The Lake Keowee (home) build out

John Hamrick parlayed skill and persistence to make a success out of selling Lake Keowee properties for homebuilding.  Although he sold his Lake Keowee Real Estate business in Seneca years ago, Hamrick today is still active in property sales.  You can say he got in practically on the ground floor after the then Duke Power Company built Lake Keowee, as part of its Keowee-Toxaway project.  In one of his first jobs, West Virginia native Hamrick went to work for Bruce Rochester, a prolific subdivision developer in his time and known as the developer who built the first subdivisions ever in Oconee County.  Hamrick learned much from Rochester.  He fondly remembers when Rochester Real Estate built Port Santorini on Lake Keowee and, by running a sewer line under the lake, how Seneca Light and Water made service available to the new development.  Those kinds of experience helped Hamrick branch out to his own real estate development business Central Contracting, with whom he partnered with Oscar Molin.  Sometimes it’s not so much what you know as who you know.  You can say that was true when Hamrick used connections to become a preferred marketer of lakeshore land that Crescent Land and Timber, a Duke subsidiary, decided to sell.  As Hamrick explained it to 101.7/WGOG NEWS, a new Crescent Land and Timber office manager opened a closet door and out fell property drawings, all or most of which had the name of Hamrick on them.  In our next installment of Lake Keowee Home (build out) Hamrick will detail how a very valuable connection was made that opened great economic opportunity for him and for the many people who would build lake homes.