Chapter 5 - Rising from the Brine
The second year was a blur of dust, limestone, and wire transfers.
Under Carter Preservation Group, Blackwood Point did not merely survive; it resurrected.
We brought in thirty master craftsmen from across three states. Old men who knew how to slake quicklime in wooden troughs; young women who understood how to match 1890s hand-blown window glass by scouring architectural salvage yards from Baltimore to Charleston; ironworkers who spent four months forging replacement pickets for the grand river gates by hand.
I didn't manage from an air-conditioned trailer. I was on the site six days a week. My hands developed calluses that made my old emerald-green dinner dress feel like someone else's costume from a past life.
By the eighteenth month, Phase One was officially completed.
The exterior envelope was entirely restored. The grand cedar shingles had been treated with natural pine tar and linseed oil, glowing with a deep, rich charcoal luster that repelled the coastal rains. The two-story wrap-around verandas had been rebuilt using marine-grade heart-pine salvaged from the dismantled Savannah cotton warehouses. The towering chimneys had been repointed with historic oyster-shell mortar, their corbeled brick crowns standing proud against the Georgia sky.
And Arthur Green’s prediction had proven true: the National Park Service and the Georgia State Historic Preservation Office had approved the Part Two Historic Rehabilitation Certification without a single revision.
The tax credits—$5.1 million in liquid, tradeable institutional tax offsets—were issued in October.
Holloway Capital immediately sold forty percent of the credits to a regional banking syndicate, injecting $2 million in pure cash back into the project reserve.
Then came the appraisal.
On a brilliant, crisp morning in November, two independent senior appraisers from Cushman & Wakefield walked the grounds of Blackwood Point for five hours. They measured the eighty acres of deep-water frontage, inspected the newly stabilized 14,000-square-foot main structure, reviewed the completed master infrastructure—underground three-phase power, municipal water tie-in, state-of-the-art geothermal climate control hidden beneath the historic floorboards—and delivered their formal valuation.
*As-stabilized market valuation: $12,400,000.*
My seven point five percent equity stake was officially worth $930,000.
I sat in Grant Holloway’s temporary office on the second floor of the main house, looking at the appraisal summary. My company, Carter Preservation Group, now had twelve full-time employees, four commercial restoration contracts across coastal Georgia, and an unblemished reputation with every historic board in the Southeast.
Holloway sat across from me, a leather portfolio open on his desk. He looked tired. Over the past six months, his hair had turned entirely silver, and there was a slight tremor in his right hand that hadn't been there when we met in the fog.
"I had a checkup in Atlanta on Monday, Amanda," Holloway said quietly.
I looked up from the report. "What did they say, Grant?"
"Congestive heart failure," he said, his tone matter-of-fact, without a trace of self-pity. "The doctors told me I have five years if I take it easy, and eighteen months if I keep flying between Chicago, New York, and Savannah arguing with zoning commissioners."
A heavy knot formed in my stomach. Grant had become more than an investor; he had become the partner, the mentor, and the father figure Charles Carter had never had the chance to finish being.
"What do you need me to do?" I asked.
"I'm liquidating my non-core assets," Holloway said. "I'm consolidating my portfolio into a private trust for my daughter in Chicago. I don't want Blackwood Point broken up into a country club. And I don't want it sold to some hedge fund guy who’s going to turn the ballroom into a twelve-car garage for his Ferraris."
He slid a document across the mahogany table.
"I own eighty-five percent of the asset," Holloway said. "Arthur Green and two minority partners own seven point five percent. You own seven point five percent. I am offering to sell you sixty-two point five percent of Holloway Capital’s controlling interest in the estate."
I stared at him, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"Grant... that's a seven-million-dollar buyout. I have nine hundred thousand in equity and about two hundred and fifty thousand in company reserves. I can't finance seven million dollars."
"You don't have to finance it through a commercial bank," Holloway said, leaning forward. "We structure it as a ten-year seller-financed note at three percent interest. Your equity stake and your future general contracting fees on Phase Two will serve as the collateral. You assume the primary mortgage note of four point two million that we refinanced through First Southern Bank."
He pointed a blunt finger at the document.
"If you sign this, Amanda, you become the seventy percent majority owner and sole managing partner of Blackwood Point. You control the gates. You control the land. You control the future."
The magnitude of the moment pressed down on me like atmospheric pressure before a hurricane.
Three years ago, my mother had declared across a dinner table that I had no future. She had thrown me onto the street with an army duffel bag and three notebooks because she believed I was incapable of managing an inheritance.
Now, the largest, most architecturally significant private waterfront estate in Chatham County was being offered to me—not as a handout, not as an indulgence, but as an earned, hard-won conquest of pure merit.
"Are you sure about this, Grant?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly.
"I’ve spent forty years watching men with money destroy things they didn't know how to build," Grant Holloway said softly. "You built this. You bled on that roof in seventy-mile-an-hour winds. It belongs to you, Amanda. Sign the paper."
I picked up my pen.
On November 14th, three years and six days after walking out the front doors of Oakridge, the deed transfer was recorded at the Chatham County Courthouse.
*Blackwood Point Holdings, LLC. Managing Member: Amanda Carter (70.0% controlling interest).*
I didn't issue a press release. I didn't post a photo on social media. I didn't call my mother.
I walked back down the long oak alley to the iron gates, where the local blacksmith had just finished installing the new solid-bronze historical marker beside the entrance pillar.
The plaque read:
> **BLACKWOOD POINT**
> *Constructed 1894 by Thaddeus Kingsley.*
> *Restored 2023–2025 by Carter Preservation Group.*
> *"What is built with care endures."*
May you like
I stood by the gate in the quiet coastal twilight, listening to the tide slip through the cordgrass, and for the first time in my life, I felt completely at home.
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