This didn’t come easy.

The conference room walls covered in sticky notes told a story by the end of day one when fifty different values scrawled across colorful squares, each representing someone’s idea of what values mattered most.

Coffee cups accumulated on the large table. Laughter punctuated moments of frustration as Gallery Fine Homes’ executive team wrestled with a deceptively simple question: As we continue to grow as a company, what do we want to be? How do we want to treat our employees and clients and be intentional about it with some awareness? What values do we nurture our soil and foundation with so we grow with care?

As a tree grows, the soil must be tended to, and it needs to be properly pruned or it could cause unsolvable structural issues later in the development process. And this is important for growth within a community, because a tree is an ecosystem in its own right, benefitting many lives it comes into contact with. The same could be said about a home and a company.

I guess it’s no accident that the CEO who led this project, Billy Brentlinger, came from the nursery business. “The more I got into it, I realized it’s not much unlike running a nursery,” Brentlinger said. “You take a bunch of disparate parts, put them together. And it takes time, for example it takes several months to grow plants, and you grow the house. There are a lot of moving parts to the creation of a home.”

Not all homebuilders feel the need for formal vision statements, but Gallery Fine Homes had reached an inflection point. Founder James “Bubba” Vann had built a successful homebuilding operation across South Texas, developing golf courses and coastlines. Now, he wanted to hang his hat where he got his start growing up in Fort Worth and attending college at TCU.

And the luxury market intrigued him; it is a shift that demands more than better materials and bigger budgets. It would require the company to articulate, for the first time after more than two decades of growth and success, what it actually stood for and where it was going.

The Problem With Success

“At some point the company reaches a size that the founder and a few trusted people can no longer brute force results,” says Brentlinger, who facilitated the vision-building process. “If a clear plan is not created and communicated, the company will struggle to grow or to grow profitably.”

Gallery Fine Homes had reached that point. A new CFO, Accountant, COO and Director of Construction had just joined. The team was expanding. The move to luxury construction in Fort Worth would introduce new obstacles, new vendors, new customer expectations. Vann saw it not just as a business challenge but as a personal one, an opportunity for growth that required everyone, including himself, to level up.

But growth without direction can breed chaos. The executive team needed to define their destination before they could map the route.

What Makes Their Vision Different

Over two days in that conference room with monitors displaying concept definitions and flip charts capturing ideas, the team built something unusual in the homebuilding industry. Their Statement of Direction doesn’t read like a typical corporate boilerplate. Where other builders might emphasize speed, volume, or profit margins, Gallery Fine Homes’ vision centers on something harder to quantify: improving people’s lives through “safe, secure, and beautiful spaces.”

Their core values reveal even sharper distinctions. Under “Team/Leaders,” they commit to “a family-first culture” alongside operational excellence, which is an explicit acknowledgment that these priorities can and should coexist.

Under “Community,” they pledge to be “of maximum service to God and the people about us,” language more commonly found in nonprofit mission statements than construction company documents, revealing a level of care and public service most profit-focused organizations dismiss.

Most telling is their emphasis on communication: “We value open, complete, and responsible communication that addresses business issues and opportunities.” It’s a value born from experience and the recognition that honest communication lends to not only efficiency, but transparency and accountability.

The Strategic Architecture

But values without mechanisms are just wishes. Gallery Fine Homes backed their vision with five strategic intents that function as a roadmap:

First, formalized financial systems that provide accurate, timely information to support strategic initiatives, replacing the back-of-envelope accounting that serves startups.

Second, improved operational performance through processes and systems aligned with their strategic plan—the infrastructure required to deliver consistent quality at scale.

Third, documented standard operating practices for all key business functions, explicitly designed to be scalable for future growth.

Fourth, targeted market penetration that improves gross margins and grows profits—not just any growth, but profitable growth in chosen markets.

Fifth, improved employee engagement through career path development, structured training, and teamwork culture, an investment in people that most builders treat as overhead rather than strategic advantage.

These intents represent a bet that in the luxury market, operational excellence and employee development aren’t costs to minimize but competitive advantages to cultivate.

A Collaborative Creation

The process of building the vision mattered as much as the document itself. After brainstorming fifty potential values on day one, the team broke into smaller groups on day two to debate and consolidate. Everyone participated. Everyone had a voice.

“If Bubba tries to enforce his vision on the team, it is not going to be as effective as if he involves them in the process,” Brentlinger said. The resulting document carries weight because the team built it together, not because the founder decreed it from above.

This collaborative approach extends into the implementation. The Statement of Direction defines “Key Result Areas” that set expectations for performance, supported by “Key Performance Indicators” that make those expectations measurable. The document specifies that “everyone should know their KPIs and where they stand as of last measurement.”

It’s a level of transparency uncommon in construction, where performance metrics often remain opaque and success gets measured project by project rather than systematically.

The Underlying Philosophy

Gallery Fine Homes’ approach rests on a theory of mutual flourishing: build up a strong, satisfied team, put family first, pith their humanity first, and this enables a profitable business, which can reinvest in the team, which ultimately delivers better results for clients. As Brentlinger says, profit and people do not have to be mutually exclusive. It’s a flywheel where each element reinforces the others.

“We want to be as large as we can be while still delivering great results for all our stakeholders,” the team says. “This includes owners, vendors, bankers, and most of all customers.”

That last phrase—”most of all customers”—signals the hierarchy. Not shareholders first, not volume first, but customers first. In an industry where production homebuilders often prioritize speed and scale over customization and service, it’s a differentiating position.

Why It Matters

The Statement of Direction won’t build homes by itself. But it does something most construction companies never do: it makes explicit the implicit values that guide decision-making when the founder isn’t in the room.

