By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 5, 2006
Austin L. Spriggs, the reclusive holdout whose refusal to sell his townhouse to developers made it a citywide curiosity, did something out of character yesterday.
He spoke publicly.
Where once Spriggs shrugged off interview requests as surely as he had spurned the fortune offered by developers, he apparently now embraces the old advertising adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Two days after a Washington Post story on the holdout and one day after a segment on "The Today Show" about his refusal to sell, Spriggs and his daughter, Angela, called a news conference.
Not long ago, Spriggs could have gotten $2.5 million for his property.
Instead, he got the Ledo Pizzamobile pulling up outside the 19th century building jutting precariously from a deep crater where a luxury condo tower is under construction.
Out hopped Jamie and Rob Beall, the two brothers whose grandfather started the Maryland-based franchise business. Across the front of the little townhouse where Spriggs will someday sell their pizza, the Beall brothers unfurled a large Ledo banner.
Spriggs and his daughter professed pride in their decision. Theirs was not a losing negotiating tactic, they insisted; it was principled decision.
"We want to give back to the community," said Spriggs, 69, wearing a black business suit accented by a neatly folded white pocket handkerchief. "Taking the money would be easy. We want to do the hard thing in life."
Spriggs acknowledged that he had a price in mind at which he would let go of the building -- $5 million, double the highest offer of $2.5 million.
The newcomer to the food business will have to sell a lot of pizza to approach what he could have pocketed had he sold. The typical Ledo Pizza franchise holder earns annual profits of $150,000 to $200,000, said Jamie Beall.
At that rate, Spriggs will have to be in business for more than 12 years before he can break even.
And that does not take into account repaying the $650,000 he has borrowed to convert his townhouse into a restaurant. It is expected to open sometime next year.
Offering an explanation, any explanation, was a turnaround for Austin and Angela Spriggs, who had not responded to e-mails, telephone calls and written requests for interviews for more than a month. The father and daughter were so publicity-shy that Austin Spriggs once denied that he was Austin Spriggs when a reporter knocked on his door and asked to speak to him. On a different occasion, Angela Spriggs pulled up to the office, saw a reporter waiting nearby and sped away.
"I didn't know what to say, so I drove away," she said yesterday.
But as they stood outside the peeling 1890 townhouse at 433 Massachusetts Ave. NW, father and daughter were all smiles after calling the news media to promote their plan for the Ledo Pizza franchise.
"I've never been a public person, but once The Washington Post puts your name on the front page, it's time to tell your story," said Spriggs, smiling behind bifocals in the bright sunshine. "I never expected this kind of publicity. But now that it's here, I think it's great."
The two Spriggses enthused over their plans. They swore they wanted to keep the property on Massachusetts Avenue because they were committed to the city.
"We stayed here through the good and bad times," said Spriggs, who bought the two-story building for $135,000 in 1980.
Father and daughter, often speaking at the same time, said they had endured tough years on the block and wanted to enjoy its renaissance.
"It was crazy around here," interjected Angela Spriggs, who recalled the 1980s when drug addicts, homeless people and prostitutes gathered around the building and posed such a threat that she would run from her car to the front door.
Now, her father said, "We want to stay in the community and provide employment opportunities for the youth."
"Give back," Angela Spriggs said, nodding her head of curls in agreement.
And the architecture practice they have run from the building for more than a quarter century? It will be moved in part to Silver Spring, they said.
Angela Spriggs got the idea for the pizza franchise after developers declined her father's financial terms and his request to be the architect of record for the planned condominium and office tower.
"There's nothing wrong with someone who has practiced for 26 years at a location wondering why your phone isn't ringing when some of the big developers have come to do projects where you are," Spriggs said. "Is it because we're a minority firm that we don't get opportunities to design a lot of private work?"
As Spriggs stood outside his building, curious motorists pulled up. "I'd have sold, but I respect him for doing what he wanted," said Paul Green, as he pulled up in his Ford Ranger to get a free pizza.
Spriggs expressed no regret. "America's a great country, and the fact that everyone can choose makes it a great country," he said. "I have no animosity towards anyone."
And then, he stopped one of the Beall brothers from cleaning up. "I want to take one of those pizzas home," he said. "That's dinner."
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