A bachelor’s forever home is a Ju-Nel on Capri Circle

Sunday mornings were for church, and then everyone congregated at Grandma Ruby’s “little shack house” in Midway, South Carolina. Everyone brought a covered dish or dessert. Gregory Kenneth Williams would play football with his cousins; Grandma Ruby had six living children – four boys and two girls.

“I have over 100 cousins. She had three generations of grandkids before she died,” Williams says. “Everybody’s at my grandma’s house … I mean, I’m surprised not all of us have high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but Sundays were the best.”

Williams grew up on a small farm in Ehrhardt, South Carolina, population 457, with an older brother and a younger sister in a family of educators.

His mother Janet Halyard Capers and father Marion Halyard worked at Westinghouse Electrical Co. Halyard Capers went back to college in her sixties to get her bachelor’s degree and work with children in social services. She just got remarried in her 80s last year. His maternal side of the family lived in New York where his maternal grandmother, Olivia, was the chief nurse of New York’s Jacobi Hospital. His godmother was a teacher. His aunt was a New York Times writer, and all three of his paternal uncles served in Vietnam.

“My family is always about neuroplasticity, continuous learning,” he says.

Mrs. Lenora Dobbins, his elementary school teacher, told him he was going to be a doctor and his best friend, Ronnie Crosby, would be a lawyer.

They both headed to The Citadel College, where Williams played defensive back before tearing his ACL. Mrs. Dobbins kept tabs on both of them through college.

He was stationed in Germany before being involved in the Desert Storm operation. Then Johnson and Johnson recruited him to start his career in medical devices in Manhattan. He spent his mid-20s in New York, where he would see Tupac, Jay-Z and Russel Smith.

”I grew up in a different era,” he says. “We saw the people who were famous now just on the street.”

Then he headed to Charlotte, North Carolina, and then back to New York in 1998. He lived next to musician Issac Hayes and played basketball with members of the Wu-Tang Clan who were also his neighbors. Then he headed to New Jersey and West Virginia, before settling on the West Coast, bouncing between San Francisco and Seattle. He built a home in the community of Kalaheo in Kauai, Hawaii in 2003 and lived there for 13 years.

During his stint at Microsoft Health Care & Life Sciences, he was mentioned in the 2005 Urban Influences Magazine’s Men of Influence edition alongside then-senator Barack Obama and Mos Def.

And then by way of Austin and New Orleans (he has two homes in New Orleans, where he goes back every Mardi Gras to be part of the Krewe of Endymion), he moved to Dallas to be centrally located between the coasts for his job as a health care executive. He bought a Lake Highlands Estates 1955 Eichler, which he refreshed with architecture firm RGD + B in 2018.

Yet, the home he picked for forever is a Ju-Nel on Capri Circle in Highland Meadows.

“What really caught my eye was that when I walked in, and I’m very particular about what I want, when I came into this home, it was about the feeling,” Williams says. “Seriously, it just captivated me because I felt at peace. My job is very stressful, and when I do come home, I want this to be my sanctuary, but also want family and friends when they come in, they feel at peace too.”

The mostly untouched 1962 2,550-square-foot home sits on about a half-acre. The original courtyard flagship stone, corkboard floors, plumbing, electrical and terrazzo floors are all still there. That’s what happens when a home has only two owners over the course of more than sixty years.

He moved in September 2025, breaking his postdivorce lease at The Village.

“I’ve always been inspired by the midcentury modern era,” he says. “My uncle was an architect. He lived in Milwaukee, and he had a midcentury modern ranch. And I still remember as a young kid going to my Uncle Earl’s house and just loving the flat roof lines, loving the wood, and it just felt so warm.”

Williams visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Laurel Highlands, Pennsylvania and his Taliesin out West in the McDowell Mountains of Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s probably why the entry door into the courtyard will be Wright’s favorite burnt red.

“When I became a homeowner, it fit my style,” he says. “You know, I love nature. I love the windows. And I just like watching some of the movies that have these (mid-century modern). I love Palm Springs. I wish I could get one there. It just fits my flow.”

Williams utilizes one of the bedrooms as his office, where his accolades hang alongside a picture for Uncle Ken by his neighbor’s 5-year-old daughter. Two of the bedrooms are for his stepsons, an aspiring veterinarian Daniel and a marine biology enthusiast, Nicholas, who go to Hexter Elementary and Henry W. Longfellow, respectively.

“They are my heartbeat. They really are. Nicholas and Daniel changed my life,” he says. “I don’t have biological kids, but those are my boys.”

Part of his motivation for strengthening his roots in Dallas is building a future for the boys.

RGD+B, which specializes in mid-century modern, will be tapped for the renovation plans to expand the home by another 1,000 square feet, predominantly in the primary suite and the kitchen. Williams, who is an avid cook, wants to add a larger stove, island and refrigerator.

Replacing the electrical system, with hopes to revitalize some of the original fixtures, and plumbing will modernize some functional elements of the house. The windows, which will need to be custom cut to fit the unique framing, will most likely be replaced as well. The corkboard floors will be replaced by warm, period-appropriate hardwood flooring.

The terrazzo will remain untouched.

A 20-by-30-foot linear pool, a small space for turf and workout gear, and more trees and grass are slated for the rock-heavy, unruly backyard. The garage will be redone into a glasshouse for the Ferrari and Lamborghini.

Custom pieces featuring Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley from Nashville-based painter Ray Stephenson, who is also a Grammy-winning singer/songwriter, are focal pieces in the home. A piece from New Orleans gallery Caliche and Pao is featured in the dining room. In the hallway, a photograph of a male lion reminds Williams of his time in Africa. He’s been to all of the continents, including Antarctica.

In the forever home period of his life, he’s teaching himself Spanish, is involved in the Dallas Opera and is an avid music lover, from Bad Bunny to Andrea Bocelli. He volunteers where he finds opportunities and funds a scholarship to The Citadel College.

“Just making sure I can give back,” he says. “God didn’t bless me with all of this for me to hoard it, right? He wants us to share.”

He’s thinking about what’s next. Starting a business or two, finding new love or designing a home in Puerto Rico. He’s got time.

After all, Grandma Ruby lived to 102.

At the end of the day, Mrs. Dobbins was right. Gregory Kenneth Williams works in the medical field and Ronnie Crosby is a lawyer.

And every Sunday, he’s volunteering at the children’s ministry at his church, because that’s what Sunday is for.

Every week, he buys roses for his kitchen, so the first thing he sees after the gym is flowers.

“They make me feel at peace,” he says.

He spent a weekend in March planting 20 Knock Out rose bushes and hundreds of tulips, the way his mom and brother do.

“Who doesn’t smile when they see flowers? See, look at you smiling, right? Who’s not happy?”