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Once she’s back in the kitchen, preparing my food, there’s a silent standoff between my grandfather and me as he lifts his glass to his mouth and takes a long sip. I know he has a point. It’s not my place to hound him. It sounds like there are enough people doing that already.
With a sigh, I pull back the chair beside him and take a seat. I sat in this spot for dinner nearly every night growing up. Nothing about the dining room has changed since I’ve been away. Glossy dark blue paneled walls. Artwork neatly arranged beneath brass library lights. The antique French dining table is still inlaid with scrolling vines in maple and walnut interrupted by the water marks I left as a kid that Cal never cared much about.
Ava returns a few minutes later with a spread worthy of a king, and I waste no time digging in.
I eat while Cal inquires about the London park. There’s not a single detail too small. He wants to know it all.
A few of the board members have tried unsuccessfully to seize control of the Knightley Company from Cal over the years, but their efforts are always in vain. The majority of our board and executive team know there is no way Cal will walk away from the Knightley Company as long as he lives. There is no retirement in his future. He built all of this. In the ’70s, Cal was running his family’s theme park in New York. It was small and they wanted to expand, but the surrounding land was too expensive to purchase. When his father passed away, Cal sold the park and headed down to Georgia, bringing every dime to his name with him. He wanted to build the largest theme park in the world, and to do that he needed a lot of cheap land. He took a big risk. This region was known for its low coastal grasslands and swamps, and even though there were deep pockets of pine forests, loggers were more interested in harvesting timber in north Georgia. The area was officially declared wasteland by the state. Cal jumped on the opportunity. He started to buy up property for $80 an acre through small private transactions, keeping suspicion and costs down. He’d amassed 18,000 acres before an enterprising journalist put the clues together and outed him in a local paper.
New York Businessman Set to Build Theme Park in the MarshHe was the laughing stock of the state, but even still, land prices soared and the last 2,000 acres ultimately cost him the same amount as the first 18,000.
You could say Cal got the last laugh.
With an annual attendance of 60 million people, Fairytale Kingdom is not only the world’s most visited theme park, it’s also the most profitable.
We offer every amenity a guest could hope to find outside of the park itself: themed resorts, shopping centers, golf courses, private communities, and restaurants, all done through a careful balance of preservation and innovation. In 50 years, Cal has only developed a fourth of the land he originally purchased. The grasslands and forests still surround Fairytale Kingdom as a means of preserving the local ecology.
We’ve mimicked this practice in London as well, though on a smaller scale.
“I’ve enjoyed my time there, but I’m glad to be home. I’d like to take over as the Director of Operations for the U.S. park. I think it’s well past time.”
It’s been the plan since day one, me working directly under Cal. He won’t retire officially, but I could help take most of the load off him.
“I’ve been thinking about that…”
He takes another sip of wine and my fork stalls midway to my mouth.
“I’ve had a little pushback from the board.”
I find that a little hard to believe.
“Some of them are whispering concerns about nepotism,” he finishes.
I rear back in my seat. My fork clinks against my dinner plate. “That’s absurd. It’s a family-run business. You’ve been grooming me for this job my entire life. There’s a statue of you and me down there in the middle of the park for God’s sake. What do they expect? That I’d happily step aside and make room for an outside hire? I won’t.”
“And I don’t expect you to. But, Derek, I think there’s a way to make everyone happy. I’ve been thinking on it, and this fall, we ought to have you prove your dedication to the company in a way no one can refute.”
“I think I’ve more than proven my dedication to this company.”
I spent my early teen years working in Non-Character roles in the park, only leaving to pursue an undergrad degree at Princeton with a focus on economics and management and then a graduate degree in global hospitality at Yale. When I graduated, I moved home and worked as Director of Entertainment for the Knightley Company. Four years later, when Cal’s vision for a sister theme park in London finally got the green light, I moved there and oversaw the project. No questions asked. Move here. Work there. Build this. Every facet of my life has revolved around this company and its needs.