When Gallery Fine Homes enters the Fort Worth luxury market, their salespeople will know they’re selling more than square footage and finishes. Their project managers will understand that operational excellence serves family-first culture, not the other way around. Their subcontractors will work with a company that’s documented not just what they build, but why they build it.

For a company moving from mid-level to luxury, from South Texas to Fort Worth, from founder-driven to systematically managed, that clarity could make the difference between scaling successfully and losing what made them valuable in the first place.

The sticky notes have come down from the conference room walls. The vision they captured remains.

By Jocelyn Tatum

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When it comes to building your dream home, choosing the right builder can mean the difference between a seamless process and a construction nightmare. Too many homeowners have stories of missed deadlines, blown budgets, and endless frustration.

But armed with the right questions and knowledge, you can avoid the heartache. Here is what to know when you start building a home.

Start with the Hard Questions

Before you’re charmed by renderings and promises, ask about liens. “How many liens have been filed against you?” might seem confrontational, but it’s crucial. Liens are filed by unpaid vendors against the home. They can prevent you from closing on your home until they’re resolved.

If you want to take this a step further, file an open records request to verify payment history with vendors and search for any lawsuits. A builder’s financial reliability is foundational to your project’s success.

Next, dig into their track record. How long have they been building? What’s their background? How many projects have they completed? These questions reveal experience levels and specialization.

But perhaps most telling: “Give us an example of when you failed, and how did you fix it?” Every build encounters challenges. You want a builder who can pivot gracefully and think strategically when problems arise.

References Tell the Real Story

References are non-negotiable, but don’t just collect names, interview multiple past clients thoroughly. Even the happiest customers will usually mention something that went wrong. What matters is whether the builder was honest, upfront about additional costs, and resolved issues quickly.

Ask references pointed questions: Did the builder maintain the timeline? Stay within budget? Communicate effectively throughout the process? These conversations reveal patterns that glossy portfolios never will.

“It’s important to find a builder whom you trust and has had good feedback from other clients. And don’t just rely on references they give you. Find your own,” Pedigo says. “Ask things like: Did they do what they said they were going to do? So many people you talk to have a horrible experience. Often, the builder gives them a budget they can’t meet. Their time frames are rarely met. It is imperative to get a builder that will drive a schedule and respect your budget.”

How else can you arm yourself with information?

Again, fact-check their word by looking for lawsuits through a simple internet search or by filing an open records request. These are public record. Also, check the Better Business Bureau.

Budget and Timeline Management

Determine your budget first, then ask potential builders about their pricing structure. Be wary of cost-plus contracts, where the builder’s fee increases with project costs. In this case there’s little incentive to keep spending and vendors from getting out of control. Instead, seek builders who demonstrate strong schedule and budget management, and who have established relationships with architects and subcontractors.

Pedigo has been in this business since the 1990s and has curated a contact list of the best vendors in Fort Worth that he trusts.

Timeline management is equally critical. Ask directly: “How good are you at keeping a timeline?” A quality builder drives the schedule, manages subcontractors effectively, and doesn’t let change orders spiral out of control.

The Value of Professional Partnerships

Top builders surround themselves with professionals. They work with experienced architects, employ structural engineers for foundations and framing, and use third-party inspectors at multiple stages. These inspections cover everything from framing, electrical, plumbing to HVAC and more. For this reason, they provide accountability and peace of mind.

A builder who welcomes inspectors rather than resisting them demonstrates confidence in their work. As Pedigo puts it: “Inspectors help ensure clients receive the best product and prevent issues after move-in.”

Communication is Everything

Pedigo says to assess communication style. Great builders are assertive, direct, yet also kind. They’re not afraid of constructive confrontation, especially around things like change orders.

“A good builder is going to push the subs and not let them run a bunch of change orders,” he says. “Having someone who has a good range of subcontractors that he’s been working with long enough that they don’t let them push them around is important.”

He says good builders also stay current with building codes, attend industry conferences, and bring cutting-edge knowledge to your project. Since it is hard for builders to stay up with the constant changes and updates in codes, which is why Pedigo says they use highest-end third parties inspectors for accountability.

“I love tough and thorough inspectors because they cover me. I want them to find every single thing that needs to be fixed, and the reason I do, it helps me put my head on the pillow at night, because I have provided my clients with the best product, and there won’t be any issues after the fact,” he says.

“Get someone who checks everything. Back in the day, some inspectors would just drive by. That will not cut it,” he adds.

Building a home is complex, with each decision triggering multiple downstream choices. Pedigo says you need a builder who plays chess while others play checkers—someone with the experience, integrity, and communication skills to guide you through every challenge. Ask the tough questions upfront, and you’ll sleep better throughout the entire process.

This is also how the team at Gallery Fine Homes has maintained relationships with those they build for, often building multiple homes for them over the course of their 25 years in business. Founder James Austin “Bubba” Vann has been known to even make clients laugh during some of their biggest challenges.

There is no question that Pedigo’s and Vann’s experience combined and commitment to honesty is priceless.

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Why This Framework for Leadership Works

The 12 steps in recovery address the fundamental human challenges like ego, fear, control, dishonesty, broken relationships, and the illusion that we can succeed alone through sheer will power. These issues can’t and shouldn’t be compartmentalized.

At Gallery Fine Homes, we believe good leaders address the entire humanity of their employees and clients.

These steps can be applied in all areas of life, and you do not need to be in recovery to borrow this simple yet powerful wisdom to run your business. Here is some insight in how we apply it in our leadership and management practices, which has brought us much success.

