It started as a hobby. Ashley quietly bought two homes, starting with the Little Sugar bungalow in 2015 — remodeling them and turning them into Airbnbs, learning it as she went. It stayed a hobby until she and Cody found a spark in his skills and her hobbies: in 2023 the two of them founded Refract Ventures together — a passion project for the whole family ever since. The name is Cody's, from his layer-0 years at Google. She had a hand in each property's identity, the photo sets, and a good bit of the copy on the website — including the line on the home page that says same hands, different light.
She builds things. Software, mostly, for twenty-two years. Before this she co-founded Ledger Collective, where she's still an advisor and still very invested.
She handles the front-of-house: the listing photos, the welcome notes, the way each property looks when it shows up in your phone. She has opinions about typefaces. She has opinions about door hardware. She has very strong opinions about which Onyx Coffee location is the best on a Sunday. She's also a co-founder of aura.refract, where she owns the lens, the brand, and the creative direction — Kim Brannon runs the business side.
She's co-founder and managing partner of Refract Ventures — the operating company beneath the family enterprise. The managing part is practical: Cody is gainfully employed as a network architect, so holding the day-to-day fell to her. She doesn't run any single business, though; each one has its own operator — every one of them family, or a very close confidante. Her role is a light one inside every part of the portfolio: supporting the people who run each company, keeping the shared platforms working, and looking after the financial and legal side. She's been here since the first parcel, even as the kids have taken over their own domains.
A mom, and together they’re one family. Believes the difference between a property and a brand is whether anyone can tell you wrote it.
