The 17 June groundbreaking of a future suburban neighborhood in Gastonia, North Carolina, had all the trappings of a campaign rally. Brock Fankhauser, the real estate developer of 1776 Gastonia, waved to onlookers from the open top of a sport-utility vehicle; his wife, Nicole, was by his side, wearing a cowboy hat and matching T-shirt with the development’s namesake year, referring to the American Revolution.
Video footage of the event shows a crane dangling a giant US flag over the site where 43 lots are for sale. Parcels range from $17,500 to $75,000 for land, and homes cost $410,000 and up in this city 20 miles from Charlotte. A young girl rode a horse down a newly paved street flanked by American flags. She gripped the saddle with one hand; in the other, a giant flag. Her sandy blonde hair flowed in rhythm with the Stars and Stripes.
There will be even more flags. This development, which the company has described as “where freedom lives”, is for homeowners 55 and older. And not just any homeowners: “patriots” who will be required to fly the US flag on their properties, on a pole provided and maintained by the subdivision. Each 1776 community (Fankhauser plans on more) will also donate a home with no mortgage, free of cost, to a wounded veteran through the nonprofit Building Homes for Heroes.
With ambiguous ideals and an insistence on a disinterest in politics, the 1776 brand builds off the contentious history of the US flag. Historically, the flag has been a symbol of protest, pride and polarization. When Donald Trump kissed and caressed the American flag after a 2020 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), he mouthed the words: “I love you, baby.” The gesture landed favorably with his conservative base.
When asked how this community will define patriotism, Fankhauser responded obliquely that patriotism is a mountain landscape. “We’re in a valley right now, and to the extent that I can have any impact whatsoever on bringing us from a valley towards a peak, it would give me tremendous satisfaction,” he said via phone.
As for how he plans to identify potential homeowner-patriots for the 1776 community, Fankhauser said: “There is no screening process that’s different than how one would buy a home in any other neighborhood. We’re only as strong as the pledges that individual homeowners make to one another.”
Fankhauser began his career at his father’s real estate company. He now specializes in low-maintenance housing for seniors, a fast-growing segment of real estate. According to Plante Moran Living Forward, an accounting firm specializing in advising senior living, projections show that age-related units will increase at a 4.7% annual growth rate, doubling senior housing demand from 2020 to 2040.
Some of that boom has expanded to include “active adult communities” or others with on-site health care. 1776 Gastonia is part of an even newer type of neighborhood: one where community members presumably share ideals or interests. There are even themed subdivisions like Latitude Margaritaville in Florida and South Carolina for Jimmy Buffet fans.
Fankhauser says the 1776 brand is a “movement” and the Gastonia project is “only the beginning”.
“We think that commonality and unification is a critical element in patriotism because it brings us to the broadest denominator of being in America,” Fankhauser told the Guardian. “We will shun any attempts to make this a political movement.” (Fankhauser donated to the Republican party and Donald Trump in 2020 and had previously donated to Republicans in 2003, according to Federal Election Commission records).
Still, he’s got the practiced manner of a politician whose conversations swell with lofty, vague talk about American values. It’s the kind of nationalist rhetoric common to movers and shakers across the political spectrum. It’s also the kind of discourse that can be weaponized – metaphorically and literally: The real estate company’s staff show off star-spangled handguns on Instagram, a gift from fans.
In the launch event’s recap video on the company’s YouTube channel, men in kilts play bagpipes, and bikers slowly cruise a parade route. Fankhauser delivered a speech that becomes a voiceover to the tune of the national anthem. His remarks end with this signoff: “God bless this community, and God bless this great nation.”
Fankhauser’s nonspecific brand leans into what American studies professor Ben Railton refers to as mythic patriotism, which “creates and celebrates a mythologized, white supremacist vision of American history and identity”. Railton, author of Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism, argues that such thinking led to the January 6 insurrection and the Trump-initiated 1776 Commission that targeted professors and other educators.
Railton said this ideology “very often has meant agreeing with that white-centered vision”. And “a lot of the time, that also defines someone who doesn’t agree with that vision, who is entirely outside of it and not a part of it. When I was looking at the [1776 Gastonia] website, it’s this undercurrent of, if one doesn’t share this perspective, then there’s not a place for you here.”
Real estate lawyer Harmony Taylor, who is based in nearby Charlotte, agreed that “this appears to be a pretty overt political agenda”. Taylor first learned about the community through an op-ed in the Charlotte Observer.
“In the United States in 2023, unfortunately, the flying of a flag or the mandating of an exhibition of patriotism in some way seems to have become aligned with a particular [far-right] political movement. And I don’t think that can be ignored,” she said.
But is requiring the flag even legal?
1776 Gastonia will use a restrictive covenant that includes the flag stipulation. Restrictive covenants, a norm in residential real estate, allow homeowners associations to enforce rules and consistency in planned communities. Fankhauser defines them as a “pledge of allegiance” to the United States and “promises” among neighbors. He doesn’t anticipate that enforcing the flag provision will be an issue and has not included repercussions in the covenant if anyone refuses to fly the flag. The Guardian obtained the 1776 Gastonia covenant via email, but it had not yet been recorded in a Gaston County, North Carolina public database at the time of publication and is therefore not enforceable.
Harmony Taylor, the Charlotte real estate lawyer, wrote about the rules governing flags and political signs in HOAs for a legal blog in 2020.
“Typically, restrictive covenants are designed to protect the rights, not impose a speech,” she said. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 did just that, legislating that condos, co-ops, residential associations or housing management groups could not ban any of their members from flying the US flag within their properties. Under North Carolina state law, the right to fly a United States or state flag in a planned community or condominium is similarly protected, with some exceptions.
Taylor believes the 1776 Gastonia rule is the first of its kind in the state, and she’s curious about its implications for freedom of speech. She added that constitutional free speech protections generally don’t apply to private actions that curtail speech, such as covenants. But she’s still uncomfortable with the idea of the development’s flag mandate.
“I believe there is a strong public policy against requiring someone to espouse a particular political view, and I can’t help but think that is different from telling someone to simply keep silent,” said Taylor. “In my opinion, there is a real risk that the covenant requiring someone to fly a particular flag would be contrary to the public policy of the state of North Carolina and invalid.”
1776 Gastonia properties go on sale on 10 July, according to spokesperson Casey Kupper. One home site has already been allocated to veterans Peter and Kelly Clark, through the Building Homes for Heroes nonprofit. Peter is a lung and brain cancer survivor with memory issues, and his wife, Kelly, is his caregiver. Speaking from their RV in South Carolina, Kelly said they fit in well in RV parks where seniors often live, but were looking for a forever home. They don’t consider themselves heroes, applying that term to Fankhauser and the nonprofit instead.
“Without their generosity, we would be worried about the financial part of it because we can’t afford a house right now. This is really life-changing. There’s really no words to describe it,” Kelly said. The neighborhood’s patriotism focus was “an amazing bonus”.
For his part, Fankhauser is gearing up for outreach, with the goal of spreading “a patriotic flame that lives inside” of him.
“I do think that I can have some influence on turning up that flame in every individual,” he said.