Recovery teaches what builders often overlook, which is that sustainable success requires humility, that power is found in surrender, that relationships matter more than being right, and that it is a team effort, to not be afraid to ask for help from something greater than ourselves and from the people around us.

Founder and president Bubba Vann, COO Jason Starkey, and the Gallery Fine Homes executive team are successful leaders because they apply the wisdom from these principles of recovery in their work. The same principles that help people rebuild shattered lives turn out to be exactly what builds thriving businesses.

We believe the 12 steps offer a practical roadmap for becoming a kind leader who serves the greater mission and their team.

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless—that our lives had become unmanageable.

Leadership Application: Admit what you don’t know and can’t control. The strongest leaders acknowledge their limitations and don’t pretend to have all the answers. This humility creates space for others to contribute and builds authentic trust. When leaders admit a project is beyond their current capability or a situation is out of control, they can seek help before small problems become catastrophic.

Step 2: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Leadership Application: Recognize that success requires vision beyond yourself. Whether you call it God, purpose, mission, or collective wisdom, great leaders understand they’re part of something larger. This step prevents ego-driven decision-making and opens leaders to guidance from mentors, teams, data, and principles that transcend personal ambition.

Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood them.

Leadership Application: Surrender the illusion of total control. Good leaders have the wisdom to know what is and what is not in their control, allowing them to maintain serenity in their work practices. A calm leader is a calm team. Micromanagers exhaust themselves and stifle their teams. Leaders who “let go and let God” (or let their team, or let the process) empower others to excel. This doesn’t mean abdicating responsibility. It means trusting the people you’ve hired and the systems you’ve built. Founder Bubba Vann hires well, empowers through trust, then gets out of the way.

Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Leadership Application: Conduct regular, honest self-assessment. The best leaders schedule time to examine their own behavior, biases, and blind spots. What patterns keep repeating? Where do you consistently struggle? What feedback have you been avoiding? This isn’t about self-criticism; it’s about self-awareness. You can’t improve what you won’t acknowledge, and your team suffers most from that lack of awareness.

Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Leadership Application: Be transparent about your mistakes with trusted advisers. Leaders need people they can be vulnerable with, whether that be a mentor, coach, peer group, or executive team. Speaking your failures out loud removes their power over you and invites accountability. The leaders who never admit fault to anyone become isolated and eventually destructive.

Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Leadership Application: Commit to genuine change, not just awareness. It’s one thing to know you’re defensive with criticism or avoid difficult conversations. It’s another to be truly ready to change those patterns. This step is about moving from “I know I do this” to “I’m ready to stop doing this.” It requires courage because change is uncomfortable.

Step 7: Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

Leadership Application: Actively seek help in changing. Offer the burden up to your Higher Power and ask for guidance. This can also be accomplished through coaching, therapy, training, or spiritual practice every morning when you wake up, ask for what you need to become better. Humble leaders know they can’t transform themselves through willpower alone. They invest in development, seek feedback, and invite others into their growth process.

Step 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Leadership Application: Identify relationships possibly damaged by your leadership, when acting out of your wounds unaware, and prepare to repair them. Who have you thrown under the bus? Who did you overlook for promotion unfairly? Whose ideas did you steal credit for? Which employee did you fail when they needed support? It doesn’t matter whether you intended to or not, it still affected your colleague and their feelings matter. Making this list requires brutal honesty, but it’s the first step toward rebuilding trust and helping your team feel seen and heard.

Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Leadership Application: Actually repair the damage you’ve caused. This isn’t a blanket apology email; it’s specific, personal amends. “I acted out of line when I criticized your work publicly in that meeting. You deserved better leadership from me.” The “except when it would injure them” part is crucial: don’t make amends that serve your conscience but reopen others’ wounds.

Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Leadership Application: Make accountability a daily practice, not an annual review. At day’s end, ask: Where did I lead well today? Where did I fall short? Did I honor my values? Did I treat people with respect? Have an accountability practice in place like a mentor you trust and a 360-review process. When you realize you were wrong in a meeting, a decision, a reaction, admit it immediately. “I was too harsh earlier. That wasn’t fair.” Quick acknowledgment prevents small wrongs from becoming big resentments later.

Step 11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Them, praying only for knowledge of their will for us and the power to carry that out.

Leadership Application: Create space for reflection and connection to purpose. Whether through prayer, meditation, journaling, or time in nature, or time with family, great leaders regularly disconnect from the urgency of operations to reconnect with why they lead and what truly matters. This is where clarity emerges. This is where you hear the quiet voice that knows the right answer. Gallery Fine Homes starting executive meetings with prayer and gratitude is this principle in action.

Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Leadership Application: This approach can transform entire organizations. Use your transformation to serve others and extend these principles everywhere. Once you’ve experienced the power of this approach, you have a responsibility to help others grow. Mentor emerging leaders. Share what you’ve learned. But most importantly, practice these principles consistently in how you hire, fire, negotiate, celebrate, and correct. Your leadership becomes a living example that inspires others to lead differently. It also creates better experiences for those you lead.

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Chief Financial Officers may not always sound exciting on paper, but for Christian Skonberg, his role isn’t just spreadsheets; it is transparency, stewardship, creative solutions, impact and strategy.

A CFO is often the person who ensures the company’s vision is possible, and Christian does this by keeping the company funded, backed and able to take risks responsibly. “I zoom out and draw a big picture to make sense of everything that is happening in the company, almost like a financial narrative,” Christian says.

What he loves most about the position he’s in is the challenge, and making decisions that have a big impact, which is why he leads the business office with honesty, integrity and openness.

