The End Game — Shelton Covington

Here’s a story of an architect who revolutionized multifamily development

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Mark Humphreys started his architecture firm in the 90s. He designed apartments in his free time. He was obsessed.

The Big House was the first innovation. The idea was to design apartment complexes to look like upscale single-family communities:

He built base packages, then tweaked them based on different markets. Brought down cost but maintained standards. Cities loved it. Developers loved it. Renters loved it. Cha-ching!

In a typical year, his firm designs between 12 and 15 percent of all apartments built in the United States. Last year, that added up to about 40,000 units. Now an inspiration of mine, I discovered Mark entirely by accident.

Guthrie, my hometown of 1,300 people, was a small state line “train depot” town. There, Mark Humphreys discovered the Stage Coach Inn and Old Oak Farms- where ‘Strawberry Wine’ was filmed. He bought both. Why?

Now old, rich, and successful, Mark chose to scratch his creative itch with passion projects. The Stage Coach had a restaurant added. Old Oak Farms got luxurious finishes throughout, with the exception of the slave quarters upstairs. That was conserved for history.

Unfortunately Mark passed away January of this year. His passion is infectious. He remains inspiring. Here’s a quote from 2015 of a man on his game:

“I wake up every day excited about the next. I’m driven to grow this [business] so much larger geographically and product-wise. It’s really exciting to see everything our people are creating. We have been given a gift. We’re not going to sit back on our laurels.”

Let’s pretend you have a billion dollars after 50 years of successful real estate. Now what? What’s the point? Watching Mark’s behavior tells me that he’d do the same as what I'‘d like to.

I’d prolly build cool shit.

So I might as well just start doing that now.