LA is ultra-luxury property landscape changes dramatically.
This fall, Drew Fenton, one of Hilton & Hyland’s big names, veteran real estate manager Nick Segal and Hilton & Hyland marketing chief Ed Leyson struck out on their own to launch a new Beverly Hills real estate business, Carolwood. says Fenton THR that after the death this year of Hilton & Hyland co-founder Jeff Hyland, “it felt like a natural progression to put everything I’d learned in my 15 years at Hilton & Hyland into my own company.”
Carolwood has lured for the past few weeks more than 35 agents of Hilton & Hyland, including power sellers Linda May (winner of the Agent of Historic Architecture Award op The Hollywood Reporters 2022 LA Power Broker Prices), Brett Advocaat, Jonah Wilson, Susan Smith, the team of Jonathan Nash and Stephen Resnick, Justin Paul Huchel, Bjorn Farrugia, Michael LaMontagna and Gordon MacGeachy. Others who have recently joined Carolwood include Cooper mountain (formerly of The Agency) and Richard Ehrlich (who joined from Westside Estate Agency).
After his time at the venerable Hilton & Hyland, Fenton says he enjoys the “independence and the freedom to set a new tone for the future.” The new tone contains a more personal view. “We are taking the bespoke office concept to the next level with Carolwood, which is designed to facilitate top agents and accordingly facilitate their VIP clients in the spirit of private banking and family offices,” he says. (A Hilton & Hyland spokesperson had no comment on the brokerage’s spate of defections.)
A similar spirit is visible at AKG, a brand new luxury brokerage with 160 agents, also in Beverly Hills. Top agent Aaron Kirman left Compass in November to start the company with Christie’s International Real Estate. “It’s the best of all worlds,” he says. “You get the luxury boutique, plus you get the incredible partnership and affiliation of something national and international that does hundreds of billions of dollars a year.”
Kirman says his goal for the brokerage is for it to feel like a luxury boutique operation, fused with innovative marketing techniques and even an AI department to help deliver data. Kirman says, “We wanted to be more agile. … We want to create and dominate the luxury sphere using the most innovative marketing techniques out there. We have an incredible AI division … that gives us a lot of intelligence. Our goal is to have the intelligence, the teamwork that we have, the great agents that we have, the great marketing that we have, and really use to create the ultimate luxury experience for sellers and buyers that just doesn’t exist today.
With rumors of more high-profile dropouts on the way, it seems breakaway brokers will increasingly become a factor to be reckoned with in the high-stakes game of LA real estate. “We have a lot of confidence in it,” Kirman says of AKG. “Not only will we continue to dominate luxury, we will own luxury.”
A version of this story first appeared in the November 30 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.