After first meeting at a Hampton University alumni event in 2013, business partners Calvin L. Butts Jr. and Carrington M. Carter realized they both shared interests in entrepreneurship, real estate, investment and travel. They later combined those interests through their vacation rental property business, Getaway Society, and their private equity firm, East Chop Capital.
With these two companies, they can comfortably fund the construction of their luxury vacation rental homes and in return build wealth for their investors. Their property locations include Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts; Hilton Head Island, South Carolina; the Poconos in Pennsylvania; Gatlinburg, Tennessee; and Orlando, Florida. Two upcoming luxury rental homes in Orlando, being built by an African American woman, are located inside the illustrious Bear’s Den Reunion Resort.
Also called self-contained resorts, the properties have a large amount of space, in-house amenities, and built-in entertainment apart from the actual resort. The rental homes include a full kitchen, laundry room, living room, dining room, pool, and theater room; only six miles from Disney World.
One of their Orlando properties, Paradise Palace has a total of six bedrooms, and six and a half bathrooms and can comfortably accommodate up to 14 guests. Their second Orlando property, Tranquil Palace has a total of eight bedrooms and seven and a half bathrooms with the ability to accommodate up to 19 guests.
Motivated by their love for family and friends and meeting new people, their mission is to create a memorable experience for each guest.
What made you all get into the real estate and investment industries?
Carrington Carter: At the core of what we are, we are businessmen and entrepreneurs. So I think [those are the titles] that we hold dear. In addition to that, we’ve been real estate investors and developers for the last decade or so. We kind of got a similar start with single-family rental homes which is how a lot of people get their start in real estate. [We] expanded to multifamily [homes], some commercial, then we got into the luxury rental home space, and scaled with our private equity firm. That’s just a synopsis of the many titles we hold.
Calvin Butts: We are general partners in our private equity firm which means Carrington and I are the founders and operators. We have a full team under us and we’re growing.
What is the relationship between East Chop Capital and Getaway Society?
CC: We initially got started and were mostly self-funded building the house in the Poconos, quickly expanded to Martha’s Vineyard and then Hilton Head, which was all under the Getaway Society brand, so that’s what our guests and customers know. … Getaway Society is our customer-facing brand, and as more people ask how they can invest alongside us, we had an idea to create a separate private equity firm, East Chop Capital [and] that helped us more aggressively scale. In our first fund, we raised $4 million and in our second fund, we raised 10 million of a 50 million-dollar target. So we say Getaway Society powered by East Chop Capital because through that capital, we can scale our portfolio.
What makes Getaway Society’s Paradise Palace in Reunion Resort stand out from other resorts in Orlando?
CB: We are here in Orlando, Florida, a little South of Disney. We are in Reunion Resort, which is a premier entertainment self-contained resort itself, but these homes were built as very much mini resorts themselves. You’ll see in the footage of some of the videos here, we have nice pools, multiple rooms, large open-air floor plans, as well as several living spaces for entertaining folks.
CC: I think when we first became familiar with Reunion Resort was back in 2017 or 2018. If you think about Orlando, it’s a year-round sunny destination. There’s a lot of golf, Disney World is here, and Universal. So, it’s a great place for people to travel to, they have seven million visitors on an annual basis, and it’s also one of the convention capitals of the world along with Las Vegas. As far as resorts, Reunion Resort is the crème de la crème. It has three championship golf courses, nine pools, and restaurants, so it’s a self-contained resort itself and that’s why we have two houses here. We are in one of them now called Tranquil Palace and we will be building two more houses down here in Reunion Resort because we like what it has to offer.
How can people rent these homes and be a part of this experience?
CC: If you want to be a part of the Getaway Society story and experience, we would love to invite you to any one of our vacation rental homes, which [are] currently [located] across seven states and we are expanding to two more states. Our homes range from five bedrooms up to 12-bedroom houses, so grab your family and your friends, come stay with us for an executive retreat, or do a family reunion. Visit GetawaySociety.com to learn more.
Images by Ric Mathis
