Jon Troutt
Bon Air Ventures
“I’ve learned that the hardest things in life, if you utilize them properly, can become the biggest gifts,” said Jon Troutt. “This pain allows us to rise above our problems and not feel so overwhelmed by life.”
Troutt, after losing his wife Kristen at the age of 42 to ovarian cancer in late 2023, did just that. She passed away at Alive Hospice in Murfreesboro after a six-year fight. It was a defining moment in his life.
“Recently, I had a rare open day without my daughter,” explained Troutt. “I wanted to get in nature and had never been to Radnor Lake in Nashville, so I went. It was good for the soul and afterwards I was feeling adventurous, so I decided to go to The Bluebird Café. Iconic as it is, I had never been there before either. I didn’t know what to expect as I approached the front doors alone. I opened the door. I had walked into an Alive Hospice benefit concert. It felt private, but for a nominal donation they offered me an available seat near the stage in a corner of the room. Feeling uncomfortable, I entered the venue imagining my Kristen at my side. Jim Brickman was the artist and played some amazing love songs on piano as I sat there quietly weeping. It’s moments like that that I’ve only recently discovered add to the depth of my soul.”
He let the grief spill out of him that night, and it deepened this new presence he enjoys. A new perspective he sees as a gift he received from his wife. He has found great healing in feeling his emotions and allowing them to teach him that there’s great beauty in slowing down and being present. In taking in all that is around him, the people and the spaces.
This new perspective has led to a new business direction known as Bon Air Ventures. It is the parent company for Bon Air Farms, a company that acquires farmland in emerging areas and cleans it up, Bon Air Development, which installs infrastructure on vacant land to create residential building lots, Bon Air Builders, which builds homes and Bon Air Vacations which is a future property management company.
“I have a mission statement I love for all of this,” added Troutt. “Bon Air leads with Design to Create Beautiful Spaces that Inspire and Bring Joy.”
He loves design. His eyes glow with excitement when he talks about it. He believes that good design, a good story and an authentic experience can increase our joy.
“I am one of three boys,” he shared. “I am the youngest, and my mom, Paula Troutt, wanted me to be a girl. I wasn’t. But I loved to go shopping with her (she passed away from ovarian cancer in 2013). I loved talking about interiors. Paint colors. Fabrics and patterns, and plaids. I love clothes. I fulfilled some of those things she wanted from a daughter. God is so good at making things right in the end. I’ve recently been feeding this interest in how design can increase our joy in life. When you see something cool, or something that speaks to you, it changes you. It changes how you feel inside. I wanted to create things like that, and I knew if I could execute that – others would feel it too, and I would be on to something real. I am in the first quarter of this new season for me – I believe that I can create beautiful things that attract people and make them feel joy. That is my whole purpose in life now, second to being the best father I can possibly be.”
The name Bon Air comes from his family’s farm in Gallatin, Tennessee, where his father (Bill Troutt) still lives today. His great-uncle named it Bon Air, believing it to mean “Happy Acres” or “Happy Air.”
“I give a lot of credit where I am today to my grandparents,” Troutt noted. “I had a bit of a ‘Leave it to Beaver’ childhood. My mom’s dad, Paul Alexander, did well in the funeral business. He was also a banker and a well-respected businessperson in the community. My dad’s dad, J.R. Troutt, was a doctor. He was the kind of doctor who made house calls and said, ‘Pay me if you can, if not, it’ll be okay.’ He was a good and humble man.”
Troutt graduated from Gallatin High School in 2000. He went on to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he received a finance degree. While in college, he was able to travel to 13 European countries during a semester spent living in Luxembourg. The travel changed the trajectory of his life, opening his mind to bigger things and more opportunities.
A mortgage company recruited him out of college. And he moved to nearby Cincinnati, Ohio, in 2004 to work for them. After two years, he was ready to move back to Tennessee to be closer to his mom.