When the company continued to expand in 2021, founder Bubba Vann created and finalized the role in 2023 to help guide it through its next chapter, and after years of discussion, Christian stepped in to build out and lead the business office.

Every transaction, vendor payment, and line of credit ultimately rolls up into a picture of the company’s health, and Christian ensures that picture is accurate, transparent, and strong enough to support both banking relationships and bold new projects they are dreaming up.

“At the end of the day, my job is to make sure we’re good stewards of the company’s dollars,” he says.

What excites him most about the role is the creativity it allows. Unlike the rigid, risk-averse companies he’s worked for in the past, GFH encourages entrepreneurial thinking, and he enjoys the challenge of creatively making decisions that have an immediate and lasting impact on the business.

Just as important, he thrives in GFH’s culture of openness, honesty, and humor. He loves the people he works with — they laugh a lot. “When work needs to get done, we can flip the switch easily,” he says.

It is as a company where the lines between work and life are fluid, and where evolving together as a team and as members of their community are essential to their joint mission.

Outside the office, Christian finds balance with his wife and two children, or in the outdoors, whether on the golf course or a hunting trip. It’s this mix of precision, creativity, and down-to-earth values that makes him a natural fit for helping Gallery Fine Homes grow with integrity.

“Having a good time in the office, and then being able to show up outside of work for family; it is all a big deal to us here,” he says.

Leading and empowering teams and complex projects as a football coach and former NFL player made COO Jason Starkey uniquely qualified to bring Gallery Fine Homes to where it is today.

He left his career as a high school football coach in 2018 to work with Gallery Fine Homes and found the job with founder James “Bubba” Vann attractive because their united vision was so much more than making money; it was about the relationships they build and creating communities they would live in.

Jason still works with young athletes, speaking all over the country with a message — to not measure their worth through external achievements. Their worth is intrinsic, which he says he learned the hard way as a professional football player who lost everything after leaving the NFL.

He has loved working at Gallery Fine Homes because it is about applying the spiritual principles of recovery at work with his colleagues, then blessing others with the abundance they encounter in their success, and using that success to pour back into the communities they help build.

The way Jason and his team sees it, they are in a service-oriented business. “We are there to provide the greatest asset in anyone’s life and that is their home, their safe place. And we walk them through the psychology of one of the biggest investments in someone’s life,” Jason says.

He helps his team understand that unhappy clients, vendors or contractors are coming at them from a place of fear. He asks first: Are we being good stewards with what God has entrusted us with? Let’s not be defensive and deflect when clients are struggling.

Before becoming the COO of all the home building companies Bubba founded, Jason acted as the president of Gallery Built Homes, the South Texas branch, which currently develops communities for the largest company in the world.

Jason is also proud that he works with people he deeply respects, “not because of the titles we hold or the money we make, but because the work that we do outside of the business that we run,” he says.

The entire team is passionate about legacy.

“It is something we talk about in our C-Suite meetings,” he says. “Our legacy is more than the houses we create, communities we create, it is really holistically about investments we make, and not monetarily, but spiritual investments. We are all really damn passionate about that and intentional about that. It drives who we hire, who we choose to work with, the type of business we engage in. I love being a part of a company that starts our executive meetings in prayer asking for guidance and discernment, and really as much as possible, to remove ourself and our selfish ways from the equation because we have plenty of evidence to support that any life that we try to run on self will is going to fail. We believe we are operating in the spiritual realm.”

Borrowing from his 20 years in 12-step recovery, he applies this program of accountability and transparency to all of his affairs, especially in business.

“I really like doing business with the cards face up,” Jason says.

Because of this, when clients get to know Jason, Bubba and the team, they usually find themselves at ease.

“We invest in meaningful relationships so we can be of maximum service, and to those who we are contracted to serve, we come across as servants. Getting to know the people we are serving is important to us, so we can see past the project and capture the vision, the dream, if you will, in the space they want to create now and in the spaces they are contemplating in the future,” Jason says.

He was set on being a football coach for life, but when Bubba brought him in, he realized he could make a larger impact in a different way, and also keep a schedule where he was there for his wife and kids more.

“It was never about how much money he could make, it was about having a schedule where family was a priority and serving others, that was our mission when I came on,” he says.

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James Austin “Bubba” Vann started his company out of the back of his truck at 23 years old with a small loan from his father. He couldn’t have known what his company would become, nor what he would endure to get there, but he was driven to be successful from the start.

In just 14 years, Bubba would build hundreds of homes, turn a one-man show into a multi-million dollar operation, make good money, lose everything and gain it all back. It has now been nearly 22 years since he started, and it has become a legacy.

But the South Texas company, Gallery Built Homes, would become so much more than a homebuilding company that makes money; it became lifelong friendships and an abundance of blessings Bubba funnels to employees, contractors and clients; it’s family. And he’s expanding those blessings and that altruistic vision to Fort Worth, the place where he grew up, went to college at TCU and plans to hang his hat.

The Fort Worth company has been rebranded to Gallery Fine Homes, and none of this would come without his own journey of starts and stops, rises and falls. And what success means to him after 23 years in the business has changed.

The most valuable lesson he would learn: lead with love. For him, success isn’t simply about finding the right business model and cash flow, it is the people who build and maintain it, and the communities he created through homebuilding.

Bubba has a carefully curated team of compassionate and honest people, and together, they create homes for people to live out their dreams. His healing around life’s hardest lessons has given him an edge and the ability to see and seek out team members with like-minded integrity. Through this work, Bubba’s mission sets an intention to multiply God’s abundance not just for his employees, but for his clients, and integrating these meaningful practices into the work he does is what sets Gallery Fine Homes apart.

