Head of the Hacienda: Andy Mitchell, Pal Tiger Woods Bring Bluejack Brand to Fort Worth

Andy Mitchell is clearly as comfortable with beer in hand riffing and shooting the breeze as he is crafting the multimillion-dollar deals of a prolific news-making career in private equity and real estate development. 

It’s clear the Fort Worth native loves to laugh as we sip drinks in the lobby of the Hotel Drover in the Fort Worth Stockyards. Whether he’s sharing captivating tales from a full life — which, at age 49, still has plenty of chapters left — or ruminating on a 1990s cult classic coming-of-age comedy, his gusto is contagious.

“That’s a good scene, by the way,” he says, after making a reference to a line in “Dazed and Confused,” the film starring Matthew McConaughey.

“I only came here to do two things, kick some ass and drink some beer. Looks like we're almost outta beer.”

He laughs, the ever-present gleam in his eyes an indication of his ever-present sense of excitement, humor, and playful mischief all mixed together the way an artist turns a blank canvas into a vibrant work of art.

While bantering and trading my questions for his answers, you get the idea pretty quickly that he likely was very much like the teen provocateurs of Richard Linklater’s 1993 film.

“I’m almost 50 now,” he says. “I can tell these stories.”

Mitchell is the founding CEO of Lantern Capital Partners, with more than 25 years in investment management, financial advisory, capital markets, and restructuring. As a financier, he has guided numerous major and mid-market transactions across diverse industries, including complex restructurings, recapitalizations, private placements, distressed mergers and acquisitions, and valuations of both distressed and stable companies. His most notable acquisition involved Harvey Weinstein’s film company and its 277 feature films, acquired out of bankruptcy in 2018 for more than $400 million after Weinstein’s well-publicized downfall.

Beyond finance, Mitchell has expanded his influence into real estate development, focusing on high-end residential and commercial projects. A turning point in his career came when GMAC asked him to remedy its resorts investment portfolio that was limping along. The portfolio was acquired by Centerbridge Partners and in 2010 became Lantern Asset Management. Mitchell became its CEO.

His most prominent endeavor includes partnering with Tiger Woods on Bluejack National development, an award-winning private residential club and golf community that spans over 700 acres of scenic hills and woodland in Montgomery, just north of Houston.

He jokes that he won Bluejack National in a poker game. Yet, the journey to developing it does seem as if it were written in the stars. And he becomes profound recalling how it all came about.

“You can't make this up the way the world connects,” he says of the string of events that led to the founding of the brand. “This is why I think the world is an amazing place.”

Bluejack National is described as a “harmonious blend of comfort, recreation, and community.” It has gained national recognition and has been rated the No. 1 residential golf course in Texas by Golfweek for several years, with additional recognition as one of the best in the nation.

You have to see it to believe it, I’ve been told several times.

Throughout the development’s lifespan, he has had two faithful partners: his wife, Kristin, and Tiger — arguably the world’s greatest golfer, with all due respect to Nicklaus and Hogan, neither of whom would shy away from a money game with the 15-time majors champion.

“When he (Tiger) came to the property (in Montgomery, Texas) and saw how much it reminded him of Augusta, he’s like, ‘this is crazy,’” Kristin says. “He had heard that it [resembled Augusta], and that's why he was interested. But to see it, until you go down there and you see it, you're like, ‘Wow, this is weird.’”

Bluejack National is elite in the range of amenities it offers. Elegant homes dot the landscape, which complements the natural beauty of the surroundings. Residences include cottages to custom estates.

And, of course, the centerpiece is the 18-hole championship golf course, the first in the U.S. designed by Tiger Woods. It opened in 2016. It is renowned for catering to golfers of all skill levels. They call that “playability” for the higher handicaps, and “challenging” for the lower handicaps, or better golfers.

All of this became relevant for Fort Worth when in October Mitchell and his partners, Kristin and Tiger, announced they were bringing this concept to west Fort Worth — specifically Aledo.

