Real estate tycoon DeLisa Guerrier and her husband Elde are collaborating to construct an amusement park. Inspired by Fairyland, one of the first theme parks located in Oakland, California, the pair are creating Storyville Gardens, the first proposed theme park in Nashville since Opryland USA closed down in 1997, StyleBlueprint reported.
In addition to rollercoaster rides, live entertainment, interactive exhibits, and international food options, Storyville Gardens promises to provide visitors with an international literary and storytelling experience.
Guerrier told Essence, “Storyville’s mission is to boost literacy while engaging children in an immersive, fun and safe environment.”
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The trailblazing entrepreneur stated that the park has been under construction for some years now and will open in 2025. The couple decided to construct the park after they observed a scarcity of family-friendly locations where they could bring their young children to be entertained and educated.
“My husband and I have three children, and I grew up in California, where there were always things to do. There was always an adventure — something fun to look forward to. I felt a gap here in Nashville,” she told StyleBlueprint. “We were taking our children to the movies every weekend. We love the movies, but we found ourselves driving to Chicago or St. Louis or Atlanta after a while. I told my husband, ‘Maybe we can replicate a park that I grew up going to in California.’ That’s how it all started!”
Besides the park, Guerrier co-owns one of Nashville’s leading real estate development and investment firms with her husband and has built much-needed homes throughout the city in less than a decade, a remarkable feat in a white male-dominated business. Research shows that African Americans make up 12% of U.S. workers, but only 6% of the construction industry’s workforce.
Guerrier remarked, “There aren’t a lot of us, but we never paid attention to that.”
The mompreneur relocated to Nashville from Northern California, where she studied biology and pre-med at Fisk University. However, after meeting her now-husband, she chose to join him in operating his automotive business, which he started directly 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?”
Guerrier admitted that she had never considered becoming an entrepreneur before being asked this question.
She recounted, “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,” she told Essence.
Today, her company, Guerrier Development, has a multi-million dollar portfolio and oversees the $1.3 billion amusement park build-out.