His business is also about walking people through some of the most financially and emotionally important decisions of their lives. In a recent case, it was walking a Fort Worth family through one of the most traumatic events in their life.

When lightning struck the home of Fort Worth clients Kendall and Doug Meacham in August 2022, it all but burned to the ground. Bubba heard about it through his connection to the Texas Christian University alumni organization and offered to rebuild it. Doug serves as inside receivers coach under head coach Sonny Dykes, so the fall football season was underway meaning Kendall had to carry this one almost on her own. Having experience moving all over the country to follow her husband’s football coaching career, she has worked with many builders and contractors whether it was a remodel, an addition or a new build.

Kendall valued the way Bubba and his right-hand man on the project, director of construction Kevin Pedigo, always listened. They never spoke to her in a condescending manner, which has been her experience working with less self-aware contractors in the past. She was consistently taken seriously. “Kevin Pedigo was my best friend by the end of it,” she says. “There were so many times I was in tears worrying the insurance company wouldn’t follow through, [and] Bubba always calmed me down and knew exactly what to say.”

Kendall is grateful to have such a kind and compassionate team of people walking her through that difficult time. “They helped us go through the whole process with our claims adjuster and insurance company, the house had to be brought to studs and slab. The shell of the house was there, but it was basically a complete rebuild,” Kendall says.

She was amazed at how fast they got it done and how sincerely they applied themselves to the care of rebuilding her home as they would their own.

She posted before/after photos on her Instagram and added a Bible verse in the caption with Gallery Fine Homes in mind — Isaiah 61:3: "To all who mourn he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair." She attributes being able to take ashes, grief and despair and turn them into joy, beauty and praise to her friends who showed up, but mostly to Bubba, Kevin and the care of his team.

Bubba has maintained relationships and lifelong friendships with his clients. For some, he has built both their starter home and their dream home, and all of the homes in between. His clients value him for both the professional and personal qualities he brought to each project, often staying friends for life.

“I really liked his personality, and he was really fair and honest,” client Lee Coffman says. “He was a professional but also a jokester and would lighten your day when you talked to him. He would take the stress off.”

Building The Plane, Taking Off

Bubba knew since he was a junior at TCU he wanted to be a builder. He started out as a “gopher” for his brother-in-law’s company in construction. Before that, he had an opportunity to work for his dad who was in finance as a money manager. “But I wanted to carve my own path. I knew I could take land and cut it up. I like taking raw land and making it beautiful, and making it something someone will live in and become their home,” he says.

However, starting wasn’t easy. The first ten years people questioned if he was even old enough to build their home and be entrusted with the biggest financial decision of their lives. He didn’t have the experience or the portfolio to convince them, so he had to outwork others in his field clocking 70 hours a week or more.

He started out building four-plexes and six-plexes, and then he convinced a neighbor in South Texas to build his home, which they did over a fax machine in 2004. “We took a 2,000-square-foot house to 8,000 square feet. That was my first house ever,” he says, proud.

Back then, Bubba wore all the hats as the marketing guy, the accountant, the superintendent, the salesman. “I did that for years,” he said, remembering how it nearly killed him. He even quit playing golf for eight years, his favorite thing in the world to do, and his friends wondered what happened to him. He had one goal in mind — to build his dream so that he could build others’ dreams. “I wanted to be the best at my craft.”

When Bubba got his first lot and called a lumber guy:

“Hey, just get me some wood over here so I can say I started.”

“What kind of wood do you want?”

“I dunno, just get me some two-by-fours.”

Little did the fledgling builder know, it was not the kind of wood he needed. Bubba says the wood debacle was embarrassing at the time (it was a lot of wood), but he ate the cost and learned the importance of ordering the right type of wood. He would learn one plank at a time, one step at a time, one house at a time with each year that passed, purifying his taste and process with fire.

Bubba started working under the developer Landmark National in 2006. “They were the largest golf residential developers in the country from 1978-2012, and I credit them for grooming me into what I would become,” he says. Landmark National was foundational to his career because they were his greatest and most foundational mentor, teaching him what it means to be a good developer, how to market, construction processes, and they built him a website that fed traffic to his model homes.

He also learned to work within a master plan development. “There was nobody better in the business than them,” he says. He started out as their smallest builder buying a few lots in 2006 and would go on to be their biggest builder. After Landmark National went bankrupt, he became the exclusive developer for South Padre Island Golf Club. “I would not be where I am without Landmark National,” he says.

From there, Bubba would learn so many valuable lessons. He also learned that you can’t run a business with an iron fist. He now speaks Spanish fluently and learned the culture of his hardest workers. “These subs work their tail off in the heat and take a lot of pride in their work,” he says. “You have to love on them, tell them where they did a good job, and then point to the areas we want to improve. People respond to love. I learned to manage men with love.”

Everything from picking the finishings to managing his employees to communicating with his clients is with love. People who know Bubba have felt this. “If your employees aren’t happy, you’re just not going to get a good product for your clients.”

Bubba’s Team

“Everyone who works for me is someone you would want at your dinner table,” Bubba says.

Jason Starkey, a former NFL football player, national-renowned motivational speaker and former high school football coach, is Bubba’s right-hand man for all of his projects in the Rio Grand Valley. When they met in late 2010, Jason said they were instant brothers. He moved to Texas to coach football and use that as a platform to change and inspire the next generation of young men. In 2018, Bubba asked him to join him. “After multiple approaches, he gave me an offer my wife couldn’t refuse,” he says, laughing. Jason says Bubba saw something in him he couldn’t see. “He has a knack for naturally seeing talent in people.”

