Isaac French: You Can Just Do Things – How a First-Time Developer Built One Of The Most Beloved Retreat Brands In The Country

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As an entrepreneur, as a founder, one of the biggest opportunities that I believe exists is creating these land-based settings and small villages, the built environment where people are actually meant to live and have some level of connection with where their food is grown and a relationship with their neighbors and with themselves and with their families.

Speaker 2

Welcome to the Building Culture podcast, where we explore holistic solutions to crafting a more beautiful, resilient, and thriving world through the built environment. I'm your host, Austin Tennell. If you are in the market for high quality windows or doors, whether residential or commercial, new construction or remodels, I highly recommend you check out Sierra Pacific Windows, who we use at Building Culture on a lot of our projects, as well as if you are in the state of Oklahoma, check out One Source. windows and doors and want to thank them for sponsoring this podcast. Today, I got to speak with Isaac French, who's a really interesting guy. I met him, I think, a little over a year ago on Twitter and he reached out and we actually set up a Zoom call and just chatted and really hit it off. And I got to see him in person again later last year at reconvene in September in LA. And he's a developer. He's an artist. He's a does construction. You have to hear a story and he only tells a little bit of it here, but just a very, gosh, talented, hardworking, thoughtful guy that's had some really tremendous success and had some tremendous success at a young age and kind of very quickly. mean, lot of overnight successes took a long time, you know, as the saying goes, and Isaac has plenty of his own struggles during the his first kind of big project. that is for sure. And he only gets into a little bit of that here. He's got some other podcasts out there where you could dive into that more. But the reason I wanted to have him on the podcast is one, I haven't talked to him in a while. And two is he's, he's really crap created this niche and, experiential hospitality and experiential real estate, particularly around, within, agriculture and, outdoors. I think there's a lot to learn from just kind of his entrepreneurial and real estate business, but also in how successful he's been kind of on the business side, but also how successful he's been with the messages getting out there on social media and his newsletter and this vision for creating compelling in-person experiences in the internet age and the age of AI.

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And I think there's a lot we have to learn as architects, as urbanists, as builders, as people crafting the human habitat. I mean, he's just such a great example of truly building for people with people in mind and then backing into the hardware, backing software and really obsessing about the customer. And if you're in this world, you're in real estate at all, your customer at the end of the day, mean, maybe, you know, like it is the people inhabiting it. So he's got a great story. And I hope you enjoy it and definitely follow his newsletter. He shares a ton of like actually very helpful, real information about how to do social media, grow an online presence, run a hospitality business, what's worked. He kind of tells his whole story about Live Oak Lake on a blog post. So hope you enjoy it. Please like. subscribe and share and let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks so much. Isaac, it's great to have you on today. Austin, I'm pumped. Yeah, it's, you know, like I said, we were just catching up. It's been a year or so since we talked, we saw each other briefly at reconvene, but I'm actually just really looking forward to catching up to you today with you today and kind of hearing about what you're thinking about and what you're working on right now. But to start off, so people listening, even though you've got quite the online presence now and newsletter and social media, I'm pretty sure a lot of people in my audience actually will not know who you are.

Speaker 2

So I'm going to actually start off. I was just on your Twitter right before here. And I love the little one of the things you tweeted recently. And you said, the real world has been neglected for too long. Creating beautiful places, farms, retreats, real communities is what starting an internet business was a decade ago. Offline is better than online. The signs are everywhere. So I'm excited to jump into that because you've got all this entrepreneurial stuff. and experiential real estate and kind of blending this hardware and software. But to start off with, can you just tell everyone a little bit about your background and also what is Live Oak Lake and why was that a big deal? And people talk about that and use that as like, depending, like just this great example of experiential real estate. Well, what a setup. I could probably spend our whole hour just answering that question, but I'll be brief as I can. yeah, a little bit about me. I live on a farm here in Texas with my wife Helen, our two young boys. I was raised a quarter mile down the road, always lived on a farm on the same place. But I did spend a decade in the Northwest where most of my family lives in a little town in North Idaho and was homeschooled. was raised, I guess, in a very intentional household with a very intentional culture. Technology was very limited. We didn't have a TV. But what that did is it encouraged my siblings and I, I've got nine siblings, to really pursue real skills, our passions, work with our hands, dive deep on the things we were curious about in a very practical way. We were building forts and trails and doing things that aren't that That abnormal, guess, if you back up maybe, especially a few decades or a few centuries ago, for rural kids to be doing growing up. But anyway, wonderful childhood that was so instrumental in shaping everything I'm doing today. My dad is a plumber. My grandfather was a home builder. And so we grew up, my brothers and I, going to job sites with them and getting to see them interact. And then, as a teenager, I learned construction from the ground up and also...

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myself with counting because I felt like that was going to be important as an entrepreneur. And I've always been entrepreneurial. So I had a typewriter repair shop at one point. I had a craft soda company. I did artist and cheese making. That company is still thriving. I am also an artist. So I've always been creative. And again, my parents encouraged us to pursue different... crafts, even hand crafts like woodworking and blacksmithing. So all these things together, I guess, really were the backdrop for what I'm doing now. But it's funny because four years ago in early 21, I was at the time self-employed as a bookkeeper. And so it wasn't the most glamorous thing, but I had all this experience kind of in bits and pieces. And I had just gotten married, but I had this dream to create a village of cabins in nature. That's the only way I knew how to think about it because I'd never really seen this exist. There was a certain kind of even modern aesthetic I wanted. It didn't feel like anything I'd ever seen in Texas. I had kind of seen some of that architecture in the Pacific Northwest, but I wanted to blend it with the natural beauty that we do have in Texas because there are pockets of it. And I started searching for land. was literally spending... all of my time and all of my mind thinking about and planning this project. But I had $19,000 saved up, was making $45,000 a year. So it wasn't exactly steeped in the resources needed to go out and pursue a multimillion dollar real estate project. But became totally convinced and then convicted that this was a calling. I had to build this property. Long story short, one morning I woke up and found a new listing on Zillow. that was just five minutes down the road from my house. And the funny thing is I drove, driven past this property dozens, if not hundreds of times as a kid and seriously never had a second thought about it. It's just a little stretch of, I don't know, 150 feet of roadside because it's just a wall of trees. And, but the listing photo was a drone photo and I could see this little muddy cow pond in the middle. And so I knew I had to check this place out. Uh, when an hour later was on site shaking hands with the listing agent,

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we slipped on mud boots and ventured into this just kind of like tangle of brush. And then if sure enough, get down to the water's edge and there's this little muddy cow pond and I literally got chills all over. just knew that I knew that I knew that this was the piece of property to realize that dream. And the land, as I've said, was speaking to me like, build here. And so I got under contract that day. 30 days to close, all cash, $133,000. And then started making phone calls to see how I could figure the finances part of it out, at least to close on the land. So you closed on it, had no idea how we were going to come up with the cash to close on it. Under contract, I'm sorry, under contract without any idea how you're going to come up with the money. I was under contract.

