It’s all in the family at Jamison, a developer based in Los Angeles’ Koreatown that has become the name to know for office-to-residential conversions.
Jaime Lee is the public face of the $6 billion real estate company, which her parents co-founded in 1994. Her father, David Lee, also an internist, is now chairman. Her mother, dentist Miki Nam, oversees the firm’s accounting department. They named the company for Jaime, the oldest of their four kids, and she was promoted to CEO in 2020.
Her oldest brother, Phillip, runs the office’s property management department, while the baby of the family, Garrett, runs multifamily development. Jaime’s husband, Matt Cheesebro, runs an affiliated multifamily general contracting company. The middle brother, Brian, is in multifamily property management. Phill’s wife, Stephanie, is a lawyer at Jamison.
The Lee clan is a family of high achievers.
Jaime, Phill and Garrett received their JDs from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. Middle brother Brian, who ran a gallery/bar in Koreatown and served as an art consultant for Jamison before recently joining the family business, has a master’s degree in business.
The siblings, who span in age from 36 to 40, are all “really close,” Jaime said.
Jamison has a portfolio spanning 18 million square feet, including 33 multifamily buildings with 6,600 units in the city of Los Angeles, as well as office, retail and medical properties throughout Southern California. Assets include the 1.8-million-square-foot Equitable Plaza and the World Trade Center office complex. Jamison also has 2,000 residential units under construction.
The Real Deal talked to Jaime in a conference room at the company’s 428-unit Opus rental building in Koreatown, about the family business, racism and parenting.
When TRD followed up with some questions about the company’s early reputation as a “slumlord,” and some of the firm’s properties being sent to special servicing recently, Lee went mum. But on topics of longevity, raising her kids as a second-generation immigrant and her career trajectory, she shared responses.
The interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity.
Born: November 14, 1984
Hometown: San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles
Lives: Mid-City area of Los Angeles
Family: Husband; children ages 9, 7 and 5; and puppy Kona
“There are so many people who always are like, ‘Oh, successful people wake up before everybody.’ That’s bullshit. No. Night Owl. All my best work: like 10 p.m. to midnight.”
You’ve completed seven office-to-residential conversions.
We’re under construction on three right now, and we probably have 10 more in the pipeline that we’d like to do.
How does that impact the office market?
We’ve just been notoriously oversupplied in office in the City of Los Angeles, and severely undersupplied in housing. So I think this is a rebalancing of what the needs are for our city. Ground-up construction just isn’t penciling because of a myriad of factors, but the conversion still works really well.
How did your parents get into real estate?
My parents emigrated from South Korea when they were in their teens. They met in grad school at UCLA. My mom became a dentist. And my dad was an internist. Back then, being a doctor was a pretty stable and good job, and you could make money and have some savings. So they would invest in all these side businesses. And they started investing in real estate. This was after the riots [following the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers in the Rodney King beating case] in 1992 and then the earthquake in 1994. Property values in this area were just decimated.
How does it work with you being the boss at work?
My parents are still around, so we’re still in our first-generational shift. And I think it’s really fascinating as you talk to other family businesses because everyone goes through it their own way. But you’re not rewriting a story that has never been told. So for instance, I spoke at a family business class at USC years ago, but when [the professor] first approached me, I was like, “Why would anyone want to hear me talk about my family business?” And he was like, “Oh, because family businesses are all very similar.” I’m like, “No, they’re not, like we have all these idiosyncrasies, like we have all of these things that make our story unique and different.” And he referenced the family business textbook. And I flipped through the textbook, [thinking,] “Oh, my God, we’re all the same!”
Was it always assumed you’d become the CEO?
I think so. I think in Korean culture, though, it’s like the eldest son gets a lot of favor too.
Was there something you would have been doing otherwise?
Not careerwise, but I did apply to MFA programs in writing in New York during my senior year. I was an English major in undergrad at University of Southern California and would have loved to live and write in New York for a couple years before law school and joining the business.
How did you end up ahead of your siblings at Jamison?
I am the oldest and I’ve been in the business for the longest period of time. I think I have a skill set and a personality that make me attuned to a leadership role. I’ve served on over 30 corporate and civic and nonprofit boards — many times I rise to chair or president. I don’t know if it’s like a chicken-and-egg thing with being an eldest daughter. If you just grow up and you are naturally responsible for younger people, then maybe you learn to talk to different personalities in different ways, and to intrinsically lead.
How would your siblings describe you in a few adjectives?
They’d probably say bossy, maybe hyperbolic. My first brother would definitely be [sarcastic], like, “Oh, Jaime never exaggerates!” I think I’ve matured a lot since we were kids. When I was younger, they would be like, “Oh, Jaime always has to be right.”
So they wouldn’t say that now?