In 2025, Bubba promoted Jason to COO of all branches of the business with a longterm plan to move to Fort Worth and run things here.

Jason says working with Bubba has made him not only into a better man and colleague, but a better husband. He appreciates how Bubba entrusts him with a lot of responsibility Bubba manages with transparency, honesty and makes himself available. He is present without hovering. Not only do Bubba’s team members say he has empowered each of them in their roles professionally and personally, he’s also someone everyone enjoys being around.

“He’s a lot of fun, he’s extremely knowledgeable. I like being around people who challenge me to be a better man, husband, professional, father and son. You know, he does all of those things for us,” Jason says.

Andrew Presley met Bubba on the driving range in Mira Vista nearly four years ago when Bubba had just moved back to Fort Worth. The two became friends over small talk on the golf course. Soon Bubba would take Andrew under his wing and would bring him on to help him as the superintendent and project manager of the new Fort Worth leg of his business. Over conversations, he would tell Andrew that his own success had nothing to do with him and everything to do with God.

Bubba loves that he gets to witness how the fruits of his hard work bless other people and help families put food on their tables or take trips together. “[His success] never has anything to do with him, it is always about somebody else,” Andrew says. “I always thought it was really attractive that he said stuff like that [...] it is a very fulfilling business to work for.”

Andrew loves that Bubba cares what he has to say and what he wants in his working life. He listens. “I think that’s probably pretty rare. I think most employers are like: this is what this is going to look like, take it or leave it,” Andrew says. Bubba will meet his employees where they are and figure out ways to make it work for both of them. Together, Bubba and Andrew are spearheading the new Fort Worth branch of Gallery Fine Homes, but Bubba’s executive team manages all of the companies.

His employees say that no matter how busy Bubba is, he will take time out of his day to address their needs. He returns texts, emails, phone calls and creates space for them, whether it is business or just a friend who needs to talk.

Bubba also takes his entire executive team to the National Association of Homebuilders show every year. The weather is extreme in Texas, especially with the hotter summers and winter storms endured over the last few years. There they learn the latest trends as far as energy efficiency, water reduction and becoming environmentally smarter all around.

Gallery Fine Homes also uses an expensive software called Builder Trend. Pictures are uploaded every day to increase transparency of the process for not only his team but the client. You can follow the progress of your home on your iPad. Bubba says a lot of builders don’t use it because it is time-consuming and costs a lot of money on the front end, but on the back end, it streamlines the process and saves time for all. It is yet another way Bubba doesn’t cut corners and keeps his team and clients on the same page, increasing the communication and transparency that is so important to him.

Bubba may have everything from a development company to a home-building empire, but he’s intimately familiar with all the details of all of his companies. His employees love that about him. Bubba is responsible for putting food on the table for hundreds of families, and he knows each and every one of them. “He’s not a leader who’s absent, he’s a leader who’s present, and he doesn’t have to be physically in your zip code for you to feel his presence, his support,” Jason says. “Having said that, he’s a leader who is going to hold you accountable.” They lean on honesty and integrity for their success. “We’re not perfect, but we’re in the business of making it right. That’s really what we are all about. New construction is such a messy thing.”

“We pride ourselves on doing the right thing. I truly believe that if we put our focus on helping people and bring financial freedom and peace or recovery or whatever, and help as many people as we can under this Gallery Fine Homes umbrella, then God will bless it,” Andrew says.

Recovery and Operations

It is not uncommon that you will find Bubba 12-stepping a TCU student or a young man struggling with alcoholism. This means helping and intervening with alcohol and addiction problems. While in college, Bubba started to drink a lot. It wasn’t long before his life became unmanageable and he would quit and find himself working 12-step recovery programs.

Alcoholism isn’t really about drinking, it is about the way the person sees the world, often as a victim filled with egoic distortions of inflation and/or deflation. Recovery heals the heart and the mind, which in turn heals the addiction, what those in recovery circles would call a spiritual malady.

In recovery, Bubba learned what it means to be honest and humble, which isn’t to take a self-deprecating approach to the world but rather to be right-sized — not less and not more — to know his place and how he can serve others from that place.

Recovery is considered by some psychologists as the 12 steps to deflating the ego. These practical steps offer gifts that everyday businessmen may never have access to like self-reflection, accountability, honesty and solution-focused living and work. This edge impacts the way Bubba and his team manage Gallery Fine Homes. “If something is burning us up, we work through it from a recovery lens,” Andrew says.

After the first few months of sobriety, it’s not about avoiding picking up a drink; it's about the way they live and do business,” Andrew says. “When you tie it into the business you run, it is a huge benefit.”

At one point, Bubba almost lost everything. After getting sober for two years in 2006, he was hit with divorce papers and the housing crises of 2008. He drank himself through the hard times, and at one point he couldn’t give homes away and had little money to his name. It is common for those who recovered from drinking problems will say they are a grateful alcoholic. This may mystify the “normal” person, but what this means is that through afflictions, people are often brought to the biggest blessings of their lives.

“It is the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” Bubba says.

Working 12 steps brought the once-afflicted drinker to a place of surrender and gratitude. It helped him let go of things out of his control and focus on the things he can, with the help of a higher power of his own understanding. The impact of this work on the way Bubba would rebuild his business, is what gives Gallery Fine Homes an edge. It is the reason clients can say working with everyone who has been affected by Bubba’s leadership, is the most transparent, compassionate, ethical and effective experience they have ever had with a builder, or anyone in the business world for that matter.