Excavators and construction crews are moving dirt on the development called Bluejack Ranch and Spa.

Bluejack Ranch, which sits off U.S. 377 and Kelly Road, is the manifestation of the on-again, off-again plans for a championship golf course in Parker County begun in earnest two years ago by former TCU and PGA Tour player J.J. Henry, who has joined this effort as a partner.

The more than 900-acre Bluejack Ranch development will encompass more than 600 home lots and a club built around a Tiger-designed golf course, stretching across somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,700 yards that will require some fairway woods to get around 18.

Private Residence Club Units, owned and controlled by the club and offered through a rental pool, will also be constructed. Mitchell expects about 60-80 such units at Bluejack Ranch

In addition to a clubhouse and dining, Ranch amenities will include a working dude ranch with eight full-time horses, longhorns, mini-donkeys, and “other ranch friends.” The “Fort at the Ranch” will be the center of family entertainment. Spa and wellness areas will also be featured.

A Lantern Entertainment Studio will feature a film/TV and podcast studio.

In conjunction with the golf course, there will also be a lighted 10-hole short course and a golf performance center and practice areas.

In addition to golf, sports and recreation areas will also be on the property, including a football field, basketball, tennis, whiffleball, and, of course, pickle ball courts. A bowling alley will be on the premises. Seven miles of trails and 35 acres of lakes for fishing and canoeing will also be included.

A membership — a Ranch membership — just for the nongolf experiences will be available. Some of these will be open and available for use next year.

The flavor will be distinctly local. Even Tiger has some Fort Worth ties, despite only playing the Charles Schwab Challenge once. He spent a lot of time here at Nike’s R&D headquarters in Fort Worth.

“It’s extremely motivating for me to contribute to the golfing legacy of Fort Worth, and I’m excited to see what we’ll build together,” Tiger said.

The project, though, is a literal homecoming for Andy and Kristin Mitchell, both TCU graduates. The two didn’t know one another at TCU. He finished his studies in accounting and finance in 1998. She was a marketing student who graduated four years later.

Mitchell and Kristin are coming back here to live at Bluejack Ranch.

For Andy Mitchell, however, this is a return to his roots.

Fort Worth wasn’t just the place he went to college. This is his hometown. This is the place that shaped his sense of resilience. His sense of humor. The foundation of his values and work ethic. His edge and ambition.

The city that inspired and motivated him to be something.

* * * * *

Mitchell’s intended course of study at TCU was pre-med. He planned to be a doctor.

“You must have been good at science,” I suggest.

“No,” he says in immediate reply, “I wasn’t good at science.”

Asked what his ambition was, the purpose of his education at TCU, he says flatly: “I didn’t want to be poor.”

“It took me 10 years of therapy to say, ‘I don't want to be poor.’ I knew what it was like to never be like, ‘You want to go on a trip? ‘I don't know how much is in the jar this week?’

It reminded me of Lyndon Johnson, whose desire to escape poverty was a defining force throughout his life and political career. He was born to a modest farming family in rural Texas. His father, a farmer and state legislator, faced financial hardship when a series of bad investments led the family to lose much of their land. It drove LBJ.  

Mitchell’s “financial hardship” is relevant.

There is a story out there about how a family friend tried to discourage Mitchell from going to TCU. Mitchell, who grew up in a middle-class family in Benbrook, graduated from Western Hills. Grew up in a middle-class family. This almost sounds like presidential campaign fodder.

But it was true.

Leonard Andy Mitchell was born into blue-collar middle-class family in Benbrook. He was raised on Herndon Drive.

His father Bill was a switchman for BNSF Railway. His mother Alice would eventually go to work at TCU as an administrative assistant but not until Mitchell was an upperclassman there.

“I've got no money to speak of,” he says of growing up and heading to TCU.  

He played football at Western Hills, but he had to scratch and claw to do it. He was undersized, but he did all the extra things no one else would do. He worked out relentlessly and drank protein supplements to get bigger.

