ANDREW SPITZ and FRAN CHAVEZ SCG | Spitz Chavez Group AKG | Christie’s International Real Estate The award-winning team of Andrew Spitz and Fran Chavez of Spitz Chavez Group (also known as SCG, part of AKG | Christie’s International Real Estate), is legendary as one of the preeminent representatives for luxury properties along the Ventura Boulevard Corridor and surrounding areas. Spitz and Chavez’s honesty and integrity are well-known throughout the real estate community. Combined, they have over 70 years of real estate experience and their extensive real estate expertise and persistence to solve complex issues is a direct result of their success. Spitz and Chavez understand every client’s real estate need is unique, and strategically approach each objective with sincerity and empathy to achieve the ultimate outcome. They create innovative and aggressive marketing campaigns while tailoring strategies to each listing to maximize exposure for every property. Last year they achieved $87 million in sales. https://labusinessjournal.com/custom-content/leaders-of-influence-residential-real-estate-brokers-2023-andrew-spitz-and-fran-chavez/
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A historic Case Study house from 1948 is available for $11.9 million. In the mid-20th century, Arts & Architecture magazine commissioned America’s preeminent architects—including Richard Neutra, Eero Saarinen, and Charles and Ray Eames—to design and construct inexpensive model homes to address the post-WWII housing boom. Not all of the imagined 36 Case Study Houses were built, and some have been demolished or completely remodeled. Of the 20 that remain, most are in LA. Now architecture buffs have a rare opportunity to own one. Designed by Rodney Walker and completed in 1948, Case Study House #18, also known as the West House, was built on the same street in Pacific Palisades as the Eames House and Neutra’s Stuart Bailey House. The 1,700-square-foot wood-frame includes two bedrooms, a garden room, and a combined living-dining area with a two-sided floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace faced with copper. Walker took advantage of the gorgeous locale by strategically orienting the house toward the Pacific Ocean and including full-length glass panels, many of which slide open to outdoor terraces. “These projects enlisted the most prominent architects of their time to design and construct efficient model homes that would shape the future of housing in the United States following World War II,” says the listing, which is held by Aaron Kirman, Ray Ross, Charlene Durarte, Fran Chavez, and Andrew Spitz, all of AKG Christie’s International Real Estate. Need more space? The home’s half-acre plot can be developed to include a secondary structure designed by Seattle architect Tom Kundig. (Plans are included with purchase.) https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/meg-ryan-and-dennis-quaids-former-abode-real-estate-news
There’s another big move afoot in Los Angeles’ elite luxury real estate world: Top-selling Compass agent Cindy Ambuehl is going to join AKG | Christie’s International Real Estate. She’ll be the executive director of luxury estates of the Brentwood office of AKG, which was formed last year when Aaron Kirman of Aaron Kirman Group himself left Compass to start the new brokerage. Ambuehl’s high-profile sales have included selling David E. Kelley and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Pacific Palisades property for $25 million in 2021, repping Kevin Nealon in the purchase of a $4.35 million house in the Palisades, and representing the seller of a Frank Gehry-designed house in Santa Monica, which sold to producer Jason Blum in 2021. “I’m extremely excited about the role and about being part of building something I truly believe in. It’s all just the right movement in the right direction. I’ll still be doing all the sales that we’ve been doing and plan on doubling and tripling our numbers and doing it with a really fabulous collaboration,” says Ambuehl, who specializes in L.A.’s wealthy West Side, from Brentwood to Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades. Ambuehl — a former actress who’s appeared on JAG, Seinfeld, Wings and The Bold and the Beautiful — became a real estate agent 16 years ago. In that time, she’s racked up more than $2 billion in career sales and last year sold more than $250 million in residential real estate sales. “We love Cindy. We’re super excited,” AKG founder and CEO Aaron Kirman tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We’re very strategic about our approach and growth, and we definitely wanted to open a Brentwood office. West of the 405 is so important for our marketplace, and when we studied the top agents who have dominance on the West Side, there was literally one person that we wanted, and that was Cindy.”