Before he died, Homer Morris asked his friend and benefactor Lou Kovach to make sure to finish their project to split the Coy Kendall greenhouse property and to take care of Homer’s wife Jean, “the best he can.”
Kovach is trying to honor that promise, but, he said, Van Buren Township has put up roadblocks over the past decade. Kovach is asking the public, especially those who knew Homer and Jean and remembered their greenhouse, to help him with his mission.
Here’s the story of how Kovach got on his mission.
Wellington “Bill” Coykendall and his sister Ina Belle Coykendall Baum started the greenhouse at the corner of Bemis and Martinsville roads in 1924, the outgrowth of daily trips to Detroit markets, according to the local history book, “Water Under the Bridge”. Their grandfather Hiram Coykendall was an elected constable in VBT from 1891 to 1895.
When Kovach was growing up on Burtrig Road, he remembers looking up to Homer Morris and Jean (Baum) Morris and admiring their work at the nearby greenhouse at the corner of Bemis and Martinsville roads. They were successful people and he wanted to grow up to be successful, too.
He considered Homer a second father and a mentor in his youth.
Lou Kovach grew up to be a techie, and very successful with more than two dozen patents to his credit. He said he was impressed that Homer eventually built a greenhouse with computerized temperature and humidity controls and automatic closing of windows instead of using cranks.
But in more recent years, the greenhouse, which had just begun wholesaling plants to Home Depot and Meijer, had a couple of crop failures through unfortunate accidents, when an employee used the wrong spray and killed all the plants. The deliveries to customers was disrupted, there were other problems and financial problems grew.
One day, Kovach visited and found Homer staring out the window at the greenhouse. Kovach remembered noticing that Homer had a new printer, one of the first that printed on fabric. Kovach recalled saying, “I hope you got the service agreement.”
Homer said he couldn’t afford to buy the agreement.
Then he poured out his problems to his friend. He said he had remortgaged his house for $350,000 and put it all into the greenhouse and it failed. He figured the only way to recoup his loss was to tear down the greenhouse and sell the land, but he didn’t have the money to tear it down.
If he lost the land over unpaid property taxes and the house over an unpaid mortgage, “Everything I have would be gone,” he told Kovach.
“I’ll help you,” Kovach said, without a second thought.
They got a few price quotes on the job, with some as high as $400,000. Kovach asked his friend of 40 years Tom Tinsley for advice and Tinsley suggested Waldo, who would do it for $210,000.
“So, I loaned Homer the money and told him not to worry about it. We’ll figure it out.”
That was in 2005. Every day Homer would go to the site next door to his house and help Waldo with the demolition. Kovach said Homer had more life to him now that they had a plan for him to get back on his feet and get the house back for Jean.
“The day before it was done, [in 2006] Homer was on a bulldozer helping and he had a heart attack,” Kovach recalled.
“I didn’t realize it was the beginning of a crazy amount of back luck a person could have,” Kovach said.
“I believe he actually died and came back a different person. Something happened to him,” Kovach said.
At the time lots were selling for $40,000 each in that area, so if the 9 acres or so was split, he could get his house back from the bank and pay back Kovach.
Homer tried to move forward with his project and talked with Bryce Kelley who helped him draw up a plan for the lot splits, Kovach said. Kelley was the director of planning and economic development at the time.
Kovach paid for a survey and paid the township for an application for Homer to get his lot splits.
“We thought we had Bryce Kelley’s support,” Kovach said, adding the surveyor drew a master plan based on what Bryce Kelley had designed. There were to be a number of sites they could sell for people to build upon, with a possible combination with Homer’s home site acreage, in case there were problems with setbacks.
“But, Homer wasn’t the fighter he was before his heart attack,” Kovach recalled. “Homer called Bryce Kelley every week and each time he was told next week, next week.
“When Bryce Kelley left, there was no tomorrow,” Kovach recalled, referring to late 2008 after a new administration was elected to VBT office.
Kovach said they had been talking with Susan Ireland, as well, and she seemed to have an issue with the project, because of the flag lots.
“I never really wanted this land,” Kovach said on Friday, but Homer urged him to make sure he finished the project and took care of Jean, “the best you can”.
“Homer had some serious financial problems and couldn’t pay the taxes,” Kovach recalled, noting that he has a quarter of a million dollars now invested in the project.
Kovach said Homer wanted to die in his house and, “We were able to do that.”
Six months after Homer’s death the bank contacted Jean and said it was foreclosing.
“All the dominoes were falling,” Kovach said.
After Homer’s heart attack, Kovach realized that everything had been done in a gentleman’s agreement, so they drew up a mortgage between them.
Then there was a forfeiture notice on the property for non-payment of taxes, “So, I had to go to the county, step in and try to get my money back and help Jean. To finish the project.”
Kovach said he paid the back taxes and now is the owner of record.
“I was involved from the beginning,” he said. On May 1, he submitted the paperwork for the split request and paid $1,000 for the township to consider the splits.
Kovach said there was no support from the township and he was told to take the project to the Board of Zoning Appeals.
Kovach said the plan originally was put together by one of the township officials and now they were turning away from it.
“I don’t know what damage this does to this community,” Kovach said of the splits so people can buy lots in the country and build their dream homes. He isn’t building a subdivision.
“I never wanted this land, but the county would have gotten it if I hadn’t paid the taxes,” Kovach.
“Hope, despair, hope, despair. It’s such a sad ending. Homer tried to take care of everyone.”
Kovach said he was recently amazed at the audacity of the township. After giving them such a hard time on the splits over several years, the township asked for his cooperation in giving up an easement for a water project.
“I refused. I told them you must make this right and then I’ll cooperate,” Kovach said, adding he did not believe the new water line past his property was in the public interest because everyone along Bemis already is hooked into the Sumpter water line.
He said the county wouldn’t allow the water line to be put in its right of way¸ so the township had to seek easements from property owners.
Last week, Kovach and his attorney John Day, and his neighbor Eric Long, met with Dave Nummer from the township’s engineering consultant Wade Trim.
Kovach told Nummer when the property split is resolved he’ll sign the easement. Kovach said Nummer wanted Kovach to sign the easement first and then he would look at helping with the split.
There was what Nummer perceived as a confrontation and he shut down the meeting, Kovach said.
On Monday, Kovach erected a 2 ½ foot tall corner fence on the greenhouse property (with proper approval from the township) and is waiting to see if the water line excavation necessary at that corner to install a gate valve can be done without moving his fence.
“If the fence goes down, John Day already has the complaint ready to file,” Kovach said.
Kovach said he was drawing a line in the sand with this fence.
Kovach said he offered to sign the easement if the township would pay the property taxes for two years, which amount to about $20,000. The township wasn’t interested and Kovach wasn’t surprised.
Another problem he had with the township was that while Homer was sick the township continued to tax the vacant land as if the greenhouses were still there, running him out of funds.
“It’s like a mission for me to fulfill Homer’s wishes,” Kovach said. “I hope the people of the community will help me.”