Sara, 36, and Rich, 37, Combs weren’t planning on purchasing 38 acres of empty canyon in the Arizona desert, but that didn’t stop them from jumping into the new project headfirst.”It was a huge risk… but we really believed in this place, knew it had a lot of potential and just put everything into it,” Sara tells CNBC Make It.In 2015, the couple quit their full-time jobs as web designers to start a hospitality business, The Joshua Tree House. Now, the group’s properties include two that are available for guests to book in Joshua Tree, California and Tucson, Arizona. The Combs also have a property in Marfa, Texas that they plan to eventually open up to guests.”We were really craving working with our hands again and looking for a creative retreat from San Francisco, at the time,” Rich said.The Combs bought the 38-acre property for $615,000 and a copy of their book.Lucas Mullikin for CNBC Make ItIn 2018, Rich was browsing listings online when he came across what looked like an empty canyon in Tucson, Arizona.The property was an abandoned inn, sitting on 38 acres of land and had been empty for a decade. The property had a main building that was 7,500 square feet and two additional houses.Altogether, the three structures came in at over 10,000 square feet.The owner accepted an offer of $615,000 with a three-month escrow and requested the Combs include a signed copy of their design and lifestyle book “At Home in Joshua Tree” as part of the deal.The Combs spent over $500,000 renovating the abandoned inn.Lucas Mullikin for CNBC Make ItThe couple couldn’t get a traditional mortgage: Banks generally would not give out a loan on an existing property that had been gutted and wasn’t functional.They eventually found a bank to give them a hard-money loan and got to work on finishing the renovation with a goal of opening th …
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