Henry Turley's world revolves around downtown Memphis, where the main office of the Henry Turley Company occupies a fashionably functional space on Union Avenue--and where he seems to have his finger in every pie. He's a walking compendium of knowledge of the area, its history, and its people--people who all seem to know Henry.

Cruising along slowly in his BMW, he points to saved, renovated, and revitalized buildings. An interruption finds Henry on one end of a challenge to drag race. The challenger: a woman in a Jaguar pulled alongside him.

"I'm not going to race," Henry jokes as he leans out his window and turns on the charm. "I'm not interested in going anywhere. I'm just happy to be here."

Everywhere he goes, people greet Henry. A loft manager shares plans for his upcoming trip to Hawaii. Employees of Miss Cordelia's Grocery update Henry on their daily happenings.

He pauses on a tour of revitalized downtown buildings to point out the spot where James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr., from a building Henry subleased to Ray's landlord. It's a tragic fragment in Henry's long, and otherwise mostly happy, relationship with the area.

He seems to know every nook and cranny, from where the cobblestones came from to what businesses once occupied the enduring brick buildings now converted into homes. That's appropriate, because Henry's company renovated a good portion of the old structures that give downtown Memphis its urban character.

No single structure, however, commands the attention or improves the area more than Harbor Town, the Turley Company's development on a sandbar in the Mississippi River.

Homes in Town
Developed on Mud Island in the late 1980s, Harbor Town became part of a movement known as New Urbanism. Developers of Harbor Town wanted to combat sprawl and isolation. It grew out of a "tension between that empty piece of pristine ground and the urban setting in the background," Henry says.

His company built the houses with spacious porches that are close enough to sidewalks to encourage neighborly communication. The landscaping and the architectural design of the houses create shade that is much needed under the Memphis sun. Tree-lined sidewalks run parallel to streets that bear names such as River Mist Lane and Harbor Bend Road. The narrow streets require traffic to go slow, which enhances Harbor Town's desirability as a homesite. "You really feel like your child can walk to school and not be run over in the area," Henry says.

The community includes about 500 single-family residences and about an equal number of apartments integrated seamlessly into the neighborhood. "We try to treat the apartment residents with as much respect as the homeowners," the developer says.

Harbor Town boasts a Montessori school, a daycare center, and, coming soon, a retail base in the town square. Right now, residents can find available what Henry refers to as the basics: a bistro and a grocery store with outdoor seating ("I'm big on sidewalk cafes"), a coffee shop, a hair salon, and a spa. At the opposite end of the block, Henry envisions both a restaurant and a bed-and-breakfast on a grassy triangle. "That will create a lot of nice energy right there," he says.

Henry also expects the development of another set of residential condominiums at Harbor Town's southeastern edge. That part of the project comes later. Even without it, Harbor Town thrives. "It seems to live quite like we hoped it would," he says.