My biggest concern with having a jazz museum was financial survival in a world where rock music rules. Jazz and classical music are our intellectual styles of music and both are in danger financially today. I knew we wouldn’t be popular like a rock and roll museum would be, so we had to somehow have the financial backing to survive. We were fine as long as my dad was alive, but when he would be gone the IRS would come after my sister and me for estate tax, and they might take all of our cash and then some, which is basically what they did. I knew when that day arrived, I might not be able to pay the bills for what would be an unpopular museum to survive.
My dad had been buying real estate in the Sherman area since 1943, never selling anything. Buy and hold was the name of the game to avoid capital gains tax. He had a reputation for never even listening to offers. He was forced to make one sale, however.
One day in 2006, Harry James, Jr. called my dad for a lunch visit to talk business. Harry was a real estate developer in the Dallas area whose company was developing some land near Sherman, and they were interested in 39 acres my dad owned. My dad asked me to go to the lunch to hear their offer with him. I was so nervous I knocked over my glass of water on the table. I realized I was sitting across the table from the son of Harry James! All I knew was music, but we weren’t there to talk music, so I just sat and listened.
Harry asked my dad how much he would sell his 39 acres for, as if he thought it was possible. My dad was very nice, and instead of saying he would not sell, he told Harry he wanted what the land would be worth in the future–about 4 times what I thought it was worth. My dad knew Harry would not pay that, so he was basically saying no deal.
We didn’t hear anymore from Harry for over a year, but when we did, he agreed to pay the price! Because my dad was a man of his word, he had to agree to sell. To avoid paying capital gains tax my dad donated the land to his foundation and let the foundation sell it. Since I was the president of the foundation by then, I represented us at the closing. I found myself closing on a real estate deal with the son of Harry James in January of 2008.
Five months later my dad died, eight months later the real estate market crashed, and the IRS took most of our cash by 2012. We survived during those years because of the cash we had acquired from Harry James Jr., in the only land sale my dad ever made. I don’t know how it all fell into place so perfectly, but the Harry James name had something to do with our survival in our early days. The family of one of the all time great names in jazz helped us with our jazz museum indirectly. What are the odds of that happening? We opened in 2010 and are being funded in part today by that land sale to Harry James, Jr. in 2008.