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I like $2,000. I negotiated like $2,000 of earner's money. it was... I'd still have $17,000 left if it didn't work. So, through a few days of phone calls, I was able to work out a short-term loan from my dad and brothers out of state with their construction company for the money to close on the land, which they didn't even have as cash, but they were able to get through the line of credit and operating line of credit through their business. Right, you can get it under contract.

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But what I spent most of my time that first week or so doing was literally I spent three full days on site without my phone, just in silence, walking every square foot of that five and a half acres, trying to understand what is this land meant to be? I had this idea in my mind, but then it was like, how do we bring that idea to life here? And how do I let the land kind of dictate even how and where and what? And so it was... a magical experience to really just be as an open-minded instrument, let that vision start to flow. And I started to see, we're gonna have a cabin here, we're gonna have one here, we're gonna shape them like this, we're gonna orient them like this. This is how high they're gonna be based off this tree. This is where the sun sets. So I want this view like this. I want the road to come in like this. And we have this one curve and that times a thousand for all these little decisions of how we're gonna put these pieces together. to create this magical experience. so then fast forward three months, it took us to get a construction loan. I hit up every local bank. I had no experience convincing a bank to give me money, but got laughed at a bunch and finally found, learned quickly and finally found one who was willing to take a risk. And so they gave us an 80 % LTV construction loan. interest only for 12 months converting to longer term. But in that three months, I wasn't going to let the grass grow. So we ended up spending about $350,000, again, drawing off of a line of credit without any promise of a construction loan because I was so convinced like we have to do this thing. And I was probably selling the vision even to my dad and brothers who were the source of this short-term loan that we had a loan. making it even more real than it probably was on the bank's end. it was a family relationship. there was an element of trust there. they also, they had known the details of how up in the air it was. Everything would have slowed down even more. But I was dead set as I'm going to will this end to be. Ended up building a spec home five minutes down the road in four and half months and sold that, profited $200,000. Was able to roll all that profit into this...

Speaker 2

So you GC that. GC both projects was able to share a lot of. And you hadn't done it before. I had worked in your dad. Right. I had worked under my dad. as a teenager, actually, I was running small construction projects. So I had a good foundational right. The construction, my biggest, probably one of my biggest advantages. So to make a long story short, in nine and a half months designed and built Live Oak Lake, it's this beautiful Nordic inspired village of cabins around the lake. And that vision that I had had that first day when I stepped on on site with that realtor came to pass. Exactly 10 months later, I mean, I know it sounds crazy how quickly that was, broke my pelvis and had a million things go wrong during the process. The vision came to pass. There was this one day in January of 2022, about a week after we opened, it was a soft opening really. My whole family came from across the country, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. Everyone came together as like a mini family reunion. It's for the first time that all of us

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on that level had been together in probably a decade. It was so magical and everybody was getting to have their own little cabin and we came together for meals and that was so rewarding. It was also, again, the realization of that dream. So the whole guiding principle there was like building what I would want to experience, what I would want to take my family to and letting the land kind of lead me along the way. Crazy story, ended up. Week and a half after launching, getting suspended on Airbnb with no warning and no explanation and no help after days of trying to contact customer support. We had a $20,000 loan payment coming up in two weeks and I had no money and we had no bookings coming in. We'd have this fantastic launch, great reviews, great initial bookings, and then it all just dried up instantly when they suspended us. And it was truly the lowest moment of the whole thing for me because I realized like I've just now somehow been able to, with God's help successfully pull this thing off. And now the whole thing is literally being yanked out from underneath me and I cannot do anything about it. And that led to a lot of soul searching and thinking outside the box, which produced a great idea. So somebody told me, Hey, you should consider partnering with an influencer, find an influencer on social media to see if they'll promote it for you. So found this lady in Dallas. She said, yeah, for 950 bucks, I'll do a giveaway for you. And so I sent her some photos at that point. It was like, this is a Hail Mary last ditch. She posted that post and within seven days of the giveaway going live, we gave away a two night stay to a random winner. But in that meantime, we got over $40,000 of direct bookings. I spun up a website to collect those bookings with a calendar or the payment link. We have 40,000 bookings and about 5,000 followers from scratch for this new account on Instagram. And then just as luck would have it, Airbnb restored the account like two days later. And so if it hadn't have been for that little window of misfortune or fortune, depending on how you look at it, we would have never dove in so hard on going direct and building a brand. Fast forward another year.

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We were at 80 % of all bookings direct grossed over $1 million. So that's $800,000 of bookings producing probably an extra $130,000 bottom line income. had hundreds of thousands of followers ended up selling the whole property for $1 million a key. So $7 million all in. And a big part of that was because of that brand that we had built. We sold the whole thing less than two years after opening. So that's the story of Live Oak Lake, which became a springboard for a lot of other cool experiential projects. And thanks. Thanks for sharing that. It really is just like an absolutely remarkable story. And lots of hardship in there in between. And one thing I want to talk, ask about before we move on, by the way, for anyone listening, I mean, you've done a number of podcasts, Isaac O'Hanke, kind of like probably even more details about all of this stuff. So I recommend for anyone wanting to know more, like go check those out, search Isaac French on Spotify or something. You can find some of those podcasts, but you you talked about some of it like when you were walking the land and you're looking about how tall you want it to be and what direction you want, because the sun's coming up this and how it relates to the lake and all the privacy and all these little moments that you were thinking about to create this great retreat. So you're thinking I would call that like the hardware of it that you were creating. But the software element too, I think is something really interesting that it seems like you did, I mean, just extraordinarily well in terms of the experience you wanted people having and being very intentional about that. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like the actual hospitality elements, the experiential elements and, why the heck did it become so actually successful? Right? Great. And influencer, you know, did it and you got some bookings, but like, why has that persisted over time?

