Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Apartment Wars/Florence Senior Center




It would seem the new apartments planned for West Irvine Avenue are about to become a reality We feel this can be a boon for West Florence. We also feel that the city under the direction of Melissa Bailey will make sure there is adequate ingress and egress for the complex, as well as construct sidewalks, etc.

We previously asked how Brink and Hensley will feel about this new complex. Aha! It seems that Hensley-Graves Holdings is the owner of the property where the developers will build. We assume Hensley-Graves will retain some ownership when the complex is completed.

So now we have only Brink who might object...and perhaps Tim Rhodes who's a much smaller player in the apartment game. It will be interesting to see if anyone connected to these businesses attempt to throw up roadblocks to the project.


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A reader wrote to us a few months ago, explaining that Hensley-Graves and Hensley-Thompson are now completely separate entities. The reader didn't elaborate on the split, and we would love to have more information. If anyone can expound upon this division, contact us. Your name, e-mail, etc., is always kept anonymous.


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We had to laugh at the letter to the TD editor concerning the Florence senior center/country club. No perhaps those who frequent the old country club don't need anything so nice, but we've opined before that you should never give someone something, then take it away. 

On the subject of the old country club, it looks like Zing Zang Zung has abandoned plans for a local college of integrative health quackery. Oh, you weren't surprised? We guess only those at UNA were astounded. See yesterday's remark about Sheffield being a Sadie Hawkins and apply it to UNA.






5 comments:

  1. Your question on Hensley property is pretty simple to answer to anyone who knew the family. There were 2 Hensley daughters, one married a Graves, on married a Thompson. As the grandchildren grew up they split the company and divided property and duties. Daddy Billy made plenty of smart decisions in real estate to keep the river of green flowing for decades and possibly centuries to come. And the offspring are being good stewards

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  2. We appreciate this; it does explain their were two sets of heirs. Our other question: Hadn't Troy Thompson run the company for years? So why the change? Did he wish to retire, and the cousins couldn't get along?

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  3. There was much animosity between the two clans, with Troy's clan being the main culprits. Its my understanding that before poor ole Billy could be dressed for his own funeral Troy's clan attempted a quick play for the money, power, control of the company, which was quickly shut down by the Graves clan.

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    1. Post 2
      Because I had 36 successful years experience in the real estate business and because I knew more about the business than anyone other than Mr Hensley the accountant and attorney gave me the authority to make and implement some hard changes about how the business operated. The next most experienced would have been my 28 yr old son or his 26 yr old cousin. I made a lot of people mad when I jerked the sucker (things being taken out of the business that were not earned) out of a lot of people's mouths in order to make the company cash flow again. No one could have gotten money, power or control of the company without the consent of the accountant who was executor of the estate and the estate attorney. Everyone did not agree with their decision and that did cause some animosity.

      I left the office in May of 07 and the business was split into the two companies in August of 07.

      Anyone who wants to discuss this further or thinks they deserve more information can contact me at our offices at 3410 Chisholm Rd.

      Troy Thompson
      Sent from my iPad

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  4. To the avenger, beachlife42 and anyone else who wishes to respond to this blog. It's easy and cowardly to throw out gossip and hide behind a madeup name. If you want to publicly discuss the Family business of Mr Hensley, the Graves or the Thompson's I challenge you to come out publicly with your true identity and where you are getting your information. Otherwise we can only assume you are someone looking to make your self feel big by trying to hurt these family's with misinformation.

    Troy Thompson

    In response to the avenger:
    There were two daughters married as you stated.
    All five grandsons worked at the business while attending UNA. Two went on to different careers.
    There was never any property divided or any company split until after Mr Hensley's death. Mr Hensley had full control of all the property he acquired until his stroke five months before his death.
    Mr Henley did make a lot of good decision in real estate and it will provide for his family in the future. Something a lot of people don't know is that he had been sick for a while before he had his stroke. He made some decisions at the end that required some hard decisions by the family to keep the business going after his stroke.
    The Graves and the Thompson's are being good steward and running two thriving businesses, Hensley-Graves Properties and Hensley-Thompson Properties.
    I don't know who the avenger is yet but I find his reference to Mr Hensley as "Daddy Billy" offensive. Anyone who knew the man would never have referred to him that way.

    In response to Shoalanda:
    I went to work for Mr Hensley in 1974 when I had two years left in collage. Mr Hensley had 19 apartments when I went to work for him. I worked for him until my resignation in 1998. When I left we had over 750 apartments and several commercial properties. I was Property Manager for Hensley Properties for over 20 years.

    I am not sure if you are asking about my retirement or Mr Hensley. Mr Hensley would never have retired. His business was his life. After I left Hensley properties Betty and I worked six months a year as Catastrophic Insurance Adjusters and spent six months a year living on a sail boat sailing the Coast, Bahamas and Caribbean.
    The Cousins got along fine.

    In response to Beachlife42:
    You are correct in that there was a good deal of animosity between the to families about how to run the company after Mr Hensley had his stroke. No disrespect to Mr Hensley but the Doctors said he had been having small strokes for a good while before his major stroke and he had made some decision that adversely affected the company's cash flow. Both families worked long hours and diligently to over come the financial issues we faced. The estate was left in the hands of a very capable accountant and estate attorney who made the final decisions on running the company. They had the power. At the time of Mr Hensley's stroke he had three grandsons working in the office (28, 26 and a 22 yr old who was a collage student). Betty and I were living on our boat in Pensacola Florida when Mr Hensley had his stroke in November of 2006. When the doctors informed us Mr Hensley would never return to run his business Betty (who also has extensive experience in running her own business)and I immediately went to work in the office and started trying to sort out the problems the business was facing. Betty's sister Deborah was a full time teacher and her husband Roy was working a full time job also. This may be where Beachlife 42 got the "understand that before poor ole Billy could be dressed for his on funeral Troy's clan attempted a quick play for the money, power and control of the company". Both families worked very hard between the time Mr Hensley had his stroke in Nov of 06 until his death in April of 07 to turn the cash flow of the company around. Beachlife has shown there ignorance of the facts. Both families had to loan money to the company to keep things going shortly after Mr Hensley had his stroke.

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