tree) and attracts food trucks and live music for families to hang out on a grassy lawn. A marketplace store sells grass-fed beef from his Red Devon herd and locally produced food.

If Couch would stick to raising cows and hosting weddings, he'd get along fine with most everybody in rural Summerfield. The town of about 11,100 has a growing cohort of professionals, who live in the town's many $1 million-plus houses, and drive past mobile homes and other modest dwellings on the 20-minute southbound commute to Greensboro.

Couch didn't become a real estate magnate without vision and a passion for moving dirt, however. His beautiful property is in the path of progress because of the Triad's successful economic development efforts. For several years, Couch has promoted a plan for higher density housing in Summerfield, including proposals for its first apartments.

In a town that has historically limited development to lots of at least one acre, the effort has sparked a pummelling by critics who've outnumbered Couch supporters in repeated town meetings and slammed him on social media. They've dismissed advice from nationally recognized designers working for Couch, describing them as outsiders spouting views that would diminish Summerfield's rural character.

The opposition has prompted town officials to delay Couchs plans, which has only intensified his resolve. He's waiting for the tide to turn, with apparent backing from one of the states most influential politician. He also is counting on two societal megatrends: The Triad, like most metro areas, is in desperate need of more housing, while Summerfield faces increasing pressure to diversify its racial and...