Durego Jevon Lewis | Cool Springs TN News

Durego Event & Party Space

If you read our story back in October about Durego in Cool Springs, you’re familiar with the new event and party space located in the old Copeland’s restaurant at 1649 Westgate Circle, Brentwood TN 37027.

We stopped in today to check progress and ran into Lee Austin, the Vice President of Business Development. Lee was gracious enough to give CoolSprings.com a short tour of the space and provide some details about the eagerly anticipated opening.

Durego in Cool Springs is offering an promotional price for the first few bookings where the special fee to rent the space is only $2,500 a day. There is also a discount offered if full payment is made in advance. The first few weddings to book will have a portable stage thrown in at no extra charge (stage is normally an extra $700 to rent).

The kitchen is rather small, really more of a prep area for caterers. An approved list of local caterers is being finalized for guests to choose from. Outside caterers will not be allowed unless on the approved list, nor is food allowed to be provided by guests.

Lee mentioned the Cool Springs Chamber holding a breakfast meeting at Durego sometime soon. Several wedding receptions have been booked along with a graduation party and a few other social events.

Another building located a few doors down will be the showroom with cars and luxury accessories. Lee said the luxury cars sales business is basically a high end auto broker. She said they might have a few high end cars on display like Mercedes or BMW.

We were under the impression the building would be filled with Ferrari, Bentley, Aston Martin, Maserati and Lamborghini. Disappointing.

UPDATE Feb 2, 2010: Sara McKissick from Durego Cool Springs contacted me for a correction regarding the specific brands of vehicles to be displayed. Sara said, “The Durego auto showroom will most definitely have Ferrari, Bentley, Aston Martin and similar high end vehicles on display. There will most likely not be any BMW or Mercedes. The auto dealer portion will also be more geared towards a luxury concierge, not so much a traditional auto broker.”

We agreed it would not have been very impressive to display BMW or Mercedes vehicles, brands often referred to as the Ford and Chevy of Cool Springs.

: Entrance to Durego

: Inside Durego Wedding & Event Space

: Main Party Room with Stage

: Green Room for VIP Musicians or Wedding Guests

: Durego Event or Wedding Party Room

: The Durego Kitchen and Catering Facilities

: Outside of Durego Building on Westgate in Cool Springs TN

Here is a description of the Durego executive team:

“An elite team of Nashville executives has come together and formed a company that brings luxury brands to a city that has been under served for far too long. This team is bringing to Tennessee the brand names of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley, Aston Martin and Maserati to the exotic motors division and Versace, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Hublot and much more to the luxury accessories division.

The company founder, Durego Jevon Lewis, MBA, received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University majoring in Human and Organizational Development. Durego also earned his MBA at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. Durego has partnered with an exceptionally accomplished team of tenured business professionals. The board members include multiple leaders in the Nashville community and automotive industry, including Darrell Lewis (Owner of Import/Domestic Auto), Tami Fassinger, MBA(Vanderbilt Owen School Executive Programs Associate Dean), Jim Jirjis MD, MBA (Vanderbilt MBA, Assistant Chief Medical Officer Primary Care and Chief Informatics Officer Vanderbilt University Medical Center), Edward DeMesa (Vanderbilt undergraduate alum, Vanderbilt graduate school alum and sales professional), Tim Pereira, MBA (Vanderbilt MBA, local small business owner) and many more experienced executives and key players like Randy Harmon (owner of Harmony Air), Dale Leo, MBA (Vanderbilt MBA and Business Consultant), Charles H. Fant (Vanderbilt alum and sales professional), Richard Lyons (Owner of Roberts & Lyons Chevrolet Buick Pontiac GMC dealership in Lewisburg, TN) and other valuable team members.”

Durego Nashville’s Neiman Marcus?

We’ve been very curious about what is happening with “Durego – The Luxury Source”, a special event space business going into the old Cool Springs Copeland’s restaurant space on Westgate Circle, behind Amerigo and Cozymel’s. A CoolSprings.com reader recently submitted photos of Durego in progress, so we feel obligated to do an update.

