Pat Hodnett Cooper, Come On Down…

Pat Hodnett Cooper, Owner and Managing Broker of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate, shines a light on faith, family and how her parents—couple extraordinaire, Roy and Anne Hodnett—turned right off I-17 in 1968 to discover a slice of paradise on St. Simons Island. She recently sat down with longtime friend and EIL Publisher David Butler, a self-professed game show host wannabe, for an off-the-cuff interview sharing memories and lots of laughs.

Welcome to the David and Pat Show—a quiz show where there are no wrong answers! 

David: What’s a place on the island where everybody knows your order?

Pat: Honestly, they know my order at most places in the Village, because we're there for lunch constantly—Three Little Birds and a couple of other favorites. Delaney’s too!

David: What's the most unexpected hobby you've picked up recently?

Pat: I used to love line dancing at Ziggy's on Wednesday nights. Lately I’ve been going to a lot of local shows with Gail Butler. Last night we were at [SoGlo Theatre]. Five dollars got you popcorn and a Coke, and they showed this old sitcom from the early '50s, before I Love Lucy even, plus a reel of commercials from the era, Dippity-Do and all of it. Nobody in the room was under sixty, and we were all cracking up. I've also gotten into vintage shopping the last few years—whenever I'm traveling, I look for the vintage stores. And if you'd asked me about "not recently," I'd have said my motorcycle days. I rode my own Harley through the Badlands!

David: That's a bucket-list ride for anybody who rides.

I love asking people how they found this place, and so often the answer is, "We were on our way somewhere else." That's exactly how my own parents found it. In 1968, they were driving d

own Highway 17 — back when it took two hours just to reach Jacksonville — looking for somewhere warmer for my mother's health. Nothing had felt right. On the way back, my dad said, let's ride over to this island he'd heard about.

He told the story his whole life the same way: he looked at my mother and said, "This is paradise. Look at this. This is a little piece of heaven." 

—Pat Hodnett Cooper

David: What is the most local thing you did this past week?

Pat: Honestly, just walking. I live off the East Beach causeway, so I walk East Beach constantly — usually down past the Coast Guard station to the water. It depends on where [my dog] Harley wants to go.

David: What is the local hidden gem you almost hesitate to tell me about, because you don't want it to get too crowded?

Pat: I like to go all the way to the end of East Beach, out to the lookout at Gould's Inlet. Either very early in the morning, or sometimes I'll drive down around nine at night. It's quiet—hardly ever anyone there.

David: Excellent answer.

Pat: I nailed one!

David: What is the official theme song or soundtrack to your life right now?

Pat: Oh gosh — that's a strange one. I'll have to think on it. Now, if you'd asked what I want played at my funeral, I could tell you right now, because I've already told my kids: I want them to hire Garth Brooks to sing "The Dance." I love that song. As for right now, I'm a big country music fan, so there's probably a song out there I just haven't landed on yet.

David: I keep coming back to how much of a dynasty this is. Your mom and dad pulled over on Highway 17 in 1968 and look at the ripple effect since then. Have you ever thought about how many lives, how many families, have been touched by that one decision.

Pat: It really is crazy how generational the real estate business is. So many of the Berkshire Hathaway companies we work alongside started the exact same way—a family built something independent, then joined the network but stayed family-run underneath it. 

David: I know you were a teacher, early on, so did you resist real estate, thinking ‘that's not for me?’

Pat: No, because for Dad, real estate was really his second—third, if you count everything—career. He'd been a distributor in Virginia when I was growing up, then a cookie broker, on the road constantly selling cases of cookies to grocery stores out of his sample case. Nobody said no to my dad. When he finally retired, he figured he'd play some golf, some poker, sail the boat, enjoy the beach. About a month in, my mother told him, "I married you for better or worse, not for lunch. Get off the couch." She'd spent years raising us while he traveled, and suddenly he was underfoot.

David: So that’s when Roy got started in real estate?

Pat: That very next weekend, my parents were down on the beach and noticed a man walking by in little, short shorts. Dad struck up a conversation with ‘you must be an island person.’ Turned out to be Hans [Trupp]. Hans said he was originally from New Jersey but had been here a good while, ran a big insurance company with a partner. Dad said, ‘I think I've heard your name. Don't you sell a little real estate, too?’ Hans replied that he sold a little, not much, mostly insurance. And Dad said, ‘Why don't we change that?’ That's really how Hodnett Cooper got its start.

David: And now there’s an award named after your dad?

Pat: We give out a Roy Hodnett "Positive Person" award at our sales meetings every month, across all three offices. Whoever wins it hands it to someone else in the office the following month. It's still fun to watch. Agents who never even met him get so excited to receive it.

David: He's been gone, what, seven years now?

Pat: Seven years this past April. My mother's been gone a while now too. It moves fast.

David: You know your mother, Anne, is the reason I ever first set foot on a stage, right? Tell them that story, Pat.

Pat: Go ahead, tell it.

David: Lynda Dalton Gallagher called me in a panic. The lead in a play she was directing had dropped out eight days before opening. It was Neil Simon's Come Blow Your Horn. I told her there was no way I could learn that many lines in eight days, wished her luck, and hung up. Two minutes later the phone rang again. It was your mother—she was the producer of the show. She said, ‘You can do this. I have no doubt in my mind. You are the only one who could.’ You didn’t say no to your mother. So I did it.

Pat: That was her exactly. The show must go on, whatever it takes! She was the real star of the family. She was our Katherine Hepburn: gorgeous, could sing, could dance, absolutely lit up when she was performing.

David: What's a piece of advice about living here that you think every newcomer needs to hear?

Pat: Don't take it for granted. Gail and I were driving back from Brunswick the other evening at dusk, and there was a rainbow over the marsh—it was beautiful. It happened again the very next night. I think that's why it helps to leave every so often, even for a couple of weeks, because when you come back and cross the Frederica River onto the island, you think, ‘My God, look at this place!’ I've always said somebody should study locals' blood pressure the moment they cross back over. I'd bet money it drops. It's got to be scientific.