A 537-acre spread adjacent to Flagstaff, Arizona’s Little America Hotel is slated to become the city’s largest master-planned community.
Little America Hotels & Resorts, a company founded by the late Robert Earl Holding, believes the property can accommodate 1,415 houses, a second hotel with meeting space, a retail/commercial area and an 18-hole golf course. The venture is no sure thing, as residents in the area have raised concerns about the availability of water, but the head of a local citizens’ group told the Arizona Daily Sun that the developers “have bent over backwards to allow the community to be involved.”
Holding, who grew up poor during the Great Depression, was worth $3.2 billion when he died in April, according to Forbes. He owned Sinclair Oil Company, the Sun Valley ski resort in Idaho, four Little America hotels and a huge cattle ranch that occupies parts of Wyoming and Montana. Forbes believes that Holding’s son Stephen will inherit the business.