He wound up playing on an offensive line on which, as he remembers it, every member, except him, went on the play college football.

His mother told D Magazine that the football coach later told players after a loss that the Cougars would have won had they all shown as “much heart as Andy Mitchell.”

That doesn’t require any stretch of the imagination to see.

There is a thing called the 1%, that reference to the 1% of earners or wealth holders within the population. All of them get there because they go these same extra miles Mitchell did to play high school football. They’ll check all of those boxes.

During his senior year, he had taken visits around the state at various colleges. When he went to visit TCU, his tour guide was the “most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.” That was the only the start of a great visit. His tour guide knew his Young Life leader, who was a member of a fraternity. And then he gets to spend some time with the fraternity guys. Mitchell was sold.

“It's a horrible reason to go to college, but it's true. ‘Oh, a beautiful girl showed you around,’” he jokes.

Not only does he get in, he gets some scholarship money and financial aid.

“That's the truth of Andy Mitchell,” he says. “I got need-based money, I got some scholarship money, and I borrowed a shitload.”

And then, only days or weeks later, he finds himself in the company of a family friend. The exchange still gets his hackles up. The family friend said to him that she couldn’t believe his parents “let you go to TCU.”

He would never fit in there, she said, because of his socioeconomic status. Furthermore, he wouldn’t get in a fraternity. People like “us” don’t go to that side of the world.

The incident still irritates him like a patch of eczema.

Yet, it’s Tiger Woods that Mitchell calls the “fanatic” competitor. There are obviously two. I’m clearly talking to another one.

Mitchell rose to student body president almost by happenstance.

About to become the Interfraternity Council president, he went to the student government office to lodge a complaint about a funding cut. As he goes “storming” into the office at 4:57 p.m., a peer, Kevin Nicoletti, sees him and says, “Oh, man, it’s true. You’re going to run for student body president.”

What?

“You’re going to run for student body president,” Mitchell recalls Nicoletti saying. “It’s 4:57. You’re rushing in here to make sure you meet the 5 p.m. deadline to register.”

“I don’t know what happened to my mind,” Mitchell says, “but I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s why I’m here. I’m going to run for student body president.’”

The Nicoletti told him there was a meeting imminently in the Student House of Representatives chambers. Fill out the paperwork, pronto. Oh, and who is his campaign chairman?

Campaign chairman what? The Student House … chambers … what?

“He goes, ‘You don’t know? You’re telling me you’re a leader on campus and you’ve never once stepped in the chambers?’”

Mitchell grabbed a freshman student, told him to say he was his campaign chairman, and nod his head and don’t open his mouth “unless I speak to you and tell you what to say.”

He built a harmonious coalition of the fraternities and sororities — he was, as it turned out, one of them — international students, and athletes through network, tacos, and video games.

“It was taco night when we went to visit the International Students Association,” he recalls. “I show up, I see all these tacos, I see that they're bored. I'm like, ‘You know what? I'm Andy Mitchell. I'm running for student body president. I would say most of what [his opponents] said probably is relevant to what I'm doing. Anyways, those tacos look like they're getting cold. How about we have some tacos?’”

The night the candidates went to visit the athletes, they were more interested in a “John Madden” football videogame tournament. They all “looked like they were pissed off” that the candidates were interrupting. When it came his time to speak, he spoke efficiently and quickly, and then asked if he could join them in the tournament.

He recalls losing to basketball player James Penny, a Grapevine guy, in the final.

At any rate, Mitchell, who also earned the Skiff endorsement, outlasted five other candidates and won in a runoff.

He even survived controversy on a campaign spending dustup. Each candidate was limited to spending $40 on their campaign. He had a girlfriend who was a graphic design intern at Belo, parent of the Dallas Morning News. She was only too happy to assist him and design his campaign posters.

That amounted to an alleged in-kind contribution of $4,000. Or 100 times the limit. Nonetheless, after an inquiry, the student tribunal sustained his win.

