Home again: he built the top-selling Carolina coastal community--then moved back to Eden.

• Author: Campbell, Spencer
• Position: PROFILE

Homer Wright surveys a map of St. James Plantation --a 6,000-acre coastal community in Brunswick County--from his office in a converted service station in Eden. "All that's white is sold. That tan is to be developed. That one over there is being developed, this is being developed. We'll have to develop here, here, here and there." He and two partners started grading and excavating in 1985, and the development is about three-quarters complete. He's trying to figure out what to do with the rest, leaning toward condos with rounded countertops, higher electric sockets, wider doors. "All those things that make it more livable for people like me." Wright, 89, means old people.

Born in Spray--which, with Leaksville and Draper, would become Eden in 1967--he built a house at the fork of the Dan and Smith rivers in 1953. His parents owned clothing stores, and after stints at three colleges and service in Italy during World War II, he had followed them into the business. The property for his house included an alfalfa field. Someone wanted to buy and turn it into housing Wright "couldn't fully appreciate." Instead, he divided it into 34 lots and held an auction. He sold one. To recoup his investment, he built houses and was enthralled. "I like that you can take a map of a farm and take your pencil and trace what it could be instead of what it is." He founded The Wright Co. in 1954.

Wright became a developer and builder--appealing to homebuyers with advertisements such as "You Can Pay Less Than Rent"--mostly in and around Rockingham County. In the 1960s, needing a nice place for his parents to retire to, he scouted sites in Italy and Costa Rica. Italy was too expensive, and Costa Rica lacked good medical treatment. A friend in Edenton suggested Oak Island in Brunswick County. Land across the waterway, west of Southport, caught his eye. He and his partners bought the original 2,500-acre St. James tract in 1983.

Site work began two years later. He bought a used Jeep, scouring the land from dawn till nearly dusk. He toured everything scheduled for the day--the grading and excavation--then tried to anticipate what should come next. In July 1990, the U.S. economy entered an eight-month recession, and Wright ran out of cash. "I didn't sleep well every night." He eventually got a $10 million loan, and the community's first golf course opened in 1991, right as the economy began to soar. "I started to say that I hated to confess luck, but it does play a part."

...