About Us
Over the last 25 years, John and Ashely have guided over 60 startup businesses in various industries, such as Hospitality, Construction, Real Estate Investing, Advertising, and multiple Restaurants. John and his wife have renovated 280+ buildings within ten blocks of downtown Opelika to help save their city. Today, John’s current focus is helping others make generational differences in communities and companies. By helping patrons bridge the gap between redeeming vision, financial sustainability, and execution to pioneering a new asset class of real estate which we have coined “Irreplaceable Real Estate.” John and Ashely are grateful to have two sons and grandchildren who also live in Opelika.
Our Story
John and his wife Ashely dedicated themselves to the resurrection of place in the historic downtown of Opelika, Alabama. Like many small mill towns around the country, Opelika’s main street had deteriorated to a state of hopelessness and disrepair. One historic house in 1998 began a twenty-year journey of redeeming a city. Today, their work of restoring over 150 properties and launching 40 small businesses in those ten square blocks has become the gold standard for small-town revitalization in the state of Alabama. Opelika’s story, an account of beauty from brokenness, mirrors their personal story. Through the sharing and walking out of their personal testimony of reconciliation, they have given hope to hundreds of couples facing divorce and have inspired thousands of business leaders who aspire to live out their faith through their work.
Through his umbrella organization Marsh Collective, John has continued to follow his call to this work by helping others restore, revitalize and redeem their communities and build purpose driven businesses through collaboration with mission driven patrons and stakeholders. To date, the team has implemented interventions all across the United States. This collection of businesses that includes consulting, property development, restaurant, hospitality design, event management and others is dedicated to the flourishing of both people and places.
“A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, and that the people who share the place define and limit the possibilities of each other’s lives. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.”
Beauty out of Brokenness
