By Hollie Deese
Photography by Reeves Smith

Trey Rochford started out in the family business sweeping houses when he was just a little kid. He tagged along with his father, John Rochford, who had started out himself as a salesman for Public Steel. The Southeast was his region, and he moved to Nashville — where he went to the Nashville School of Law, got his law degree and practiced for a little bit.

And while he was doing that he had a house built.

“And he watched the guy that was building the house for us and said, ‘You know, this doesn’t look too hard,’” Trey says.

So John went out and built a house for someone else. And that worked out pretty well, so he did that again and again and again. Today, Rochford is doing about 25% of the builds in Stephens Valley, which will be a combination of townhomes, condos and single-family homes throughout the entire project.

Not that they are just in Williamson County — they have projects in Clarksville and have built in Providence in Mount Juliet. “Anywhere in Middle Tennessee, we’ll kind of reach out if the project’s the right fit,” Rochford says.

With the aim to build tradition, today, Rochford Construction develops communities built on timeless models that impact all areas of life, with quiet streets for walks and bicycle rides, pleasant lighting and wide sidewalks for evening strolls. Plus, plenty of green space.

It’s a model that works in their Oakland subdivision in Clarksville and another big development in Mt. Juliet’s Providence Marketplace.

And it’s part of the reason they have been such a perfect fit for Stephens Valley.

“Bill Stephens had a vision for the asset, that it had to be leveraged over time into a community that was the way things used to be: Where you knew who your neighbors were and you felt safe with your kids riding their bikes down the street to the swimming pool, where front porches actually meant front porches where people sat out in front of their houses,” Rochford says. “It was just a return to the way things used to be. When there were safe neighborhoods, and things didn’t seem to move quite so fast.”

And while Stephens Valley is a 20-year project, it allows them to realize what Mr. Stephens wanted to see: slow growth and organic development of the community. And it really gives the area a feel of a place that has been there for a long time.

“If you can talk to the people already living there, you can hear the passion that they have for the community they’ve created,” he says. “We’re creating this community that will realize Bill’s vision that not only creates that community but also grows organically over time.”

Rochford Realty and Construction Company
2200 Abbott Martin Road
615-383-1141

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