Estate Sale: The Shapiro family has just the house for you...
Stephen Shapiro was once a Twentysomething with loads of ambition but no true direction. All the Philly boy knew was that he wanted to head west.So the minute he laid his pencil down after his last final exam at Temple University's business school, Shapiro got into his car and headed out here. Stephen's son Max Shapiro is now a twentysomething with loads of ambition. But when Max says he's heading west, he usually means he's motoring from the Westside Estate Agency's (WEA) Beverly Hills digs to its year-and-a-half-old office in Malibu. The father and son are bona fide agents to the glitterati, handling sports legends, starlets, and the corporate CEOs who write all those A-listers' checks.The work they do and their clientele are as impressive as the properties they sell, and with items like the $l65 million former Beverly Hills compound of William Randolph Hearst on WEA's roster, that's saying a lot. In 2006 Stephen and WEA partner Kurt Rappaport were ranked the top two agents in Los Angeles County, with combined sales of more than $495 million. And Max's growing clientele includes Lindsay Lohan, Quincy Jones, and Harry Morton. "My clients have always had Malibu summer homes, but I wanted to do more than beach business," says the elder Shapiro. noting that Malibu has come into its own as a town where luxury homeowners want year-round stakes. Stephen, 63, eased into luxury real estate a few years after arriving in Los Angeles in 1969. He had been trying to find an apartment, but discovered that none of the places looked as good as they sounded in the ads. He started Scan-a-Pad, a kind of pre•Internet WestsiderentaIs.com that showed potential renters color slides of apartments. That led to a business securing high-end leases for movie and recording stars, which in turn segued into luxury-home sales. He cofounded the now 55-person WEA almost 10 years ago. Before Max, 24, got into the biz, he bounced around a little more-literally. He was on the Beverly Hills High School varsity basketball team, but when he got to Menlo College he discovered that the NBA wasn't in his future. Neither, as it turned out, was school. At 19, Max dropped out Stephen was fine with it, but under one condition: Max had to get a job right away. Stephen also declared that within a year of getting his real estate license, Max would be on his own financially."Growing up, all I heard about was real estate, whether I liked it or not," Max says of his career choice, adding, "I am my father's son."After passing the real estate exam on the first try, Max began developing his own clientele at WEA. In 2005 alone he handled more than $48 million in sales. Reflecting on the deal he had with his son, Stephen quips, "It worked," before adding proudly, "He's good. One hundred percent of the people I talk to that have interacted with him rave about him." Not as much as Max raves about his dad. "He is the Jedi Master," Max says. "When I started doing this for a living, I saw myself doing what he used to do, talking the way I used to hear him talk. He has a certain attitude that gives confidence to people. I saw myself doing it" And it seems to be working. -M.S.