Tyler Perry to build 93 yo woman a home on Hilton Head Island

Josephine Wright feared losing her home after a developer launched a lawsuit against her earlier this year. Now, she has a Hollywood hero coming to the rescue.  

The filmmaker and philanthropist Tyler Perry is going to build the 93-year-old grandmother a five-bedroom house on her Hilton Head Island property, the Island Packet reported. He is one of a string of celebrities, including Snoop Dogg, Kyrie Irving, and Meek Mills, to provide financial support for Wright’s legal battle with developer Bailey Point Investment.

Wright says Bailey Point Investment opened a lawsuit against her earlier this year as a means of financially bullying the woman into selling them her property. Bailey Point Investment, a Georgia entity registered with Jill Chowdhury-McLelland, is linked to McKinley Homes. McKinley Homes is a developer led by managing member Jinsong Yang with projects in Georgia, Alabama,  North Carolina, South Carolina and New York, according to its website. 

Bailey Point Investment is developing a 29-acre, 147-unit project, dubbed Bailey Point, on Hilton Head Island that surrounds Wright’s 1.8-acre property. Wright’s property has been in her family since the Civil War, she says. It is part of the legacy of Gullah Geechee people, descendents of enslaved Africans on the lower Atlantic coast who formed a unique creole culture and language. 

Wright and her family say the lawsuit brought by Bailey Point was intended to cause financial hardship, and force her into a sale after she declined the developer’s multiple offers to buy her home. Wright’s family has raised $364,000 since launching their GoFundMe in May. The Town of Hilton Head Island has declined to issue building permits for Bailey Cove while the lawsuit is ongoing, the publication reported in August. 

In September, it was reported that the lawsuit would go into mediation, a process that could still take months to conclude, according to the outlet. 

Hilton Head has been a magnet for real estate development in recent years, with a pandemic-fueled influx of buyers causing a price hike for homes in the area. 

–– Kate Hinsche