Don Nicewonder Net Worth: Coal Operator and The Virginian Founder

Don Nicewonder, the Bristol, Virginia, coal operator and developer, died on November 12, 2022, at age 84, just hours before his 85th birthday. No reputable outlet ever published an estimate of his net worth, and the $11.8 million figure on earlier versions of this page had no source. The largest documented event in his business life was the 2005 sale of his family's coal companies to Alpha Natural Resources for $316.2 million, a price shared among the Nicewonder affiliates that owned them.

What was Don Nicewonder's net worth?

There is no figure from Forbes, Bloomberg, Celebrity Net Worth or a major newspaper. His wealth was held privately through family companies, and the split of the 2005 sale proceeds among family members and partners was never reported. What is on record is the scale of the businesses he built: coal operations that at their peak produced about four million tons a year, The Virginian golf club, a vineyard resort and a portfolio of real estate and clay businesses under The Nicewonder Group. For those reasons this page does not give a number.

Where the money came from

Coal

According to his obituary, Nicewonder left Emory and Henry College after two weeks, around 1955, to work at his brother J.D.'s surface coal mine. Two years later he started two coal companies of his own in Kentucky, which he ran for about 15 years before selling them to McCulloch Oil Corporation. In 1974 he and a small group of partners bought about 36,000 acres in Buchanan County, Virginia, and McDowell County, West Virginia, from the Shawmut Bank of Boston; the obituary says that property was still shipping coal nearly 50 years later.

In the mid-1980s, during a weak coal market, he and his two sons found new reserves in southern West Virginia and started four surface mining companies. At their height they produced about four million tons of marketable coal a year.

The 2005 sale to Alpha

On September 26, 2005, Alpha Natural Resources announced it would buy the privately held Nicewonder coal group for an aggregate $316.2 million: $60 million in Alpha stock plus $256.2 million in cash and seller notes (Alpha press release, SEC filing). Alpha expected the mines to add about 4.3 million tons to its 2006 output, about a 20% increase. The deal closed that October. In his obituary, Nicewonder is quoted as saying he did not personally want to sell, but that environmental regulation and litigation made the liabilities hard for a family business of that size to carry.

Land reclamation projects

His companies turned former mine land into public projects, including the Twisted Gun Golf Course, an 18-hole links course at Wharncliffe, West Virginia; about 15 miles of the King Coal Highway between Gilbert and Williamson; and an airport near Ragland, West Virginia, with a runway longer than that of Charleston's Yeager Airport.

The Nicewonder Group

To stay diversified, Nicewonder and his family built The Nicewonder Group, which his obituary says controls a range of businesses:

• The Virginian, a Tom Fazio-designed golf club in Bristol that opened in 1992, with residential lot sales.
• Nicewonder Farm & Vineyards, a 450-acre property next to The Virginian that began as a vineyard in 2013 and opened an inn with luxury yurts, a restaurant and a pool in 2022 (StyleBlueprint). Its Viognier, Chardonnay and Merlot have won awards at the Virginia Governor's Cup.
• Real estate: shopping centers, office buildings and land in Virginia and southern Florida, plus three sold-out Florida condo projects, including Villariva in downtown Jacksonville.
• Clay: Old Dominion Clay Co. in King William County, Virginia, which supplies a Ralston Purina cat-litter plant, and Vermont Brick Manufacturing, which makes hand-molded brick.

Philanthropy

His family described him as a major donor to education and healthcare in the region (WJHL). His obituary names Sullins Academy and The Morrison School in Bristol among the schools he backed, and says he and his brother J.D. helped acquire a CyberKnife cancer-treatment system for the area. He was chairman and president of the Nicewonder Family Foundation, a Bristol charity that has been tax-exempt since 2011 (ProPublica).

Family

Nicewonder was married to Etta Nicewonder for 65 years. He was survived by his sons, Kenny and Kevin, his daughter, Kim Nicewonder Johnson, and seven grandchildren (obituary). Longtime employees told WJHL he was a generous boss, and his family said his legacy would continue through The Virginian and the Nicewonder inn.

How he compares

For other business owners on this site, see Brett Crosby, Donald Gould and Crystal Maggelet.

Why there is no figure

A $316.2 million sale shows the size of what the Nicewonder family built, but it is not a personal net worth: the price was spread across several affiliated companies and owners, part of it was paid in Alpha stock whose value later changed, and taxes and debts are unknown. His other holdings were private. No reputable publisher estimated his fortune during his life or after his death.