DeLisa Guerrier and her husband noticed there weren’t many family-friendly destinations they could take their small children to not only be entertained but educated as well. So what did they decide to do? Build an amusement park.
Storyville Gardens boasts a concept that is Reading Rainbow meets Universal Studios, with direct inspiration drawn from Fairyland, one of the earliest themed parks that based in Oakland, California. Storyville Gardens aims to allow guests to experience books and stories from the four corners of the world and will feature rollercoaster rides shows, live entertainment, interactive attractions and cross-cultural culinary options.
“Storyville’s mission is to boost literacy while engaging children in an immersive, fun and safe environment,” Guerrier tells ESSENCE, sharing that the park has been in development for the last few years and is slated to make an opening date announcement in the next twelve months.
Aside from building the park, Guerrier runs one of the largest real estate development and investment companies in Nashville, TN alongside her husband Elde. In less than a decade, the couple they have built much-needed residences all across Nashville, a notable feat in a white male dominated industry.
“There aren’t a lot of us,” Guerrier says, “but we never paid attention to that.”
She came to Nashville from Northern California where she was studying as a biology pre-med student at Fisk University. But after meeting her now-husband, she decided to pivot from and join him in running his automotive company, one he started right out of high school.
“When I met him, I was just about to head off to medical school, and he said, why would you go and be a doctor when you could own the hospital?”
Before being posed this question, Guerrier said she’d never even given herself the option to be an entrepreneur.
She continues, “Growing up, I thought the highest level of success was being a doctor or lawyer. And of course, I love that, but just hadn’t had my eyes open to anything else. So in helping him my husband, I chose to not go to med school and we grew that company from about $100,000 a year to just under $10 million a year in about four and a half years. When we did that, I needed something to do that was exciting to me. I didn’t like anything in the automotive industry. It was not my cup of tea. I was there just to push. I started selling houses. During 2011, this is the post-recession in the market. There were people who would come to our automotive shop who I would talk to about real estate, and they were in really hard positions. I’m talking 17% interest rates—just nine dollars of their mortgage payment was going to their principal. They needed help. A lot of them were either in foreclosure or needing to have to short-sell, and they didn’t have the know-how to get out of it. So, I jumped in to help them.”
Now, Guerrier Development houses a multi-million dollar portfolio and is shouldering the amusement park build-out, a project worth more than $1.3B.
“The word that has rang true in my life for the last 14 years has been sacrifice,” Guerrier explains when asked how she has been able to achieve so much in such a short time. “I often ask myself, ‘what are you willing to give up to see what you’re working on happen?’ I call it my third shift. If that means when I put my kids to bed, I start my third shift. And that’s where my real work happens, where I’m sitting in front of the computer, I’m going over contracts… I’m working. If that’s what I have to do to make everything happen, that’s what I’ll do. And that’s what we’ve done in every aspect of our life.”