- Two college students bought undeveloped land in rural Virginia, hoping to build a luxury retreat.
- The two friends from high school reconnected in college and decided to start the venture together.
- Graduating in May, they plan to open their first cabin in July.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Rajan Chidambaram and Renzo Sanio, two college students at the University of Virginia (UVA) and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The two 22-year-old friends who met in high school are set to graduate in May. In July, they plan to open Royal Oak Retreat, a luxury cabin in Front Royal, Virginia, a rural town about 70 miles outside Washington, DC. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Renzo: I've always been told when you're young, it's the best time to take risks. I was just waiting for the right opportunity to find a development deal that I could partake in.
I went to college, studying physics, and eventually added Building Construction as my second major — but it didn't seem creative enough. So, I added Real Estate as a second major in my sophomore year. I was excited because you can see the whole development process from the start.
Rajan: Renzo and I actually reconnected in Texas. I was working in Dallas and visiting another friend in Austin. Renzo just happened to be there. That's where I first got introduced to real-estate development. Now, I'm majoring in IT and Real Estate.
Renzo: I was working in a commercial-development internship in Austin. I shared the idea to buy investment land with Rajan while he was working at JP Morgan in Dallas, and that was, in a way, the start of our partnership.
We wanted to diversify our investments with real estate
Rajan: I've been selling shoes for a very long time, and I saved up a lot of money over the last five years. I wanted to park some of it in real estate. The inspiration to get into real estate came from my dad who suggested I look into it. I already had a lot of money in the stock market, so I wanted to diversify a little bit.
I bought a property on my 21st birthday. It was a single-family townhouse for $295,000, about five minutes away from UVA, so it's holding its value very well. I rented it out to a family that lives there.
Renzo: There was a 24-year-old in Texas who built a retreat for $2.5 million and then sold it two years later for $7 million. And I thought that if I could do a very similar thing, just in a market closer to where my home was, we would exceed.
Rajan: Renzo brought me this deal. He's the one who found it, he's the one who sourced it, he's the one who did the research, and he just brought me along.
My dad started his own company, and before I even explained it, he was like, "Just go do it." I'm very grateful that he had full faith in me to do my own thing.
We think we can make $100,000 per cabin a year
Renzo: Our property is 2.5 acres in Front Royal, Virginia. We got it under contract for $37,000 right after Thanksgiving 2024. We bought it free and clear.
Rajan: We closed on January 10. We've started clearing the land but have not started putting the foundation in yet.
Renzo: The 2.5 acres are subdivided into four parcels, and the end goal is to have four luxury cabins.
I bought the plans for the cabins for $2,000, probably six months before we bought the land. I had to buy them to know how much it would cost to build them, which would be used in our financial model.
We're using a $300,000 construction loan to build the first cabin, which kind of maxes out our financial capacity. Our finances are limiting us in that sense, so we're going to build the remaining three in phases.
We definitely needed cosigners for the loans — some conversations with parents and easing their concerns opened up the possibility for us to see this through.
Once we get full-time roles, our capacity for debt should increase. So, we might consider building all three at the same time.
Our financial model projects $100,000 in revenue per cabin annually. While $100,000 looks sexy, hospitality is expensive to operate.
We discovered Front Royal is one of Virginia's strongest short-term rental markets because it's so close to DC — it's only one hour away.
As for the market side, the downturns aren't really a concern. If the market dips and people find themselves in unfavorable financial situations, we expect that in-state travel will increase, which will benefit us.
Rajan: We expect to be fully hands-on. This is not an investment; this is a business that we're starting.
And I think it starts with the marketing. That's why I'm really pushing content out on my page. We also have a branded page for Royal Oak Retreat, and the whole point behind that is by the time we open, I want to build up our personal brand so big that when we open, we have a direct bookings funnel.
We don't want to rely on Airbnb or Vrbo because they take a percentage of what we would charge. We want to have our own direct booking site.
I think by the time we open, people are going to be so bought into our story. If you want to book out for a whole year, that's only 365 people, and right now, we have 47,000 people following our journey.