But the job of student body president opened more doors and exposed him to more things. He met former Speaker of the House Jim Wright and Van Cliburn. His outgoing personality made him ideal to make presentations to trustees.

“With Andy, there always was a sense he was going to reach as high as he could in whatever he did,” then-vice chancellor for student affairs Don Mills told TCU Magazine.

Mitchell was also appointed by Chancellor William Tucker to sit on the Chancellor’s Selection Committee, the only student to sit on the committee. He jokes that he’s sure Don Mills advised against it.

Michael R. Ferrari, predecessor to current Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, was the selection.

“One of the great honors of my life was Chancellor Tucker asking me to be on the committee,” Mitchell says.

He takes a sip of beer and ponders just a brief moment before his mind goes back to the family friend who told him he would never work at TCU, much less make an impact.

“So, Nancy, wherever you are, they let me in a fraternity. They made me vice president of the fraternity council, and I became student body president. They trusted me to help hire a chancellor.

“And now there's a scholarship in my name. You can kiss my ass, Nancy.”

There is certain liberation that comes with “making it,” though he doesn’t strike one of ever lacking the freedom to fully inhabit who he is or the inhibition to make the choices of who he wanted to become.

* * * * *

Andy and Kristin were two ships passing in the night at TCU. As he was going off to build a career, first at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, investment bank Houlihan Lokey, and capital manager Cerberus and then GMAC, Kristin was just beginning an academic career in the pursuit of a marketing degree.

His job demanded constant travel. He lived at various times from coast to coast from Los Angeles to Chicago.

In his 20s, he lived for minute in Los Angeles with his Lamda Chi Alpha fraternity brother Josh Governale, today a media consultant and partner in the Bluejack brand. In many ways, Governale is a right-hand man.

His profession, he says, bored the Hollywood set crowd to death. Mitchell and Governale would go to parties, and he’d tell them he was “kind of an accountant, I do business deals.” The party crowd were generally young production people looking for an in. They were there to network and suck up to somebody who’s in production.

“Josh would be like, ‘This is my friend, he's an investment banker,” Mitchell recalls. “Well, in New York, that's really hot. But in Hollywood, that reminds them of their father.”

So, reading the crowd, Governale would introduce him as the “Pretty Woman” guy, “you know, the guy in the tower who does the deals.” The actor was Richard Gere, I’m sure you recall.

“They’re like, ‘Oh, you’re the Pretty Woman guy,’” Mitchell says laughing. “They understood that.”

Mitchell would even go a step further and joke that he delivered water for Culligan.

In reality, Mitchell was “private equity turnaround investor,” or a finance professional whose focus is on operational turnarounds and improvements as the primary way to create value.

Mitchell and Kristin met nonetheless through TCU at a Chicago alumni association event. I believe the occasion was Cinco de Mayo fiesta. He was president of the 900-member chapter. It’s not hard he says to become president of the alumni association.

He was appointed by the alumni chapter board in the manner these things happen. He was on the board and had missed a meeting. He called the president, Mr. David Bond, to find out what he missed. Turns out, quite a bit.

Recalls Mitchell: “He says, ‘Well, I’m stepping down as president because I’m moving to Houston.’ I said, ‘What sucker are you going to get to be president.’ He says, ‘It’s funny you mention that because we nominated you and voted you in. Congratulations, you’re now president of the Chicago alumni board. We knew you’d do it.’”

He was smitten instantly by Kristin’s acquaintance. She was interested but more cautious. He called her the next day, but she deferred.

It was some weeks later that she told him she was traveling to Dallas. He told her he would just happen to be in Dallas at the same time. They should meet up. So, they did. That’s where this courtship turned in earnest.

It’s amazing after all how the world connects, right?

“I found out later he wasn’t supposed to be in Dallas at all,” Kristin says. “He took a plane down there to meet me.”