The initial info we received, was that Durego is supposed to be a very high end event or meeting space, filled with luxury exotic toys. There is nothing like it in Cool Springs or Nashville.

I emailed back in August to see what was happening and heard back almost immediately from Durego Jevon, the owner. When I spoke with Durego, he said build out and finishing of the building had been purposely slowed down. They were timing the opening with the recovery of our economy and real estate market coming back.

Their website looks like they spent some money and portrays the “Durego” business as three things; an exotic motors dealer, showroom & event space and purveyor of luxury accessories.

Regarding the exotic motors part (cars, planes and motorcycles), it doesn’t look like this will be a full line authorized dealership of particular brands, but rather a reseller of luxury cars. I imagine there could be a local market for for the rental of cars pictured such as Aston Martin, Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati and Porsche but its unclear whether that is Durego’s intention.

The six cars displayed on their website are:

2007 Aston Martin DB9 Volante Coupe 4,400 miles
2008 Bentley Azure Coupe 23,624 miles
2007 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano Coupe 1,576 miles
2008 Lamborghini Gallardo 2,777 miles
2008 Maserati Quattroporte 1,428 miles
2008 Porsche 911 Carrera C2S 1,576 miles

A few fancy chromed out motorcycles by the Wild West Motor Company, called Gunfire, Dragoon and the Durego Custom Series are also pictured on the website.

The airplane section lists several manufacturers including Gulfstream, Diamond, Sierra, Lear, Hawker, Cirrus and Cessna, although he only airplane shown in detail is the “Cirrus Vision”. The information listed about the Cirrus Vision sells it as a single engine owner flown personal jet. Wikipedia says it is a “very light jet aircraft” and in December 2006 Cirrus announced the plane would be the “slowest, lowest and cheapest jet available”. With full fuel, the total payload the plane can carry is 400 lbs. That does not seem like much.

The brochure specifically bills it as “Cockpit technology optimized for single pilot operation”. I was looking for “will land on Old Hickory Lake” but did not find that anywhere…lol. To be honest it looks like a cool sexy little plane, just small enough to fit inside the new Durego showroom (or your garage). Now you can say the wing of a plane was your coaster at the Christmas party held at Durego!

The luxury accessories are made up of high end watches, purses and jewlery. The watches represented include Audemars Piguet, Hublot, Patek Philippe, Raymond Weil, Ulysse Nardin and Jaeger LeCoultre. The brands of purses shown on their website are Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi, Gucci, Hermes, Prada and Versace. The jewelery page shows rings, earrings, necklaces and bracelets. There are no brand names of jewlers although the photographs show large enviable colored stones.

We’re kind of disappointed there aren’t any furs or cigars shown.

So Durego’s concept seems to be a meeting and event space filled with the most expensive representations of high end luxury possible. If you drink enough and brought your checkbook, you have the option of taking home one of the showroom pieces. A car, eaerrings, watch, ring or a plane. This may sound unrealistic to many, but I think there is a market here, albeit a very niche one.

If we can just get it open.

The Durego “About Us” page is very strong, listing no less than 5 Vanderbilt MBAs.

The elite team opening and running Durego includes:

Durego Jevon Lewis – Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management MBA
Darrell Lewis- Owner of Import/Domestric Auto
Tami Fassinger – Vanderbilt Owen School Executive Programs Associate Dean & MBA
Jim Jirjis M.D.- Vanderbilt MBA, Assistant Chief Medical Officer Primary Care & Chief Infomatics Officer Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Edward DeMesa- Vanderbilt undergrauate and graduate school alum
Tim Pereira – Vanderbilt MBA & local small business owner
J.T. McCraw – Development consultant
Dale Leo – Vanderbilt MBA & business consultant
Charles H. Fant – Vanderbilt alum and sales professional
Richard Lyons- Owner of Roberts & Lyons Chevrolet Buick Pontiac GMC dealership in Lewisburg, TN)