Real-Life Monopoly
Over forty-six years, Martin Horn has been fortunate to work with some truly iconic owners. The University of Virginia. Martha Jefferson Hospital. Sperry Marine and Centel, back when those names meant everything in this town. But few clients have become as woven into the fabric of our company as Jim and Cynthia Stultz and CBS Property Management.
I was fresh out of college when I was handed my first project management assignment: Blue Cottage. Tom Keegan was our superintendent. Jim was leveraged to the hilt, taking a real risk—tearing down a building he owned that was generating revenue—to bet on something bigger. That risk paid off. Blue Cottage didn’t just become a successful project; it became the launchpad for Jim Stultz as a Charlottesville developer.
Jim loves the game. And nobody plays it better. Real-life Monopoly: buy a couple of houses, knock them down, build an apartment building. It worked at Blue Cottage. It worked at 15th Street and the Wedge. It worked at Warehouse and Barringer, the Monroe, the Maywood, Meriwether, and the Greek. It worked at Beta Bridge and Beta II. Project after project, year after year, the formula held—because Jim understood that the formula only works when you build it right.
Jim’s apartments were never about cutting corners. Hardwood floors. Floor drains. Ceramic tile. He always used Jim Grigg as his architect, and together—Jim Stultz, Jim Grigg, and Martin Horn—we became an exceptional team. We got very, very good at building five-story wood-frame buildings in Charlottesville, and we got good at it because we kept doing it together.
Over the years, that professional trust grew into something deeper. Jim trusted us to build his home. When he and Cynthia were donating to a facility and that organization needed a contractor, Jim made sure they called Martin Horn. That’s the kind of loyalty you can’t buy. You earn it one project at a time.
Jim and Cynthia Stultz have become our friends, and CBS Property Management has become part of our extended family. We are proud of every building we’ve built together, and even prouder of the relationship behind them.
