Community Highlights: Meet Drew Brown of Sotheby’s International Realty

Today we’d like to introduce you to Drew Brown.

Hi Drew, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I moved to LA in 1997, from Raleigh NC, as a stand-up comic along with several other comics who quickly became famous (Retta, Ken Jeong). I met my wife the first week on my first LA job as a PA on the short-lived sitcom Grace Under Fire with Brett Butler. We got married, raised kids and I continued my entertainment career producing TV series like Project Runway and subsequently building my own reality production company in Downtown LA with 6 series and over 120 employees in three cites. When interest in reality TV pivoted to scripted entertainment in 2018 so did I, becoming a scripted development executive for a large management company, selling shows to HBO, NBC, Fox and others. When the writer’s strike hit in 2023, I happened to be building houses with my sister in my home town located on the Outer Banks of NC. This had been, theoretically, a side hustle which immediately became my main hustle when the company I had worked at for five years laid me off along with others. Always one to roll with the punches, at the urging of a friend (Realtor Laura Thomas Mullen at Sotheby’s), I got my real estate license in California (I already had had my license in NC since I was 18.). In doing so, I brought all my interests and collective expertise under one “roof” so to speak with property construction, development and sales on both coasts – LA & NC – effectively becoming bi-coastal. Behind the scenes – and long that exact same timeline from 2023 til now – I survived colon cancer twice, renovated my lifestyle from the ground-up and now am thankfully in remission for the near future and hopefully beyond. I love sharing my health journey with others – offering support, advice and volunteering to help folks facing similar challenges. I’m happily married still, now going on 25 years. Have 2 kids – Samson (20) a bodybuilder & personal trainer, and Maisie (17) who is going to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in the fall. Because of my personal health journey, I’m sober, vegan-ish and surf every day at 5am despite living no where near the ocean in Eagle Rock. So, if you need me, I’m always available, and in my office (which is the 101, stuck in traffic).

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has absolutely not been a smooth road, there have been as many high-flying moments as deep valleys. There’s an overused surfing metaphor that if you visualize life like waves – expected peaks and troughs, it makes a whole lot more sense. Case in point, during my cancer diagnosis and treatment, I started a Substack called “Better Off Dead” about how my many near-death experiences (10 and counting), really had forged a superpower to be in the moment, to seize the day. In hindsight, my family and I have always had what we needed in this weird and wonderful city. We’ve lived in amazing neighborhoods like Larchmont, Silver Lake and Eagle Rock and my kids have had an amazing ride through our city’s public school system and magnets. I think the unexpected theme of my life is resilience – I always manage to take the moment at face value, whether good or bad, I can work it forward with passion & joy. Those that work with me notice that and I hope they feel that too.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Sotheby’s International Realty?
Locally, I’m affiliated with Sotheby’s in Los Feliz. Being primarily and east-sider, I love to work in the area I also live. Uniquely I’m also affiliated with Sotheby’s on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where I also have a construction business, listings and sales. Next up is Costa Rica, which my family & I have fallen in love with via surfing there for the last several years. It’s a very unique market, which I now know a lot about, and am also investing in personally.

What’s next?
I always tell my kids, “be careful what you dream, it’ll probably come true.” If that’s indeed correct I hope to continue building a portfolio of Air BnB’s in every location I love to surf so I can always mix business with pleasure for the rest of my life. That dream is slowly becoming a reality.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://drewsellsla.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neighborsurferrealtor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drew.brown.94651

Image Credits
House ext with pool shot: Thomas Raiguel
All other house shots: Jonathan Clark