LA Real Estate Mourns Passing of John Aaroe

The passing of John Aaroe this week gave an uncommon pause to the ultra-competitive world of luxury residential real estate.

It was enough of a pause for a number of top brokers in town to gather their thoughts and note a key quality that made Aaroe a seminal figure in the rise of the high-end brokerages and brands in LA: He didn’t compete with the agents he recruited to his brokerages.

Instead of splitting his time leading a business and selling homes, he focused on the former with John Aaroe & Associates and John Aaroe Group. In doing so, he won the respect of those he worked with because he had the time and focus to mentor agents and others at his companies.

That’s different from a model many brokerages employ today where founders or those in the C-suite are also still selling. That’s not to say that can’t work. There are a number of brokerages that have a multi-pronged approach to leadership, which has also given way to scale.

But, clearly, the way Aaroe operated made a mark on many.

“He was a class act and a true legend of the industry,” Westside Estate Agency Executive Vice President and General Manager Colin Keenan said of Aaroe.

Christie’s International Real Estate Southern California founder and CEO Aaron Kirman worked at Aaroe’s John Aaroe Group between 2013 and 2016. He considered Aaroe a friend and mentor.

“Much of my success can be credited to his guidance, generosity, and unwavering belief in others,” Kirman said in a statement to The Real Deal. “His influence extended far beyond any one organization….”

That’s a wrap

It started off with yells but ended with hardly a whisper.

That’s the shorthand on the legal battles that erupted last year in October between Douglas Elliman’s California subsidiaries, along with former managers and executives.

Two of the suits, which involved some ugly accusations of escrow impropriety, were settled fairly quickly in December of last year. A third involving the firm’s former Newport Beach sales manager, Christina Carrillo, appears to be coming to a close with court documents filed this month showing a settlement reached and a request by Carrillo’s attorney for the case to be dismissed.

The request will still need to be finalized, but it marks an end to a case involving Carrillo’s allegations of sexual harassment, wrongful termination and retaliation.

Outside of the complaints’ severity were the allegations within the lawsuit that painted a picture of a toxic office environment and bad behavior by agents and executives.

With a private settlement struck, there is no telling what other details could have emerged had the matter gone to the jury trial that was originally set to start in May.

Let’s try again

Ardie Tavangarian’s Villa Siena spec manse in Bel-Air made big waves when it hopped into the market late last year for $177 million.

It’s hard to say whether that was aspirational pricing. The market has turned since the roughly 35,000-square-foot 607 Siena Way was listed. Last year might have been flooded with mega deals like Oakley founder Jim Jannard selling his Malibu manse for a state record of $210 million, but a shift took place this year, according to numerous agents and brokers.

The data leaves room to dispute the downbeat take.

Third-quarter, closings on L.A. County properties of $4 million or more spiked 21 percent year-over-year to 497 deals, according to Multiple Listing Service data compiled by Westside Estate Agency. And 2025 has seen two $110 million trades of residences, one at 630 Nimes Road in Bel-Air and the other at 594 South Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills.

Tavangarian, meanwhile, would top those two even with the 24 percent cut in the price of Villa Siena, which sends the estate back on the market with a $135 million ask. It topped a list of homes added to the county’s inventory for the week ended Dec. 14 in a report by Douglas Elliman’s Eklund Gomes team.