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The biggest mistake I made along the way, people ask me, I genuinely think was that I didn't build it in public. I didn't document that process and create that flywheel of an audience growth even sooner. And yet that was also probably my biggest blessing because it allowed me to be so distraction-free when I was actually in that zone as a creator of trying to build a place, trying to bring to life a place that would truly speak to people and would be an environment where magical moments could happen. So it's very hard to boil down the science of it. And I really think that it's so much more of an art than a science to create like that it factor on about a property. But what I like to think of it is as is, so I mentioned I'm an artist and that's always kind of been in my blood is like, I'm very creative and like to see how pieces should fit together in the most pleasing way. And I really tried to build that whole project as an artist. Like the way I kind of think about what I'm doing today, and really starting with that project is creating, building art in nature. And so that means that every single detail, all the way down to the way that the lights were positioned around the front gate, the plantings that we chose, the way that the front gate was designed, the way that each pathway meandered through the trees, the layout again, the views that every single window framed, the... front door and how it opened up next to the lake and with a little pathway down to the water's edge. Literally every detail was carefully thought through and composed as parts of a whole that was all in service of creating that wow factor. so there's a whole... The way I think about it is like there's this whole experience and journey that guests go on and it really starts before they ever come because of course they're seeing your marketing, they're seeing the... the art that you're creating of the art, which is the online presence. But then when they come, the first impressions are so important, but you don't at the front gate, I mentioned that, you don't want to just blow them away immediately. You want them to feel like, wow, something feels different here, but they can't necessarily put their finger on it. And then it's like a magic trick. And then they're like, I've got to see more, I've got to go deeper. And so they come in, they drive through, every individual cabin had a unique distinct experience. You pull up, you get out.

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Again, the spacing down to the inches of the trees to one another and where the pathways led up to the doors and the views along the way. Every bit of that was thought through. And then you walk inside and there's the perfect smell. There's the perfect light that's set perfectly right. There is a handwritten note. And there's this incredible view that you're just like... It's that shoot through moment that you're looking through the cabin. through the light filtering through the trees out onto the water or onto the creek, depending on which unit you're in. And it's that truly like take your breath away moment. And then yet that's just kind of the culmination of the... That's the prelude to the story. And then like every guest has this unique story and you've created a setting through the built environment. Again, through all the things, the details we're talking about. But the line between hardware and software has to be so seamless that no one detects it. This is what I love about Apple is that they more than anything like mastered creating hardware and software that was so seamlessly meshed together that you couldn't discern the difference between them. And so the way we think about the real estate is like you mentioned, the cabins, the landscape, the property, that's the built environment, that's the hardware, the hospitality, the handwritten notes that sent the... the quality of the light even, the casual interaction that's unplanned with one of the housekeeping staff, because we're kind of a staffless hotel, there's no front desk, there's no concierge, or the maintenance guy happens to bump into a guest and they ask a question, every single one of those moments needs to be in service of, again, reinforcing this incredibly magical environment. I think, you know, I've never even been to Disney World, but I think a lot of people describe it as this. again, where it's like you feel like everything is so thought through that when you go there, everything from the staff to the environment makes you feel like you're in a different world. And if at any point someone breaks out of cast or however you want to put that, I don't think of it as like a cast, if they, they, if they compromise that trust that you're building with them and that storyline, that narrative, then the whole thing crashes. And there's like, you know,

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you lose all of that magic. So you could spend millions of dollars building a property and then there's a dirty toilet. All that goes out the roof or you you are going to make mistakes as a host, as a we're all human. But the way you respond to those is one of your best opportunities to truly show that magic. And it sounds simple, but I think a lot of people overlook it. And so again, like even the handwritten note I learned early on, people wanted to see their name written like by hand, not printed out, like a real pen wrote it. And so I trained the staff to do this nice little note and we partnered with a local bakery to provide fresh chocolate chip cookies, our own recipe. And there's a whole story to that. But on the back end, I automated it. So the cleaners have access to the property management software, the bakery has access. I never have to get involved. And they all coordinate it and every day on their way to the site, they pick up an order. and then they take it and leave it with the lights just right. All that stuff is systemizable, but it feels so personalized to the guests when they come in that they can't help but feeling like, me, Isaac was just now here and I just now walked out the door right before they got there and I left this for them. Or another detail, like I realized instruction manuals and like, know, checkout and check-in instructions are a friction point that people really hate about Airbnbs or hotels. And so not only did I want to solve that, I wanted to use that as an opportunity to create that emotional connection with the guests. So I spent like 50 hours, this is Nerd Yoke, combing through every instruction manual, because we had a lot of fancy appliances and hot tubs and all that kind of stuff. Combing through getting the absolute essence that we needed to know for operations, boiling that into a fun to read book, and then layering in... my wife and I's story, our personal story, the property, our local recommendations, and putting it into a coffee table type quality book, designed the whole thing on Canva, and then printed that out for all the guests. so literally that became this thing that people... There was an experience in and of itself. People wanted to sit down and read that because it was fun to read and it had been thought through. And so there's so many opportunities like those.

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that seem obvious or seem minimal, seem peripheral. if they're taken, it's kind of like that. I think it's a Buffett quote about like doing, I'm going to totally butcher it, but doing the obvious, doing the mundane, but like focusing on it and doing it exceptionally well. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I hadn't heard that part. That's super cool about the manual and creating a little story about that because you're so right, by the way. I hate those things. I hate checkout instructions. I'm glad you brought up Apple because like, I mean, that's kind of what I've been thinking the whole time. I'm kind of obsessed with Apple and this idea of hardware and software integration. And it's just so cool that really the everything flows from the end user experience. And then you back into the hardware, you back into what the software needs to be to serve that purpose. it's interesting, you're referring to yourself as an artist. And I think so many architects out there in the industry would like to be doing what you're doing, like what you just talked about and like thinking through all of these little moments to create. beauty and wonder in the world and bring spark moments of joy and inspiration. And the industry itself seems to be so far from that, kind of like the architecture industry and the building industry. And what's interesting too is like, you're not an architect. And by the way, I'm not an architect either. I design a lot of stuff and I actually think the same way you do. By the way, you've had a tremendous success. I don't mean to compare that in any way. I just mean, I think similarly to you about all of this and neither of us were trained as, or I don't think you were trained as an architect, right? You, yeah, no training as an architect. Um, and it's funny cause the most, some of the most successful architects I know, they're like, Oh, thank goodness you weren't trained as an architect. That's why, that's why you're okay. It was kind of a, a little bit of a sad state of the industry. And by the way, I know some amazing architects out there, so that's, I'm not trying to, to cast stones, but

