Today we’d like to introduce you to Spencer Rex.
Hi Spencer, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I graduated from Escalante High School in 2002 and wanted nothing more than to leave the small-town life. I went to college at the University of Utah and got a degree in Metallurgical Engineering. With that, I went on to hold a number of Engineering positions related to the reliability of Oil Refineries mostly. A few years ago I started to see that I wasn’t going to be happy working in Corporate America in the long run. Around that time, my mother decided to divide up a portion of the family land and give it to her kids. We all chose little pieces of paper out of a hat and that’s how I obtained the land that the Escalante Cliff House is on today.
My wife and I then decided to hire my brother to build us a house on the property. With a bank loan and all of our savings, we finished the house in May 2019 and opened it up as a vacation rental. We had hoped that renting it would help offset the costs, but we actually made a profit and decided that we loved the vacation rental business. About a year ago we partnered with my brother the builder to build another house, the Birch Creek House, on another piece of property we acquired. That house will open for renters in September 2022. On June 28th, 2022 I officially exited Corporate America and am now a full-time real estate investor which is terrifying and incredible at the same time. Follow your dreams!!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The most difficult part of getting where I am today was probably getting an Engineering Degree and sticking with Corporate America long enough to build up savings. Having that high-paying job was also required to get a vacation home loan which made all the difference. Actually operating the vacation rental is really only a struggle when something isn’t working right and I feel like I’m ruining a guest’s vacation. Having had a very limited amount of vacation time as an employee of a large company, I know how precious that time is and I feel responsible for not ruining someone else’s vacation!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
In my career, I just exited I was a Corrosion and Materials Engineer for mostly Oil Refineries, also plastics plants, and fertilizer plants. I assisted different plants in understanding the risks associated with operating their plant/machinery/equipment. Once the risks were determined I also helped them determine how/when to inspect the equipment so that they could find issues, like cracks or thin spots, in the equipment before a leak/explosion occurred. So in short, I helped keep Oil Refineries from blowing up.
Once the Escalante Cliff House started doing really well, my heart just wasn’t in that work anymore. I was just so excited about the vacation rental business that I couldn’t give my day job the attention that it deserved. Being a conservative person, it took a few years to give up the paycheck, but in the end, I’m very glad I did as not answering to anyone feels incredible!
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up I loved the outdoors, and really loved visiting Escalante. Where the Escalante Cliff House now used to be where my brothers/sisters/cousins and I would ride 4-wheelers, build forts, and run around on family vacations. Back then the land had a vacation home on it that has since burnt down. As a little boy, nothing was more exciting to me than going to Escalante Utah, it was paradise.
Besides that, I was always interested in Engineering, I loved designing and building things. As a teenager I think my main interests were girls, making money, and Track and Field. I went to school my junior and senior year at Escalante high school. There were 20 kids in my class, and 6 of them were girls. In my junior year, I dated 3 of the 6 and in my senior year, no dating happened really! I worked construction and for the Forest Service while living in Escalante in the summers. During my senior year in Track, I and 3 other guys set the Utah 1A state record for the medley relay, which is an 800m, a 400m, and 2 200m distances.
Contact Info:
- Website: escalantecliffhouse.com birchcreekhouse.com
- Instagram: @escalantecliffhouse
- Facebook: Escalante Cliff House
