Salamander Officially Breaks Ground for Residences

Salamander Officially Breaks Ground for Residences

By Leonard Shapiro

The official ground-breaking ceremony for the 49 luxury homes comprising the “Residences at Salamander Resort,” took place on a recent sweltering mid-July afternoon. And as Chris Randolph of South Street Partners told close to a hundred guests, “obviously, the ground has been broken.”

Vice Mayor Peter Leonard-Morgan and Sheila Johnson break gound.

Middleburg Town Manager Danny Davis.

Cold drinks on a hot day.

Photos © Leonard Shapiro

Ceremonial shovels, souvenir construction helmets and glasses of champagne were the order of the steamy summer day. With a backdrop of heavy machinery, soon-to-be-buried pipes, and acres of dirt all around, Salamander Resort & Spa founder Sheila Johnson, several of her corporate partners in the project and Middleburg town officials posed for pictures as they turned over the ceremonial first shovels of soil.

“We did a ground-breaking here 15 years ago (for the resort) and look at this now. It’s just amazing,” said Johnson. “My vision, I can’t say enough about it, is finally coming to fruition. It was not just to build the resort to become an economic engine for the Town of Middleburg, but also to expand our lifestyle brand of Salamander...I’m very excited about this.”

Randolph, a partner in South Street Partners, a private equity real estate investment firm headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. and Charleston, S.C. said that sales on five residences have already closed, with four more closings scheduled in the next few weeks.

He also indicated the entire infrastructure phase will likely be completed within the next two to three years. All 49 homes in two different neighborhoods, ranging from 3,500 to 5,500 square feet, will be done in about five years. Prices start at about $2 million, with homesites ranging from 0.4 to 1.3 acres.

Randolph said the first correspondence between his company and Salamander occurred in 2015 and “this has been a long time coming. Nothing gets done without a lot of work…We knew there would be some bumps in the road. We didn’t envision a pandemic…But right now, this is kind of a pinch-me moment.”