This is a love letter about what I do and why I do it. I first met Scott & Chris just over a year ago. At the time, they were living in another state, one in which they’d loved but had, over time and for personal reasons, grown disillusioned with. It was high time for a fresh start. When we first spoke on the phone, their needs seemed fairly straightforward: a house with at least three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a home office, a garage and plenty of storage space. It also needed to be well-designed and well-constructed. 

Scott, you see, hails from a proud line of architects, his grandfather having office’d out of the FLW Robie House in Chicago back in the day. Geographically, they wanted access to the energy of a city without being trapped in it. Due to Scott’s line of work, proximity to the airport was also a priority. These were the tangibles, the stuff you can find using most real estate aggregators, but a bit of house therapy revealed a few more nuanced necessities. 

What they really were after was a home that was open and communal in the shared spaces while keeping the private ones cozy and intimate. They are passionate about art and wanted plenty of wall space to display their collection. They asked to live in a dog friendly neighborhood, one where sidewalks had streetlamps– something their current neighborhood did not offer and was sorely missed. And, although more ‘indoor’ people than ‘out’, a beautiful sunset was something they very much looked forward to at the end of a busy day, so a deck with a view felt really important. Oh, and a sauna would be nice, too. With mandate in hand, we searched. And we searched. We explored nearly every county along the Wasatch front– Salt Lake, Utah, Summit, Wasatch and Weber– and toured so many houses. We saw properties in the rain, in the snow and in the dark of night– 

never once getting lost because real estate agents don’t get lost; we just sometimes prefer the more scenic route. 

And after each outing over lunches at roadside cafes or mom and pop bakeries whose cinnamon rolls would break your heart, I’d check in: How did these properties resonate with you? What about this neighborhood or that one? Would you consider any of these houses home? This process served two purposes. It helped me hone in on exactly what Scott and Chris yearned for. It also helped us get to know each other, because, let me tell you, you can learn a lot about someone spending that much time in the car with them. That’s part of the beauty of my work, part of why I love it so much. Yes, I’m providing a service, that of bringing real estate expertise to the process, but I’m also building relationships, forging connections with beautiful humans I would not otherwise have had the opportunity to make. Back to the driving. Did I mention we drove a lot? We learned a lot, too. We learned they loved the remote beauty so many of these properties offered, but not the experience of mountain driving. We learned they loved rural charm, but not the isolation. On occasion, we thought we’d discovered the right property. One in particular kept calling to us, this a new build with stunning valley views but construction delays, workmanship concerns, and the accelerating timeline of their own home sale pushed us back into uncertainty.

Time felt no longer our ally. Do we rent? Do we settle?

And then, this house on Hiawatha. A meticulously-renovated, mid-century modern residence seemingly to have materialized out of nowhere. Cue the choir. Private but not too much so. Walkable streets. City views. Loads of storage. A functional floorplan. And– bonus– an indoor sauna! And just like that, after a year of house hunting and hundreds of miles logged, we found it– their home. And, ironically (or maybe not) after all those zip codes explored, it ended up being less than two miles away from mine. Who’da thought? In the end, we all won. Chris and Scott got everything they sought, and I get to call new friends of mine neighbors.