At the Desk of: Alan Rosenbaum

Alan Rosenbaum is the CEO of GuardHill Financial Corp., a Manhattan-based mortgage bank and brokerage firm. The 82-person company, which Rosenbaum founded in 1992, brokers and backs about $1 billion in residential mortgages in the tri-state area annually, he said, with a focus on Manhattan and Brooklyn and an eye toward growing in Queens. Despite the New York focus, Rosenbaum’s roots are in the Deep South. He grew up in a “middle class home in a nice neighborhood” in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and graduated from Louisiana State University in 1986. As he tells it, he “wasn’t the best student,” but he was ambitious and full of ideas. As a teen, Rosenbaum, now a married father of three girls, worked at his dad’s store, Bert’s Camera and Record Center. He moved to New York after college and took a job as a manager in Bloomingdale’s gourmet foods department. He ended up in the mortgage business by chance, after meeting a friend of his cousin who was in the field. “It looked like fun,” he said. Rosenbaum went to work for a firm called Skyscraper Consultants, where he became a partner about six months into the job. Today, his office, on the 31st floor of 140 East 45th Street, is not far from Bloomie’s.

Jimi Hendrix portrait   

Rosenbaum bought this painting of Jimi Hendrix at an art gallery in the Berkshires about two years ago. He considers Hendrix a musical “genius,” noting that he played guitar in “a way that nobody else played.” “He was a leader that others followed.”   

Hats

Rosenbaum — who in addition to rooting for LSU, is also an avid New Orleans Saints fan — wears these hats to show his “Louisiana pride.” As a kid, he had season tickets to the Saints during the team’s first season in 1967.

“Pistol Pete” autograph   

NBA Hall of Famer Pete Maravich scribbled this autograph for Rosenbaum in the late 1960s. Maravich, who starred for Rosenbaum’s alma mater LSU, thrilled Rosenbaum when he walked into Bert’s Camera and Record Center unannounced.

Letter

A letter he wrote in longhand to his father in 1984, when he was 21, and worked at his dad’s store after school. In it, he asks his dad to “have patience” and “give me time.” “I know I have not shown much so far, but one day you’ll be proud of me,” Rosenbaum wrote.

Photo with dad  

Rosenbaum and his father about 10 years ago. The elder Rosenbaum closed his store in the late 1980s and moved to New York. He worked in GuardHill’s accounting department from 2001 until he died in September. “I came up [to New York] and I made it, and he was very proud,” Rosenbaum said of his father. “He is definitely my inspiration, my hero.”

Bar cart

Rosenbaum keeps a bar cart in his office stocked with Scotch and bourbon, along with Gray Goose vodka, Veuve Clicquot and Dom Pérignon. After a long day of work, he said it’s nice to unwind with colleagues “without having to go to a noisy bar.” His drink of choice? A 21-year-old Balvenie single malt Scotch. “That’s not there,” he said, “because I like it so much.”

Clock

Rosenbaum bought this clock in Nantucket, where he rents a house for about three weeks a year with his family. He considers the island his “happy place,” and the clock reminds him of being on the beach “with a lot less clothes on, at 85 degrees, with the waves crashing.”

B.B. King mug  

This guitar-handled B.B. King mug was a gift from a Memphis-based client. Little did the client know, Rosenbaum is a huge fan of the famed blues musician. So much of a fan, that he snuck backstage at a concert on Long Island about 15 years ago to meet King.

Backgammon set   

This backgammon set — which Rosenbaum’s wife found at Barneys — is a near perfect match with his custom-made desk. The set gets regular use during the winter after work, when he plays with colleagues. He said he’s drawn to backgammon because it’s “forward thinking.” During the summer, however, he opts for fishing and golf.