Speaker 2

What you're talking about throwing kind of like your heart and soul into something, creating something beautiful, creating something worthwhile. Gosh, I don't really have a direction of going this besides, I think we desperately need more of this in the world. And it kind of goes back to your quote on X where you're like, creating experiences for people is like the new creating what an online business was 10 years ago. So maybe that's a good place to kind of shift into, I know that you've actually, when you were doing all this, you had never even heard of... The words new urbanism, know, when we first talked a year ago, you just heard about it or something, or maybe it was at reconvene. Tell me a little bit about that. Like, how did you come across that? What have you kind of been reading and thinking about since then? Yeah. Yeah. So, it was actually through our mutual friend, Eric Weatherholz that I, he and I connected on X early on and I really had a respect for what he was posting. And I started reading his newsletter, which is really great called Asphalt Jungle. and then I was like, what is it that you actually do? Cause I was having a really hard time pinpointing Like, is your business? I'm trying to understand it. And so then I saw him, I met him at an event like a year and a half ago, and he kind of told me a little bit about what he was doing and kind of advising these different developments. then I guess over time, it started to come together and I got it finally about a year ago, like the light bulb went off. he even had some great, really simple way of...

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putting it, something like, you know, a coffee shop will sell, if it's done right, will sell so much more than coffee. It'll sell apartments and hotel rooms and retail space around it. Something like that, that like really made me understand the concept of placemaking and what he was doing with these different projects. And then I got connected with Damon with Camp North End and the whole redevelopment, adaptive reuse of this massive, massive site, massive project over 10 plus years. And I started to understand these guys are doing exactly what I'm doing, except they're doing on a much bigger level and they're doing it in cities. And then I started to realize something else that I had noticed and just known all along, was growing up in Texas, I lived in a little bubble. We live on a farm. We have animals, we have beautiful spaces outdoors. We built our house and our barns and it's all nice. But you drive five minutes down the road and you get on I-35 and it's really, really nasty. To be completely honest about it. For hours and hours, you may have posed... I don't know when that was. I was going to bring it up. Yeah. I couldn't help it. I was so not in sense because I wasn't angry. was just so soul destroying and heartbreaking. I'm just like, like literally I'm having an emotional reaction. Yeah. Heartbreaking is the perfect word for me because you know, like this place could be beautiful. It's not that we're forever condemned to this, we've chosen and I understand and it's so nuanced, it's so complicated, but we've chosen to prioritize money and a certain level of independence that's not maybe not even healthy or necessary. And a certain level of just utilitarianism that is just

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heartbreaking because again, as kind of an, as an artist and maybe a little bordering on whimsical at times, like I really appreciate beauty. Like my mission is to bring more beauty into this world before I die. And for me, it's, it's like a calling. Like I'm a believer and I think that that's the way I glorify God is by like being an apprentice artist underneath him and like making my corner corner of the world more beautiful and inspiring other people to make theirs more beautiful too. Every one of us can be an artist. in that sense. I don't know, it all kind of came together living in this place. And then I had visited towns and a lot of them actually were the classic touristy places like Bar Harbor, Maine, or Telluride, Colorado that are overly done. They're very commercialized, but there's something there that is just beautiful. Of course, it's the setting that they're in, but then also the town with the trees and the old buildings and the storefronts and the lighting. And a human scale. And then I realized like, actually haven't put this together until right now, but growing up, do you know the artist Charles Wysocki? Okay. So he's like super, super idealistic to it. Like kind of like a Thomas Kinkade style, but he has this very distinct style of art. My mom loves puzzles. And I just now thought of this, but growing up, she was always doing these thousand piece puzzles and have that human scale.

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Don't.

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I guess this artist was back in the Northeast and New England. So lot of his scenes were ocean and early Americana type towns and settings. And we grew up, my siblings and I, doing these puzzles with her. so there was something that was really fun about putting the puzzles together, putting the pieces together. But then these scenes that would always come out of them were like the perfect town in the world feeling. And there's something in all of us, I think, that resonates with that, that we want to have places. were always full of children and full of grandparents and full of humans. were very, very rarely any cars in those scenes because they were also back in time a hundred years ago. Lots of horses and animals and lots of nature. And so I guess I've just had this lifelong dream of creating a more beautiful world and starting on a small scale. I have this philosophy that you should do less, but you should do it better. And it's so ridiculously simple that most people just roll their eyes or they don't even think twice. But if we would actually put that into practice, so us as real estate developers, I am constantly learning, like saying no, and I'm curious your take on this too, but I have so many opportunities on a weekly basis coming to me and 99.99 % of them, or close to a hundred really, at this point, I have just said no, politely to, terms of partnering on this project and doing this thing and doing that thing. Because I realized that if I start to spread myself out, and of course I could make a lot of money, I assume, doing some of this stuff, but I'm automatically not going to be able to devote the kind of... At least the kind of attention and the kind of energy that I want to, to these projects. And so I limit myself to doing one thing at a time and doing it really well. And I also try to do a diversity of things. I planted this beautiful orchard and designed it around a pergola and a garden with pathways and kind of with the same ethos of making it beautiful. So I'm doing like different types of projects that are kind of outside the box, but it's all about creating more beauty, doing fewer things, but spending more time, attention, love, care, and when necessary, money to do it. So that's kind of how I got into this whole place making and new urbanism.

