Mark Harrill: King of the Mountain
Local Developer Introduces Phase III of Echota
Story by Sam Calhoun
High along the ridgeline separating Grandfather Mountain and Valle Crucis in Foscoe, Mark Harrill, founder and president of Foscoe Companies, stared down at the green expanse peppered with earth-toned Adirondack-style condos, fish-stocked ponds, clubhouses, pools, trails, homes and town homes. “This is as good as it gets,” he said with a smile.
With the first two phases, Echota and Echota on the Ridge, completed and successful, Harrill has turned his attention to the third phase in the 120-acre development, Morgans Ridge.
A preview event for Morgans Ridge is planned for Saturday, September 9, starting at 8:00 a.m. As he launches this final phase of the development, Harrill is optimistic about its success. After all, he has sold 385 units in Phases I and II since Echota’s introduction into the marketplace in 2001. According to Harrill, that makes Echota the fastest-selling mountain home development along the Blue Ridge Parkway—ever.
But long before Harrill conceived Echota, a word that means “peaceful haven” in Cherokee, he developed other properties in the High Country, from Foscoe to Sugar Mountain.
Harrill, 47, moved to the region from Chapel Hill when he was two years old. His father, originally from Rutherford County, was a professor at ASU and his mother came to the High Country, via the North Carolina Piedmont, from Eastern Kentucky.
While growing up in Boone, Harrill held jobs at Camp Yonahlossee, Holiday Inn, Horn in the West and the Boone Sports Center. After attending ASU, he did marketing and contract work, mainly for banks in the region such as Melon Bank, First Union and Watauga Savings and Loan. As Harrill explained, the late 1980s were a bad time for banks that had to take over failing development after failing development when the resort industry took a nosedive. Harrill found himself taking failing developments and rescuing them from bankruptcy.
“I kind of started backwards,” he joked, speaking about how he took an interest in creating developments of his own. “And I can’t sing and dance!”
In 1987, Harrill founded Foscoe Realty and Development and began building his own developments.
Since then, he has created Sugar Cottages, seven homes on four acres that originally sold for $79,900 each; the eleven log cabins that make up Hemlock Village in Foscoe; the Lakes Community in Seven Devils; Hawk’s Peak Condominiums in Seven Devils; and Echota and Echota on the Ridge.
During that time, he married an interior designer named Missy who used to work for Diane Davant Interiors and had two children: Jay, 10, and Brad, 8, who both attend Hardin Park School.
With several developments under his belt, he embarked on the largest development of his career in 2001 with Echota.
After eying the 120 acres for many years, Harrill jumped at the opportunity to own and develop the land. “The property is just special,” he explained.
Echota has been named the High Country’s Best Planned Community for the past two years in a row, and Harrill is quick to share that honor with man who has been his consultant throughout his career—Mike Wilson.
“He’s the smartest man in the world to me,” said Harrill.
Wilson has consulted on many developments in the High Country and is currently working on Ginn Resorts’ Laurelmor. Wilson worked for Brown Brothers Contractors for many years in the High Country and according to Harrill is in high demand.
To plan Echota, “We belly crawled the whole thing,” said Harrill, who said that he has the ability to visualize finished projects and Wilson helps tweak his dreams into a reality. “He makes it work,” added Harrill.
After Harrill laid out the roads by crawling through the woods, he tried to figure out whether to build log homes or condominiums. He had experience in both and his experience told him that, in general, men wanted log cabins and women preferred to have a community. His compromise was to build condominiums, town houses and single-family homes, all with Adirondack architecture care of Reedy and Sykes of Elizabethton, Tenn., and integrate them into a planned community.
The overall development has four components.
The first is Echota, Phase I of the development, accessed from Echota Parkway off Highway 105 in Foscoe. Phase I includes four stocked fishing ponds, walking trails, an indoor/outdoor pool, workout facility and clubhouse.
The second component, Echota on the Ridge, is located at the top of Clark’s Creek Road in Foscoe. Phase II includes a clubhouse and an outdoor pool with a waterfall.
Between these first two phases, a total of 556 units have been approved and 385 units have already been sold. In Echota on the Ridge, 167 units sold in 14 months. Harrill said that 80 percent of the residents in the two developments are from North Carolina and most of his buyers are from Winston-Salem, Raleigh and Charlotte, most of them in preretirement or aged 50 to 60.
The third component is Morgans Ridge within Echota. Morgans Ridge contains 17 lots—half that overlook Grandfather Mountain and half that overlook Valle Crucis and beyond—priced between $215,000 and $265,000. Homesites in Phase III range from low-maintenance quarter-acre lots to approximately 1.5 acres and sit at roughly 3,700 feet. Morgans Ridge is the first phase in Echota that will allow outside companies to design and build within the development as long as they adhere to Echota’s architectural guidelines. Morgans Ridge is a gated community and shares access to the clubhouses, pools and ponds.
The fourth component of Echota is a conservation easement located directly across Highway 105 from Echota and Echota Parkway. Called the Atkins River Farm, the easement is 25 acres with 900 feet of Watauga River frontage. The property, owned by Harrill and his wife, contains walking trails covered with a pine tree canopy, a picnic shelter, a bridge over the river with a view of Grandfather Mountain, garden plots for residents and a 1-acre cleared field for fun and games. All residents of Echota are free to explore, plant and play within its borders.
“We’re selling relaxed, selling decompression,” said Harrill. “We want you to be able to be yourself. We want you to know that yourself is fine.”
Today, Harrill supervises 25 full-time employees, whereas five years ago he only employed two. On any given day, 140 to 160 people are working within Echota’s borders constructing the newest version of Adirondack mountain architecture.
“We’re a huge economic impact,” he added.
Harrill gives a lot of credit for his master planning of Echota to the fact that he’s an “old-young daddy.” He claims that because he had children late in life, he’s just now discovering what amenities need to be present to create “concentrated quality time.”
Being a father helped him realize what is important in life, he said, and now he wants to just give people what they need.
Contact Mark Harrill, founder and president of Foscoe Companies, by calling Foscoe Realty and Development Corporation, located at 133 Echota Parkway, at 828-963-7600. Foscoe Companies is composed of Foscoe Construction Company Inc. and Foscoe Realty and Development Inc., with Foscoe Rentals as a dba entity of the development group. Access more information on Harrill’s properties by clicking to www.echotanc.com, www.echotamorgansridge.com and www.foscoecompanies.com.
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