They probably still would, but that’s from knowing me for 40 years. In my own self-reflection I would say no. With kids you really have to be like, “Mommy made a mistake,” because you have to model for children that you cannot be perfect. And so I try to approach my work with that too, that we’re all just iterating. You don’t have to know exactly what you’re doing all the time. You can’t make the exact perfect decision 100 percent of the time, and you also have to be willing to say, like, “whoops.”
Perfectionism is such a disease. There’s no such thing as being perfect. There are a lot of people who are much older than I am and are very, very successful, whether it’s in our industry or other places where I’m like, “Oh, they just have it all figured out.” I talk to them and they’re like, “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’m just like making it up half the time,” and I’m like, “You’re the CEO of this public, huge company!” And they’re just like, “I don’t know how I ended up here.”
Does parenting help you at work?
Yes. For instance, sometimes you’ll be in a meeting with a horrendous bully or somebody who’s very, very difficult, and I might say, “You seem upset. Are you okay? Are you feeling okay?” It’s like, “Well, I don’t know.” I’m like, “Are you hungry?” And you put some snacks out, and they’re, like, starving. And they’re coming from this place of just not being in homeostasis in their body. And they’ll eat the protein bar and drink some water. And I’m like, “Can we take a break for 10 minutes?” And I’ll come back and they’re fine. And those are the types of things I’ll do with my kids. I didn’t know those kinds of things before. I would just escalate.
What’s it like raising your kids as a second-generation immigrant versus how you were raised by first-generation immigrants?
My parents worked, and still work, extremely hard just to get solid footing under them in a new country. First-gen parents will always say that their kids are lazy and not tough enough to do what they did, and that’s probably true.
Our hard work is different in nature from their hard work, and I imagine it will be different still with my kids. I was definitely a latchkey kid in the Valley in the 1990s. We roamed the neighborhood, could only spend what we earned, and had very little supervision. What we learned out of necessity, I try to teach my kids as an education. They know the value of a dollar and how to earn it, but I’m trying really hard to avoid the immigrant scarcity mindset that was so ingrained in me.
Your parents, siblings and you have advanced degrees!
I think if you are an immigrant, education is the great equalizer, and my family still believes that. What we saw though [the weekend of June 14 and 15], with the protests [part of the “No Kings” day of action against the Trump administration], and what we inherently feel being Asian American is this concept of [being a] perpetual foreigner and this idea of diaspora — like, we don’t belong in Korea, but a lot of times we feel like we don’t belong here either.
Do you feel like that now?
One hundred percent. When people see me at first glance, a lot of times people don’t assume that [I’m] American. And even walking around in front of our properties in Downtown L.A. people have yelled, “Konnichiwa, go home.”
Konnichiwa is Japanese. And I’m like, “I’m not Japanese.” But I also try not to engage because it’s very scary.
When you enter a room with real estate folks, do you feel discrimination as a woman and being of Korean descent?
Most misogyny and overt harassment have declined a lot. We still don’t have nearly as many female leaders in the industry as anyone expected to see or wanted to see.
You met President Biden. What was that like? Did he seem in any way not with it?
No, he was great. You see lots and lots of photos and videos of people who are president and they look just like a normal person. And when you actually meet someone who has served at that level, it’s something else, like his eye contact, his presence. We were frozen in a moment in time. He was very charismatic. He asked me a couple great questions about climate and sustainability at the port within the shipping industry. He was the real deal.
“Oh, my God, we’re all the same!”
Let’s do a quick lightning round. Tommy’s or In-N-Out?
In-N-Out, of course.
Poke or tacos?
Tacos.
Uber or Waymo?
I’ve never ridden in a Waymo, so I think it’s like Uber by default. But I’m obsessed with longevity and the longevity sciences so I’ve been drinking way, way, way less. And I know that the only reason to Uber is not just because you’re drinking, but I usually just drive myself.
How did you get into longevity?
I sadly had a friend who passed away a few years ago, just after her 40th birthday. We both had young kids then, and I became obsessed with health, prevention, screenings and optimizing healthspan. Most of the people I know are engaged with these pursuits at varying levels. Many people put too much emphasis on supplements or experimental treatments. I focus on the three main buckets: sleep — the most important — exercise and food. Each of these has an enormous body of research, habits and protocols that go along with them.
Back to the lightning round: Which private club — California Club or Jonathan Club?
Jonathan Club. They usually say Cal Club is for the people who own LA, and Jonathan Club is for the people who run L.A. The Jonathan Club is much more modern, diverse. I love it. I want to go somewhere that’s an extension of my home, and the Jonathan Club is definitely that.
Are you a member?
Yes.
Lakers or Clippers?
Lakers, that’s an easy one.
The Getty or Los Angeles County Museum of Art?
LACMA.
Morning lark or night owl?
Definitely night owl. There are so many people who always are like, “Oh, successful people wake up before everybody.” That’s bullshit. No. Night owl. All my best work: like 10 p.m. to midnight.