Hustle & Flow: Couple Behind Songbyrd Development Succeeds with Integrity

Just a few minutes into any conversation with Gerald and Veronica Gregory, owners of Songbyrd Development in Little Rock, yields a clear look at what has made them successful in life and in business: a skillful melding of two very different mindsets.

 

 

In word and action, Gerald lets off a palpable intensity for what he does, something born not of ambition but of purpose. For her part, Veronica is the salve that soothes his competitive burn, offering alternative ideas and perspective to ensure all plans are thought through. They are an uncommon combination and yet incredibly effective as they work to build a company and advance their real estate ventures.

 

 

“What I value most about her is her patience. She’s a lot slower to move on things than I am,” Gerald said. “I mean, that’s hard to take sometimes, but she’s able to see the project from a different lens than I do, and I think that slower, methodical pace has been helpful.

 

“I can make a decision right now and live with it, and I’ll be right 80 or 90 percent of the time. By her slowing me down, I’ve found that I go from the 90th percentile to the 95th percentile.”

 

“My husband is very driven. He’s a great teacher and a great leader,” Veronica said. “I’ve learned a lot about the construction industry by watching him and learning about what he’s doing every day.

 

 

“It really inspires me because he’s right — I’m a little bit more relaxed in my personality or whatever. I’ve learned to have that drive and be a little more aware of deadlines and schedules and things like that.”

 

The duo have known each other since they were children. Veronica’s family lived just a few doors down from Gerald’s relatives, who he would come to visit in the South End neighborhood of Little Rock. They attended McClellan High School and UA Little Rock together. Gerald earned a degree in construction management, and Veronica earned a degree in liberal arts studies.

 

 

“Honestly, my mother knew I had a gift to draw, but I wasn’t really an artist. I was a sketcher, and I also used to build stuff with popsicle sticks,” Gerald said. “Later on in life, I’m getting ready to go to college, and [Mom] was like, ‘You ought to study architecture,’ which is what I started out in in college.

 

“That got me close enough to the construction industry to let me know that I wasn’t a designer. I found construction at that point, and that’s what I wanted to do because it was so structured. It was still artistic and still focused on mathematics. I was always great mathematically, so it just made sense.”

 

 

Gerald continued to broaden his knowledge through his first couple of jobs after graduation, having already set some goals for himself and his career, specifically to be a boss and to do work that gives back. No matter how much he succeeded in working for others, including rising to the level of chief operating officer at one firm, he was resolute about one day reaching those two objectives.

 

“As I started sharpening my skill set and becoming better at my craft, I noticed pretty quickly that I had a really good talent for this. I could project and forecast and move a project along, maintain budget. I could be very pushy, which plays well in construction,” he said. “Once I got to the level of COO, I realized that, hey, I’m doing almost everything other than cashing the check and putting the deal together, and that’s what I wanted to do. I really wanted to be a player. I wanted to be an executive.

 

 

“The most difficult thing about getting into that was I didn’t have any exposure to construction growing up, at least at the level that I want to do construction. Yes, I knew concrete guys. Yes, I knew framers. Yes, I knew steel guys, but that’s not the path I wanted to go down. I wanted to run the project, and that exposure wasn’t at my fingertips. I really lacked a mentor and had to learn most of what I know as I went along, on my own.”

 

When Gerald finally decided to take the leap into entrepreneurship, satisfying his first goal, his initial projects were of the kind that fed into his purpose-driven second goal.

 

 

“I noticed the area that we grew up in was diminishing, and I had the skill set to do something about it, but I was spending my time and my talent basically across the bridge,” Gerald said. “That really hit a nerve with me, and so I came back across the bridge, and we basically started out doing affordable homes, rebuilding the neighborhood.

 

“It also helped to get our name out there, to show our product. We took on a couple of tough remodels on abandoned properties where we went back in and redesigned those to get the concept for our design-builds that came later.”

 

The next logical step — from refurbishments to new construction — came from a chance meeting with a former college acquaintance at the takeout counter of a local restaurant.

 

“This classmate of mine was in front of me in line, and he recognized me, and we caught up. He asked me what I did for a living, and I told him I was in construction,” Gerald said. “He was like, ‘Oh, we’re looking to build a house. Can you build a house?’ I’m like, ‘Well, yeah, yeah I can.’

 

 

“I’d never built a house before, but I’d built a whole lot of other stuff. I’d done every part of construction, built hotels and schools. Surely I could build a house.”

 

In fact, the client was so happy with the finished project that he and his wife became the Gregorys’ best form of advertising. Over the decade since that project, one client followed another to the tune of about one per year, the original one popping up from time to time for additions and improvements.

 

“That first customer, we came back to do a major remodel to the home last December, and we’re building a garage for them right now,” Gerald said. “That customer has been a repeat customer since that day, you could say, and they’re one of our biggest fans. They’re always communicating with us, sending contacts, sending us leads.”

 

Three years ago, the couple decided it was time to move into yet another phase of their professional life, real estate development. Gerald’s experience in construction, Veronica’s own 10-year career in real estate sales and the reputation they’d built for quality work through their luxury home builds all combined seamlessly, and the company is about to break ground on its first housing development.

 

“I didn’t grow up doing construction or knowing anything much about construction, but I did have an eye for design, and I love to create and put things together,” Veronica said. “My background in real estate really merged into what we’re doing now, which is to apply my creative aspect as far as design and getting the houses sold and doing acquisitions for our company and those things. We definitely merged our talents together.”

 

 

Now as then, the couple measures their success in more than monetary terms, with a desire to serve areas that have been overlooked. The ability to bring new investment and new opportunity to such places is every bit as motivating as the desire to make money, if not more so, just as it was with the neighborhood the couple came from.

 

“From the time we started, we probably rehabbed 20 structures in South End, and that has really changed the landscape of that area, and then we started seeing other builders come in,” Gerald said. “If you don’t count the rebuilds from the tornado that hit back in ‘96 or ’97, there had only been two new houses built in that area in 25 years: my mother’s and a neighbor across the street.

 

“Ever since we started, we have personally invested over $4 million in that area, and as I’m looking around, there’s probably another $4 million that’s been invested by other builders. That’s $8 million spent in a little corridor south of Roosevelt to Martin Luther King to Arch Street to 33rd Street. To see a neighborhood that had gone downhill come back up to become a really prospering community and to know we were able to have a hand in that, it’s very gratifying.”

 

Photos by Jane Colclasure

 

SEE THE FEATURE BELOW AND IN OUR JULY 2026 ISSUE OF AY MAGAZINE