A good friend of his parents, Lottie McCormick, told him that Bob Parks owned a mortgage company in Murfreesboro and was looking for help there. McCormick was a close friend to Parks. Parks and Troutt’s mother had known one another as small children growing up in Gallatin. That is where Parks was raised until his mother moved them to Murfreesboro during his early childhood.
“First, I wanted to meet Bob Parks because he was kind of a celebrity in my mind,” said Troutt. “He has become one of the most inspiring mentors of my life. When he first agreed to meet me, I told him I liked mortgages, but I really wanted to develop land. I wanted to build things and create things. He patted me on the head and said, ‘That’s great, Jon. Why don’t you prove you can succeed with mortgages? And when you are ready, I’ll help you, and we’ll develop some property.’ That was in 2006.”
He went to work for Parks. He did well with mortgages. He met his wife, Kristen, at Bob Parks Realty in 2007. In 2011, they got married and moved into a sweet little house on Battleground Drive. In 2015, they had a daughter, Ruby James, named after his grandmother and their grandfathers. Then in 2016, he bought his first piece of land, subdivided it into four lots, and sold the lots. In about six months, he had made $70,000, and more importantly, he enjoyed the process. He went on to develop Angler’s Retreat, a subdivision he is proud of near the Wilson County line. That was the first “big one,” and it took all he had, including the support in a bank meeting from Mr. Parks.
After Kristen passed away, the vision for his future crystallized. Being a present and loving father gave him purpose in a dark time. He decided to slow down, which inspired him to start this Bon Air family of companies. Exciting real estate that leads with design, tells a story and creates an experience benefiting the surrounding community.
“I find inspiration in people. People like Ben Weprin with A.J. Capital Partners and his Graduate Hotel Story. My sweet friend, Taylor Milliken, that told me to write it down and make it happen,” said Troutt. “And I have a spiritual mentor I have met with for the last 20 years named Bud Harmon. Bud has added so much salt to my life. Invaluable. With these good, wise people in my life, I have gained the strength and confidence to build this Bon Air thing into something very special. I now believe I can have a real impact.”
He hopes to develop the area around McFadden School into what he calls BoHo, which he sees eventually turning into something like East Nashville with cool housing, friendly cafés, funky boutiques and lots of walking and green spaces. It would feed into the Historic Bottoms and the newly established creek and park off Broad and then flow into downtown. The concept meshes nicely with the efforts being made by Murfreesboro leadership to thoughtfully enhance the downtown experience.
Already executing on his plans, Troutt bought an existing house on the corner of Bridge Ave and King’s Highway. He created two new lots out of that side yard and built houses on them. The houses are named “Harvey” and “Doris”, after the original owners. There are plans to renovate that existing home next, and he has feelers out to either renovate or build new on additional lots in the area.
“These houses represent what Bon Air wants to be,” Troutt enthused. “I really like the builder, Christian Taylor, and designer, Keva Atwood, I have worked with to create them. That area is close to the Historic Bottoms, and we have decided we want to make that the Bottoms Housing District (BoHo). There is a sense of community there that we can help grow. It will connect with downtown, the Keystone project, the One East College project and the pedestrian bridge over Broad Street. This will be a sandbox for me over the next 5-10 years, and I am confident others will want to come and play.”
He has also bought the old Red Rose Dairy site just off the traffic circle. He believes this one acre is an opportunity to guide the future vision, direction and style of our downtown. He loves downtown. He loves developing beautiful spaces that inspire and bring joy. This is where he wants to put his effort in the next 10 years.
“Most people seem to live life like they are riding on a train, and everything is coming at them,” said Troutt. “They are constantly either looking ahead to the future or behind to the past. They are never just where they are, right here. I want to live my life strapped to the front of the train. Let life flow by me so I can reach out and grab what I want to connect with in the present, knowing good things are behind me, but enjoying what I see right now and always excited about what may be coming around the next bend.”
www.BonAirBuild.com
www.BoHoDistrict.com
www.Gracewill.org