Picasolar Chair Purchases Mount Sequoyah Property

There’s about to be a new house next to the iconic Cross Overlook on top of Mount Sequoyah.

Terry Tremwel and his wife, Margaret, recently bought the otherwise undistinguished bungalow at 515 Skyline Drive. They took out a big construction loan with IberiaBank Corp. and plan on demolishing parts of the house and then building something special.

So what makes this purchase noteworthy?

For starters, Tremwel is an agricultural engineer and board chairman of Picasolar Inc., a company focused on increasing the efficiency of solar cells. The company, led by math and photonics whiz Douglas Hutchings, is on the cutting edge of science and technology. And there’s plenty of folks on the east and west coasts who want Picasolar to relocate to their neck of the woods.

But Picasolar just expanded to the Enterprise Center at the Arkansas Research & Technology Park in Fayetteville. And before that, the company’s hydrogen selective emitter was honored with an Edison Award for innovation and ingenuity in the global economy.

In other words, Picasolar is a company with tremendous upside. Its reputation in the startup community is important as Northwest Arkansas strives for a tech-and-research profile. 

And that house up on Mount Sequoyah seems to indicate that Tremwel, Hutchings and Picasolar aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.