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concept that I still feel incredibly ill-equipped to speak on other than just being a huge fan and a huge student of the work of some of these artists in architecture and real estate that we can look at. Christopher Alexander and some of the Andre Duvall and some of more recent folks that are doing you, Austin, that are doing really, really beautiful projects. So I don't know. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think there's a bunch of threads I want to pick up on there. By the way, Pattern Language from Christopher Alexander was like the first book I read before I had even gotten into building. was kind of like, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. was like post KPMG, post Peace Corps. And I was like, I wanted to go into building and I was almost going to California to work at Metta. I was interviewing. at Facebook at the time, back when it was cool though, you know, like this 2015 where I was like, Ooh, I'm to go to San Francisco. And then anyway, did fell through and thank God it did. I'm going to share a little trick we use at building culture. So if you're designing a house, you have to have egress windows or egress in any bedroom, for example. And the problem with that is egress. windows are very large, especially if it's a double hung window or something like that. And because of design constraints, sometimes we want a smaller window if it's in a dormer or just for the hierarchy of the elevations. Well, a really cool trick that we use with our Sierra Pacific windows is we'll take something from their urban casement line and we'll put what's called a piano hinge on it. And so rather than kind of a normal casement that kind of slides open where only part of the window is open, This is almost like a door hinge. so the entire window opens and you can meet egress with a two foot by four foot window, a two four window. It's the smallest possible egress window anyone makes. And that's a nice little design trick. If you're as nerdy as I am, you will actually think that's really cool. So check out Sierra Pacific windows and if you are in the state of Oklahoma, check out one source windows and doors, we at building culture.

Speaker 2

use both of them regularly. But there's a couple of things I want to say. the no thing, gosh. Yeah. The each year I'm getting better at saying no more. You know, I was recently reading, you know, Tim Ferriss is. Yes. Yeah. So he recently came up with a book called The No Book, like literally no. And oh, the no book. I have not read it because I don't know if he like fully released it like as a book. He was going to make it kind of release it a little bit differently. But he talked about he he went from like complete obscurity. to he wrote the four hour work week and then was just like, you know, number one New York times bestseller. And he kind of said like, yes to everything. And he spent the next 12 or 18 months having to live up, fulfill all those things and just like completely and utterly exhausted. And I was just reading his kind of like intro to the book not long ago. I don't know, four months ago, five months ago and Something I've always been like a zero inbox person and I like pride myself on like, I respond to everyone and every, I used to do this to comments on social. I would respond to every comment on social media. Like I used to do that. don't. do. I, yeah. I'm practicing literally sometimes I don't respond to someone's email, not because I'm like, ha ha, screw you. But just like, you know what? I just can't get to this right now. And it's just not the top of my priority. And it's something I want to. I wrote to do more of what I want to do and be better at what I want. I actually have to say no to more so that I can actually not only be all that I can be, but deliver kind of to the, to the world and like the best possible product. So it's interesting to, I think it's something that a lot of people struggle with, you know, one thing about beauty. Okay, so this is interesting that you're gonna, think you'll find interesting. If for anyone listening, I'm probably gonna get this like slightly wrong, but I've been looking into sacred geometry. And I recently read a book on biogeometry and 10 years ago I had read about embodied cognition and architecture and embodiment and just how kind of a, how the physical world has real effects on the human emotions, body stuff. You can actually track scientifically, whether it's eye movement or chemical reactions and things like that. Well, and some of these,

Speaker 2

books I'm reading, they're describing numbers and math are kind of the foundation of reality in some ways. And you've got light waves and you've got sound waves and color and all that that are ultimately math. And if you imagine, say, if you've got like a still lake and say there's just a round tower, static tower kind of coming out of that lake, and then a boat goes by and the boat is in motion and so therefore it's putting off waves. You've got these ripple effects going out and those ripples are going out in all direction. Of course they interact with that round structure coming out of the lake. And the shape of that structure and the size of that structure and the density of that structure and the geometry of that structure affect those waves that kind of exist out there. And that's kind of really simple way of saying that our buildings and our geometry itself, which geometry is really angles, which are numbers, which make up shapes, which make up physical things in our physical world, that they really like let off and interact with energetic systems that we really can't see. and that it can harp. There's, there's geometries that can harmonize things and, and, and geometries that can disharmonize things. And this is something I learned that I didn't know that when you strike a chord on an instrument, say a C chord, You're playing all, like through harmonics and resonance, you're playing all octaves of that from zero to infinity of like, know, if you go up an octave, it's I guess twice as long of a string or half as long a camera. So you're playing all octaves twice and half as long as the string is. Your ear only kind of picks up the main one that you struck, but you're kind of like sending this resonance of sound throughout. And then the thing that we hear is the qualitative aspect of kind of this math reality, you could say. And so all this is a little bit confusing in terms of I probably didn't even say it all right, but I'm really starting to be convinced that like beauty has like, I mean, extremely substantial and real physical effects in this world. And it's not just like, we like it. It's beautiful. Yes, we like beauty. That there's something much more deeper, I would say almost going on. And even looking at some of the sacred structures throughout history, like the pyramids and stuff is like utterly fascinating.

Speaker 2

The fact that the pyramids are, Jesus is closer to today than he was to the pyramids. Like that's just insane. Like they're that old, they're 5,000 years old. Pretty amazing. a book were you reading a book on sacred geometry or what material was that? The one I just read in this kind of a wild book, I'll be honest. I'm like, whoa, and now I've got like 20 other books I want to read, but it was called The Future, Back to a Future for Mankind by Ibrahim Karim, who's an Egyptologist and architect and boy, got some interesting ideas. It's kind of a trip, I'll be honest. so much there that I It's really interesting. mean, like I just.

Speaker 1

read and learn about that. Yeah. Have you ever heard that guy, Randall Carlson? Frankel Carlson, why does that ring bell? What does he? He's been on like Rogan with that guy. I don't know if you heard of Graham Hancock and fingerprints of the gods. Like an archeologist. Old civilizations and there's this whole philosophy of ancient civilization that we don't know about. And it's some of it's there's a whole Netflix show on it now. That's it's something I haven't seen most of it, but it's gotten a lot of attention. There's a couple of episodes with this guy, Randall Carlson, look him up. He's whole. gosh. I'm running it down.

Speaker 2

I'm totally gonna look it up. He's an architect and a builder, but he's like this geo-mythologist and geological explorer that goes really deep on this. I've just barely scratched the surface of some of his content, but it reminds me of it. That's about the extent to which I know sacred geometry, but there is something there. Biophilic design, is basically building in a way that mimics nature. is the thing that I resonate the strongest with. And I don't know exactly how that applies or if it applies to sacred geometry. I assume that there's some overlap there. But the whole idea that nature is the place where people feel the most alive, it makes so much sense to me. I think I first kind of stumbled across that idea reading A Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander. And now I kind of, it's like I see it everywhere. Once you see it, now I can, you can start connecting those dots, but going back to the feeling that people can't always articulate and then looking at the built environment and just knowing that some spaces make you feel good and some spaces don't. So much of that is based on this biophilic design and creating spaces that harmonize with nature, that incorporate nature. And part of it is potentially shapes and proportions. That's very important too. But just the idea of like, You know, being in spaces where what I believe like God can speak through them, even if you're not a spiritual person, like you can have this experience. So we went to this property called Babylon store and have you heard of this? I've written about it. It's absolutely mind blowing. It's in South Africa. It's a,

Speaker 2

No.