His companies all have a service-oriented mindset. “We are not just there to build and close a house and get paid, we are there to serve a member of the community. We’re there to provide the greatest asset in any family’s lives, and that is their home. We take a lot of pride in doing that with care and quality, and being available to walk through the psychology of the biggest investment in someone’s life,” Jason says. When Bubba brought Jason on, this was the principle he started with. Before any member on the team wants to react to a problem, worry, stress or defend, they are first asked to trust in a higher power of their understanding and to remember that this is a very emotional process for their clients. “To lead with grace, be of service, and let them vent,” Jason says. Bubba always reminds his team that whatever may be going on with a client is not personal. Bubba challenges them: “Are we being good stewards?”

Bubba also donates time and money to the Recovery Resource Council to help people who struggle with what he struggles with. Last year alone, RRC helped 65,000 people in Tarrant County get help. Bubba’s favorite line in a recovery text describes how he lives his life and constructs his business: “Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if only he manages well.” He doesn’t live under the illusion that he’s doing this work through self-will and business acumen alone, but rather is guided by his higher power.

“It’s a part of our work culture, which is really cool,” Andrew says. People working a good program tend to be loyal and honest, so it benefits them in the business world to be working with others working a strong recovery program of accountability and honesty, he says.

Bubba has been sober since Nov. 8, 2010, and he has brought countless people with him since.

Building Philosophy: Respect Time and No Surprises

Bubba has always created communities with the idea that he would want to live in them, and they all live in the communities they develop and build homes in. They aren’t just your builders, they’re your neighbors. “I might need to borrow a cup of sugar from you, you know, that’s what our business looks like. That’s the essence of Bubba as a company leader and business owner,” Jason says.

Respecting people’s time is of utmost importance when being a good home builder. There is often an interim loan on construction before a permanent loan is in place. “Time is money. That interest clock never stops when you have a construction loan on your home,” he says. It’s yet another thing Kendall Meachem said she appreciated about working with Gallery Fine Homes — they rebuilt her home in 9 months. “It’s because we are there [on the job site]. We are responsible,” he says. This is why Bubba will not be a builder who drags his feet. He understands the value of time and again, he may need to borrow a cup of sugar from you.

No surprises. People do not like surprises, especially if it is a $50,000 surprise. “We try to be really transparent on the front end and get everything they could expect in the contract so that there are no surprises,” Bubba says. He values transparency in communication and presents everything they could expect right away, even the possibility of events and expenses happening they may not expect. If things ever go the way it wasn’t expected, he takes ownership and works to make it right.

“The timeframe they told us, they did it. They did exactly what they were supposed to do,” client Lee Coffman says.

Bubba says you want to build with someone who is responsible and is going to be around, because it is like entering a marriage — you are in a relationship with that builder for as long as you’re in the home. “This is not, ‘We are going to build your house and we’ll see you in 20 years.’ This is ‘Hey, we’re going to build you a house and we are going to be here,’” he says.

Because it isn’t just about building a home, but rather a lifelong relationship, and knowing that affects every aspect of his business.

He’s also learned what a home means for a family through his wife, Mariana. A golf champion from Mexico, she spends hours nearly every day cooking meals from Mexico in her home and lets the smell loft and christen the house. A home is where Bubba, his family, his team and his clients host family dinners, company parties, holidays, sleepovers for their children and birthday parties.

Back Home, Onward and Upward

Bubba grew up in Fort Worth, but his parents moved to Harlingen, Texas when he was 14. He went to TCU because he wanted to get back here as soon as he could. After college, Bubba followed a girl back to South Texas where he began building his empire.

In 2020, he was ready to move back to where it all started. “I will tell you right now, I absolutely loved Fort Worth, Texas. I love Fort Worth, Texas,” he says with the o in love drawn out. It is the 12th largest city in the country, but he loves the small-town feel of such a big city. “I love the values here, I love the culture here, I think it is an incredible place to raise a family. It’s so big but you can go to lunch and see half a dozen people you know.”

Up until 2020, most of Bubba’s building projects were in South Texas and other areas of the country. But he’s excited to bring what he loves and does best back home. Fort Worth is growing at a rapid rate, and Bubba knows it is a service he can not only provide, but provide well. Because he believes in what he provides and wants to funnel that back into the city he grew up in and loves so much. “We're going to pay attention to detail, we are going to pay a fair price, we are going to be transparent, we’re going to be available. We’re your neighbors. We are not just your builder but your neighbor,” he says.

The way he does business is the legacy Bubba wants to leave behind. A lot of people can build a house, but not everyone can build the relationships, the trust and the integrity he has with his clients. “At the end of the day, it is about being in a community and being able to give back to that community. That does more for me than any dollar I have ever made,” he says.

“This isn’t just about managing a company, this is about waking up, trusting God, inviting God into this process, whatever you choose to call God, about loving others, helping others and marching to this common goal to deliver a product that someone is going to call home, and they’re going to have a holiday meal, and [this work will] bless everybody, not just the end user. It is not just about us managing well, it is about inviting these important principles in and really delivering something that goes so far beyond just delivering a piece of wood with a roof on it,” Bubba says.

Bubba’s employees and clients would all agree that he is one of the most generous people they know. “There is a misconception in big business that you have to be greedy to win, and Bubba in that regard, is an anomaly,” Jason says. “He handles people with such grace. He is so generous in every way.”

This love carries in everything he does, down to making a piece of earth someone’s safe place, someone’s home. “At the end of the day, the work we do in the world gets to be a vehicle of kindness and generosity,” Bubba says.

Written and compiled by Jocelyn Foster Tatum, journalist, editor and college educator

Kevin Pedigo, director of construction, entered the Fort Worth homebuilding business in 1993 after a stint as a professional golfer. His brother-in-law is nationally recognized historic home restorer and award-winning master builder Brent Hull, and he pulled Kevin in for projects all over Texas.