Ingenuity: The quality of being clever, inventive, and resourceful, especially in finding new ways to approach tasks. It involves creativity, originality, and the ability to think outside the box to develop effective solutions.

They were engaged in December. And married the next July.

“When you know, you know,” she says.

Strangely enough, the decision to move to Texas was made at a Mi Cocina in Fort Worth. Whether it was over a Mambo Taxi, who knows?

They are the parents of five children, ranging in age from 20 to 4, and live in Dallas. For now. When they move depends on how life goes for their teenage daughters, Kristin says. The parents don’t want to uproot them at this stage of their lives.

Kristin is a full partner in the Blackjack brand.

She is the brainchild of Bluejack Village at the Montgomery development and Bluejack Town in Aledo. Sixty acres have been set aside for commercial purposes at Bluejack Ranch. They will be boutique shopping destinations in the spirt of Round Top and open to the public. Shop and eat. Shop and eat.

In fact, she was instrumental in going ahead with this entire Bluejack Ranch development deal.

Bluejack Ranch will be the fulfillment of J.J. Henry’s vision. Henry has kept Fort Worth as home since moving from Connecticut as a college freshman. Henry also played on the 2006 Ryder Cup team with Tiger. So, this marriage, too, seemed as if it would fit together like hand to glove.

In November 2022, Henry, along with Bubba Vann, developer of the renowned South Padre Island Golf Club, announced their intention to build a golf course as part of the Avanzada Golf & Ranch Club in the Kelly Ranch development. After the development was not able to be brought to completion, Henry went to Mitchell to gauge his interest.

The setting was a golf tournament fundraiser at Bluejack National.

“J.J. is a competitor, man. That guy hates to lose as much as Tiger Woods,” Mitchell says of the personal setback that was the collapse of Avanzada. “So, he came to me, and I remember this going through my mind, and I'm pretty sure it came out of my mouth. I said, There's no effing way I'd do another one of these. All I do is put money in this thing. It's a reverse piggy bank.”

“My wife would kill me. Plus, I can’t find a CEO for the Weinstein Company.”

The political climate in Hollywood was deeply strained following the #MeToo movement, as the industry grappled with widespread allegations, a culture of silence being exposed, and a reckoning that left lasting impacts on its power structures and reputations. Hell, if you were male, you were persona non grata.

“I'm like, ‘Yeah, J.J., now I'm going to start another golf course with you in West Fort Worth.

It was like, he says, “Dazed and Confused” out there. “That’s what’s out there,” he says, recalling his days of yore. That is, not much. Of course, what he couldn’t have foreseen 30 years ago was the life and infrastructure investment that has effectively expanded Fort Worth’s reach nearly to Weatherford.

Yet, Mitchell and Kristin came up to look at it. And “snuck out” the next couple of days for more looks. They fell in love.

Says Henry: “I like to think how things happen for a reason and to be able to circle back with Andy, who obviously I went to college with, and knowing him and all his success in both investment banking and private equity and real estate, hospitality, what he's done for 10 years at Bluejack National … I said, ‘Andy, you got to come take a look at this property.’ .

“Sure enough, Kristin came out and she says, ‘I could live here.’”

However, Escalante Golf had already moved in. Before talks could really get started Ryan Voorhies, the developer of Kelly Ranch, made another deal.

* * * * *

The founding of Bluejack National in Montgomery wasn’t intentional, Mitchell says.

He was in Cabo attending to one of a portfolio hotel and resort properties Lantern had taken over or invested in in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, better known as the Great Recession. During a meet-up down there, he heard about this property north of Houston.

It was the old abandoned Blaketree National Golf Course. As the story goes, millionaire Thomas Blake wanted to set Augusta National down in Texas after he was denied entry at Augusta. Who knows if this is true. We have one of those urban legends down here. Supposedly, H.H. Cobb founded Glen Garden Country Club, renowned as the work home of young caddies named Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan, because he was denied entry at River Crest.

The only problem with the story is it wasn’t true.