Speaker 2

I did see that. I saw your post on South Africa, I think. Yeah, it's like a 1600s Kate Dutch farm that this billionaire couple bought 20 years ago and totally redid. But it's got to be like the most impressive property, real estate development I've probably ever seen, at least personally. I mean, it's unbelievable. But they have this eight acre formal garden and it was designed by a really famous garden designer. But anyway, when we went and stayed there, I couldn't have had higher expectations for the place. It's been in the world's top hotels. It's very, very widely known as like a destination, best in the world kind of place. I was totally blown away, doesn't even do it justice. Like I was mesmerized by that garden. And it was honestly like an emotional experience for me. Like, so you talked about having an emotional reaction driving down I-35. I had an emotional reaction walking through this eight acre garden. It was on the opposite end of the spectrum. couldn't even... I couldn't fully appreciate or fully, certainly fully detect all of what had gone into it. But it was the magnitude of it that on the smallest scale, nature was being tended and shaped in a way that was just pleasing to my soul. It resonated. It struck a chord in me that resonated through my entire body. And so I just find that incredibly inspiring that we as humans, again, like, you know, as part of even what I believe about God, I think that he's the ultimate artist and nature is the ultimate design. But I think that we as humans get to be these apprentice artists. And I think it's really interesting that in the Garden of Eden, God created this world that was perfect. Like everything was perfect. But then he created man in his own image.

Speaker 1

and he told him to tend the garden. And so there was some element of freedom there creatively where man could interpret and express that art through creation. so that collaboration between the ultimate design and the ultimate designer and us as designers too is just magical when it's done right. So I think I tend to be more on like the agrarian, agriculturally based, real estate types of projects, communities, villages, retreats. gardens, whatever you want to put it. But I think all of those things can be applied in some way, biophilic design to more urban concepts and have similar results in terms of moving people and having emotional, even spiritual transformational experience. I love the point about the co-creative part. Like that's how I think about it. Like we are like co-creators, you know, where we're participating and something I think about a lot where there's, I don't know, I think that the narrative may be shifting here in a good way, I think, but for a while it kind of, the environmentalist movement, the climate change movement has been kind of, not kind of. has become anti-human and that it's like humans are horrible. Humans are bad. Humans are nothing but destructive. You know, what's wrong with the world is humans. And I think that's a really destructive ideology. And, but at the same time, I'm like a huge environmentalist because I believe that we literally have to care for and tend the world for to maximize human flourishing. But really it's putting like, what is the purpose of all of this is, you know, human flourishing and everything else falls underneath that. But What I find so interesting is like there's like a forest. If you go into a completely untended forest, there is absolutely beauty there. It's something that's never been touched by man. There's beauty there. At the same time, some of the most beautiful places on earth, agricultural forests that have been tended by men and women for hundreds of years are actually some of the most beautiful places on earth. mean, during the Middle Ages and I mean, probably all throughout history, they would have forests where they would grow trees

Speaker 2

meant for projects hundreds of years later. And when you actually clear out the brush and maintain things, the trees can actually thrive. You can say like, we're just going to let nature do its thing and that can work over time too. I'm not like saying we shouldn't do that. My point is that like people, human beings can create utterly unbelievable, stunning beauty. And like the garden you're talking about in South Africa, that is a created, curated, and tended garden that's kind of this combination of like, you you can't make things grow, right? Like, but it's this combination of participation and co-creation to create something really exceptional and really beautiful. And I just think it's something really important to internalize in a culture today that humans are, yes, we're capable of immense destruction, but also when we're connected, I would say also to God, like we're capable of immense positive regenerative beauty that makes places and people wealthier, richer, more abundant. Yeah. And I think that as a key part of that, like there's, this can be very meta and I won't, I'll try to be very unabstract here, but like there's this whole idea that we'd been kind of in Western civilization for, for centuries now. I kind of really, at least was rebirthed in the Renaissance, but which had a lot of good, but this part wasn't as great, which is that basically all constraint is a bad thing and limitations are a bad thing and you can be whatever you want to be. And I think that there's a kernel of truth there that like we're all created with limitless potential, but that doesn't mean we get to dictate the givens in our lives. Again, it kind of goes back to the idea that there even is a God and we have to submit to him, which some people don't like that idea. And I'm not trying to impose my belief on anyone else. I just don't think that we serve ourselves well when we think that we can just violate whatever boundaries we want to in creating whatever we want to and calling it whatever we want to.

Speaker 1

It's interesting to me that this is scientifically proven that babies, weeks old, detect in their brain, scans of their brain activity, can detect when a melody is played and one note is out of tune or one wrong note is played. There is an automatic inherent reaction in a human brain to that. And so what that tells me is there is a design coded into the universe. And it happens with sound waves, it just as much happens with visual surroundings, like with all of reality. And then ultimately, yeah, I mean, like to our core, there is a code, there is a design. And I think that the greatest beauty comes when we recognize what constraints are and how we can work within that, how we can play within that. I mean, it certainly applies. hear this advice now given out, like it's this incredibly new, profound revelation about like career advice of like, you were sold a lie to follow your passion or whatever. Everybody has competing opinions and I don't even really care about that. I do believe there are certain things that I was made to do and there are certain things I was not made to do. just because I can do those things and I can work really hard and I can even overcome challenges, I'm always going to have limitations, physical limitations that... somebody, fellow human is not going to have. So how we apply that to design is really, really important in terms of what we build, how we build, where we build. And it ties back to that whole concept. And I told you the story about libo clake of even letting the land speak to you and dictate what you should build and how you should build it. And this is one of the things I love about nature, real estate development, because nature becomes so much more of an important part of the story. It's not just a canvas that you can do whatever you want on like a lot in a city might be. There are all kinds of givens, if you will, in topography, in established trees, in an ecosystem that's working, in rock outcroppings, in orientations and the flow of water, and all of that stuff.