Kevin got his hands dirty doing manual labor on job sites, seeing the ins and outs of how this business works from a craftsman context. This means he also learned quality.

“The best way to learn is to dive right in,” Kevin says. He has built about 50 homes in Mira Vista alone, and in Fort Worth, Aledo and Dallas, he’s built 100 houses that sold for more than $1 million.

He says his favorite part of the job is the people.

“Meeting people and becoming friends with them,” he says. “Of all the people I have worked with, I have stayed friends with nearly all of them.”

When lightning struck the home of Fort Worth clients Kendall and Doug Meacham in August 2022, it all but burned to the ground. Doug serves as inside receivers coach under head coach Sonny Dykes, so the fall football season was underway meaning Kendall had to carry this one almost on her own.

Having experience moving all over the country to follow her husband’s football coaching career, she has worked with many builders and contractors whether it was a remodel, an addition or a new build.

Kendall valued the way Kevin always listened. He cared. She said he never spoke to her in a condescending manner, which has been her experience working with less self-aware contractors in the past. She was consistently taken seriously.

“Kevin Pedigo was my best friend by the end of it,” she says. “There were so many times I was in tears worrying the insurance company wouldn’t follow through, Kevin and Bubba always calmed me down and knew exactly what to say.”

Kendall is grateful to have such a kind, transparent and compassionate team of people walking her through that difficult time. “They helped us go through the whole process with our claims adjuster and insurance company, the house had to be brought to studs and slab. The shell of the house was there, but it was basically a complete rebuild,” Kendall says.

She was amazed at how fast they got it done and how sincerely they applied themselves to the care of rebuilding her home as they would their own.

She posted before/after photos on her Instagram and added a Bible verse in the caption with Gallery Fine Homes in mind — Isaiah 61:3: "To all who mourn he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair."

She attributes being able to take ashes, grief and despair and turn them into joy, beauty and praise to her friends who showed up, but mostly to Bubba, Kevin and the care of his team.

Kevin is also 50/50 owner in Gallery Concrete Company with Gallery Fine Homes founder Bubba Vann.

He is most proud of how he drives a schedule, which means he takes control of the construction timeline. Since he’s been building in Fort Worth for so long, Kevin also knows the most consistent and honest people to work with. His experience and skillset end up saving clients time, money and heartache.

“I love it when an inspector gives me a list of things to fix,” he says. “Most builders hate that. But I love it, because I want the home built properly and meeting all of the code standards.”

Kevin has loved working in this business from the start. He appreciates the life and vision he helps shape through the construction of something that is so much more than a house; it is a home.

He enjoys transforming something that started with a patch of dirt into a vision, a life.

That is a passion he shares with all of his colleagues at Gallery Fine Homes.

Billy Brentlinger grew up near Mansfield, Texas and later got into the tree-farming business with his brother and father, who was also a doctor.

While attending the prestigious private school Fort Worth Country Day, Billy and his siblings also developed a diverse skillset on the farm they grew up on, all becoming entrepreneurial.

This would lead to years co-owning a wholesale nursery with his brother, starting right after he graduated from TCU in 1988 with a degree in business administration, and later a nursery software business. The businesses grew to become the largest Texas-owned nursery in the state employing more than 1,000 people.

Both the homebuilding and nursery industries manufacture something that has a long lead time, which takes months of planning, problem-solving and growing. And like plants, people and projects need to be nurtured and cared for.

Billy started working with Gallery Fine Homes nearly two years ago, and as the CEO, he focuses on strategic planning, business development, long-term business financial strategies, working with them on developing people in their positions.

He is involved in the decision making, helping drive how the company executes strategies. He helped the company develop their values, vision and mission, which is to “be the leader in building safe, secure and beautiful spaces that improve people’s lives” beyond the homes they erect.

“I believe everyone can be a winner in business,” he says. “I think partnerships and collaborations are the best way to grow a business, to live a life that is worth living, treating people fairly and spending time thinking about that and how I can improve the whole ecosystem that I live in rather than winning in that ecosystem.”

His passion for plants has not subsided. Billy has served on the executive board at Fort Worth’s BRIT (Botanical Research Institute of Texas) for ten years and was the former chairman of the board until last year.

He is proud of the BRIT as an internationally respected institution with some of the best known botanists in their field. It took over operations of the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, which is the oldest of its kind in Texas just celebrating 100 years. Since taking over, BRIT has more than doubled the visitors, expanded exhibits significantly and started a $25-million family garden project.

About Gallery Fine Homes

Founded by longtime Fort Worth builder James Austin “Bubba” Vann, Gallery Fine Homes has grown from a single toolbox and pickup truck into one of Texas’s most trusted names in luxury homebuilding, developing for the largest company in the world. For more than two decades, Bubba and his team of seasoned executives have shaped neighborhoods, poured into communities and created homes that stand as testaments to craftsmanship, integrity, and vision.

What sets Gallery apart isn’t just the quality of the homes; it’s the principles behind them. Every project is guided by values of service, transparency, respect, honesty, and kindness. These aren’t just words on a website or ad; they’re practices that show up in daily conversations, on job sites, and in lasting relationships with clients and trade partners.

With hundreds of homes built across Texas, Gallery Fine Homes has moved into Fort Worth, where Bubba grew up and attended college, where he plans to hang his hat. They blend deep industry experience with a personal, people-first approach. For Bubba and his team, homebuilding is more than construction: it’s a calling to build with purpose and to serve with integrity.

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