Whatever the case, Blake, a golf nut who was said to have once regretted challenging Hogan to a money game, indeed had dreams of a course on this piece of land.

Blake enlisted the help of Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore to begin construction in 1985. The course was never finished. Developers Casey Paulson and Michael Abbott, both at one time of Discovery Land Company, had started a company — Beacon Land Development — to redevelop the property in 2014.

They came to Mitchell to put the money together.

Progress became a slog, however. Initial projections began to slip, putting timelines and the project in jeopardy. Lantern eventually replaced Beacon with Bluejack Management Company, a team 100% dedicated to Bluejack and its properties.

So, it didn’t look great going forward.

“We had brought in all these founders; we kind of raised this money together,” Mitchell says. “Tiger felt obligated, and so did I. So, we thought we’d market it for a couple months [to sale].

The offers didn’t impress.

“Everybody looked at it, and I said, I don’t sell companies at this price, I buy companies at this price.”

Mitchell says he bought out half the guys and “that’s when I brought Kristin in to be co-chairman of the board.”

Before all that Mitchell was already working with Beau Welling, a senior design consultant for Tiger’s TGR Design. That’s how he met Tiger.

“I didn't realize that was the back door to Tiger,” Mitchell says. “And, so, Beau Welling calls and said, ‘Would you like to talk to Tiger about it?’ Why not? What's the least that could happen? I get to talk to Tiger.”

Tiger, sight unseen, wants to get involved. Welling and Bryon Bell, the president of TGR, had both recommended it.

“I said, ‘Have you been there?’ He said no. I said, ‘Tiger, I think it's pretty important you go there.’ So, he said, ‘OK, I’ll fly out there and meet you guys.’”

Mitchell and Woods actually have quite a bit in common. They are almost exactly the same age. They share the experience of being parents. “He’s a father who loves his kids.” And they are both high-end, “fanatic” competitors.

Where Mitchell is outgoing, however, Tiger is reserved. Kristin says even “shy.”

“A buddy of mine is sitting there and he's like, ‘It's going to be a long day’ because this dude hasn't talked to anybody,” Mitchell says of Tiger.

The two found something in common: Olympic gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn. Mitchell and Kristin had met her, and Tiger, at the time, was dating her.

“That kind of opened him up,” Mitchell says, as did a joke that Tiger enjoyed and Mitchell refuses to tell me.

Kristin had lunch with him.

“He was so excited to show our kids his kids' videos,” Kristin says.

Says Mitchell: “He’s a competitor like I’ve never known anybody in the world. I thought I knew competitors. If he’s going to build the best course in the world, he’s going to build the best course in the world.”

Tiger, Mitchell says, has been “a great business partner, and he does a lot behind the scenes.”

At an event soon after Mitchell’s group had acquired the property for redevelopment, Tom Blake Jr., the son of the original Blaketree National developer, approached Mitchell and asked him, “Am I dead?”

“He goes, ‘I can't tell you how many times my old man back in the ’80s was talking about how this is going to be a glorious golf course here, and people are going to come from all over, the best golfers in the world, are going to come here,’” Mitchell recalls the conversation. “And he starts crying.”

Mitchell continues the conversation with the son. “‘I wondered if I died and you're my dad like showing off. Like, welcome to heaven. This is that golf course I told you I was gonna build.’”

J.J. Henry kind of knows how he feels. He has been dreaming and working to get this course online for over two years.

That opportunity, as well as bringing Bluejack to Fort Worth, became a reality when Escalante backed out.

Mitchell and Kristin “snuck” back out there to take a look. They noticed the flowers were blooming.

“It’s even more beautiful,” Kristin says.

Mitchell and Voorhies began discussions and negotiations. Five months later, a deal was done.

And the hometown boy was coming home to do something big again.

“This is that point in life that I get to come back, build it in west Fort Worth,” says Mitchell. “I have always loved Fort Worth. I think to have been around the country and to be able to come back, it's going to stay surreal. It really is.”