Speaker 1

you have to submit, I believe, to create the most beautiful projects that actually have a heart and a soul that you feel something in. You, as a developer, have to submit to those givens. But that's a beautiful thing because within that, you have a palette now of all the colors, if you will, that you're going to paint with. And then you can work with that. There's a great quote, and I'll just end on this, but to the whole point of the co-creation process with God. And this is Alexander Sochalitzen, who actually said this, but he said, it is the artist who realizes that there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God's heaven. I love that. That's, I do love this idea of limitations. It's something, I mean, you mentioned you're breaking your pelvis, but you you know, some of my journey with footstuff and frankly, just business and all that. But the more that I kind of accept my own limitations and there's kind of a broad range of those limitations, you know, whether they're personal or whatever situational life, all that projects, the more that I actually kind of engage with those and sec accepts those that the happier I am actually, which is really really interesting because we had this idea that maximum infinite freedom to do whatever you want as happiness. And it's like, that actually hasn't worked out very well for anyone that's done that. but I want to pivot a little bit. tell me about what you haven't heard about is like, what's next. When I saw you in September, like I know you were exploring things. You've been traveling a lot. You've been checking out things. You've been writing your newsletter. You've been growing your ex audience and social media and had a lot of success. even on those things, what are you working on now and what's next for you? If you know what that is.

Speaker 1

Yeah, well, in a sense I do, in a sense I don't. It's definitely a journey that I don't know the destination, but we didn't even touch on some of the other projects that I've been involved with that I've shared about more recently and some of which are in Idaho with the restoration of a small town that we're involved with up there that's been a family project and a community project. We're taking an old logging town and one by one kind of buying up these crumbling buildings and reimagining them and breathing new life into them and structurally stabilizing them and creating a whole town of viable buildings and viable commerce that will support a local community. So that's been a lot of fun. could have a whole podcast on that. I've also, I mentioned the orchard. Our homestead here in Texas is a pretty vibrant place now. We, our homestead is also not isolated. So we're a part of this agrarian Christian community, that movement that's now worldwide. But basically the idea here is we have probably 40 or 50 different families with their own private homesteads in one area. It was one piece of property that was subdivided. Then we have a lot of common space for agriculture, for events. for a whole craft village and a farm-to-table restaurant and gristmill and blacksmith shop. so there's a lot of local economy. And this is where I was born and raised. So again, like all of this stuff was very influential in shaping me and what I'm doing today. But as time has gone on and I've shared the story of Live Oak Lake and kind of built a little bit of an audience, I've realized like I kind of am sitting on a gold mine, even as content that I want to tell about. in ways that will also help our efforts and what we're trying to do. And so our mission, at the end of the day, it is faith-based. And we believe very strongly that what we're trying to do is only possible with that being the center of it. But what we also want to do is nurture and share whatever we've learned with other people and other community building efforts because...

Speaker 1

I do have this strong belief and you started out by referencing that tweet that I made a couple days ago. I do believe that a certain level of decentralization is not only going to be desirable, but absolutely essential to our even our survival. And you may call me a conspiracist. I'm not, but to our survival and our thriving as a nation and as a world and that people need to get out of these huge, like terribly unhealthy city environments and into settings. that everybody is not going to live, you know, there's going to be plenty of room for people to in cities, but not everyone can live in a city. It's really interesting if you look at America and you zoom out, let's say that you were flying over America, you know, a hundred years ago and you saw the beauty, the natural beauty and the resources of this country. And then you were told, yeah, in a hundred years from now, whatever it is, 95 % of the population is going to live in these huge cities and I don't know, a majority of that percentage is going to work a computer job as a service-based economy. It just doesn't really make a lot of sense to be completely frank with you. so I think that it's kind of, this is very contrarian because AI is obviously like the cutting edge and a huge frontier arguably in terms of technology and advancement. And I think we're going to see a lot of good come from that. But I also think to the point of like starting an internet company as an entrepreneur, as a founder, one of the biggest opportunities that I believe exists is creating these land-based settings and small villages and the built environment, the real world, as I call it, where people are actually meant to live and have some level of connection with where their food is grown and in a relationship with their neighbors and with themselves and with their families. And, you know, participating in the essentials of life. And that's a big mission for me and for us as a movement. I have been exploring ways to share more and network with more people with the same mission. And so I love like what you're doing in Oklahoma. And I think there's, you know, there's a whole ecosystem that needs to be built of real estate developers, of artisans, community builders, visionaries,

Speaker 1

And there's these entire worlds that need to be built and within the world, so to speak. And that's going to benefit us as a nation. you go back 150 years, that's what we predominantly were. And we live in such a beautiful place. But I think this is a global thing. I think that personally, hard times are coming financially for this country and for our world. I'm not saying when or how or what, but just look at the debt crisis. That is a very unsustainable trajectory that we're on I mean that's just something for me that's very front of mind with some of even the recent news about Bond yields and such both here in the wet also globally and that honestly scares me like that is just totally I think I've I've known about that for a long time that I've I've always just kind of like pushed off because America has always succeeded and I'm not saying America is not gonna succeed I'm just saying there's a reckoning and Coming and I want to be positioned and I want to help position other people in a way that stabilizes our lives so that we're not at the whims of entities and governments and forces that are totally beyond us and our control. mean, look at supply chains with globalization and look at the food supply. Look at the light that's being shed on the food industry. There are so many angles that we could look at of unsustainability as a culture, as a country, as a world, to be completely honest. So I know that's getting very far afield, but I really do believe that all of us have a part to play that see that in fixing that and in offering a solution. And so I focused the last six to 12 months really in not taking on any new projects, but sharing the stories about all of the projects I've done, including some of those adjacent to me with the community and stuff like that. Because I think that having an audience, having a platform is increasingly valuable as attention is more more valuable in today's world. But ultimately, at the end of the day, just trying to be an inspiration for other people and also feeling like I'm kind of at the beginning of the journey for me, even coming all the way back from the real estate point of view, like I definitely want to do more projects. Speaker 1 (01:01:40.718) but it's not at all about finding a model of real estate asset class that works and then using my reputation and just scaling that model. mean, that does not appeal to me at all. I want to create design and create a whole way of life. And it sounds ambitious, but I'm not trying to do it by myself. I don't know, I feel like the future is bright on the other hand to give a sense of hope. I see rural America as a gold mine of opportunity. for those that are willing to go out and have a vision and work hard to realize it in revitalizing small towns, in creating communities and retreats, local economies, creating destinations, using technology, using social media and harnessing the power of that to bring attention to economically sustain some of these things. But really, really going deeper in terms of what is the fabric of the culture that we're trying to create in... really, really sustainable type of model where we can thrive as humans. Boy, we can absolutely have a full podcast about that. my gosh, what you just talked about, decentralization, culture, just where we're going, all of it. Echo a lot of that. We'll have to do this again. One thing I want to share with you is when you talk about doing what you're doing and then kind of growing through media and teaching others, Leon Creer, I don't know if you've read any of his books. Yeah. So he's wonderful. He's one of my favorite and kind of that movement. And he talks about in biological organisms, you have, mean, there's some exceptions to this, but for the most part, they grow until maturity and then they grow through replication after that. And he compares that to cities where he's like cities, there's kind of this optimal size and they're not just supposed to grow indefinitely. They're supposed to grow until they're mature and then they replicate. And I've thought about that with my own business and building culture. It's like, as we grow and get more successful, whatever that looks like over the next 50 years of my life, hopefully Lord willing, you Speaker 2 (01:03:40.342) I don't want to just grow some giant real estate development company. I'm flying around the country, you know, go to New York and this and that or whatever. And I mean, that's not even on the table. I'm just saying like, I want to do really, really, really, really great work and then help others do it through media, through education, through whatever. So last thing want to ask is, is what has success been like? Speaker 1 (01:04:02.99) Give me give me an example in terms of like the audience or financial or what? So I think success can sometimes be more destabilizing than hardship just in life and people I've talked to and all that. So I'm just kind of curious where it's not like nothing is an overnight success. I'm sure some people perceive what you've done as an overnight success, but it's like, well, there's a lot of work that went into that overnight success. And so coming from a place of you were a bookkeeper to whatever a year later, or I guess it took a few years to sell and sold for quite a bit of money and grown this online platform and you're quite well known and have become a media personality. Like, I don't know, what's that been like? To be totally vulnerable with you, it's been very humbling. In any metric that you look at, whether that's the audience or... Which I'm still a pretty small fish in the grand scheme of things. But in our little world, yeah, maybe I've gotten traction there. Whether it's the audience or whether it's the finances, I've had fall flat on my face failures and felt like I really made some pretty huge mess ups. since that's happened. And I won't even get into all those details, but just trust me, someday I'm gonna write a book about some of this stuff. Because seriously, some of the stuff I don't even wanna get into, but it's been... And you're one of maybe the first person that's actually asked that question. So it's very interesting. And so therefore the first person I've given this answer to. I feel like there is a lot of virtue and not just virtue. For me, it's a core part of my belief system, but in just... Speaker 1 (01:05:48.768) always remaining small in your own eyes and not getting a lifted up ego. yet the entire world, social media algorithms, the people that you think you want to be like are all trying to get you to conform you to a certain mold, even like when it comes to social media and the way that you portray yourself. And so I've realized like more than anything they say, you know, the older you get, what's that, that saying about like, The more you know, the older you are, the less you know. more you... I'm totally messing it up. you get the general idea. And I feel that way. I'm 28 years old. I have a young family. There's so much about life, about business that I don't know. And the only way I'm going to know that and realize what I really want and what we're all searching for as humans is a sense of meaning and purpose and fulfillment. Unless you know. I like Speaker 1 (01:06:47.726) is only going to come by actually remaining humble and having people in my life that I'm always grounded to and accountable to and that love me and that I can trust and who I love that will be honest with me. so having a strong community around me has been critical and very grounding. there's that great concept by Victor Frankel. I think he wrote this in Man's Search for Meaning where he said, happiness cannot be pursued. Only meaning and purpose can be pursued and then happiness will ensue. And I think that that has become, I've learned the truth of that and I feel like I'm just beginning to learn and live out the truth of that. All the things that you think you want and to whatever small degree I've begun to realize some of those things, I've realized are not things that you really want. It's the meaning and the purpose. that maybe was part of you getting those things, but then in which you lost when you thought that you arrived and yet that wasn't the arrival, that wasn't the destination. So even in terms of what I'm doing next, I'm trying to truly live with an open mind and open heart and open hands and stay small in my own eyes, but use the gifts that God's given me and use the platform that he's given me, use the resources that he's given me to your point to help other people and to truly not make any of it about me, but to at the end of the day, I want my life to glorify God. I want it to speak of a higher power. And I want to contribute to something that's going to go beyond me. People talk about legacy and leaving a legacy. And I guess I do believe in that in the sense that we're all looking for that infinite, the project that's bigger than ourselves that we're going to play a part in. And so that's what even nationalism can become. Nationalism is not that pristine for me, but I in a sense I also do want to like be part of a movement that transcends me that is all about creating sustainable families and sustainable lives and sustainable places that foster those things and so It's been a double-edged sword. I'm very thankful for the blessings that I have but I also feel a great sense of trepidation and almost Speaker 1 (01:09:13.077) of gravity to pursuing those things or not even pursuing, but receiving those things at a young age because it feels like you're entrusted with things that you're not necessarily fully equipped to steward. And so I'm very thankful for people around me. They're helping me navigate that. I don't know. That's a very unrehearsed answer because I've never been asked. That was my, I mean, that's some good stuff, man. Like really, and I know we need to go, so we'll wrap up here. I really appreciate you sharing that. You're a real inspiration to people for multiple reasons, but I think a lot of it is just like your heart and what you're trying to do, not just your like accomplishments, you know? So where can people follow you and find you? And I'll put it in the show notes. I write a weekly newsletter that's the number one thing I recommend at IsaacJFrench.com and then I'm on socials at IsaacFrench. Yeah, and you do share a lot of valuable stuff like all your what you're actually doing in your hospitality thing. So Isaac, thanks so much for coming on and look forward to staying in touch. Thank you Austin and keep being an inspiration in the light, because you've been one to me. Speaker 2 (01:10:20.544) thanks. If you've been enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe and share with your friends. And if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please leave us a five star review. Thanks so much for listening and catch you on the next episode.