(Editor’s note: Dottie Weiler was a widow with five young children when she moved to an ocean-view house in Pacific Palisades in 1965. She lives in the same house today, with her husband, Allen Weiss, and this year is celebrating her 30th year as a real estate agent. Here is her story, as told to Managing Editor Bill Bruns.) By DOTTIE WEILER Special to the Palisadian-Post I was born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where I was a cheerleader in high school and a graduate of Cedar Crest College, a women’s liberal arts college. I married John Weiler, my high school sweetheart, after our junior years in college. I lived with his family during my senior year and John came home weekends from the University of Pennsylvania. We then moved to Ann Arbor where John studied for his master’s degree in business at Michigan and I took classes in opera appreciation. Our first child, Billy, was born in Ann Arbor. John eventually went into the family newspaper business, the Morning Call and Evening Chronicle, in Allentown. In 1965, John died suddenly of a heart attack. It was the hardest task of my life to tell the children (Billy, 10; Kathy, 8; Terry, 7; Kevin, 4; and Maura, 2) that their father had died. We were all in a state of disbelief. All of my memories in Allentown were of John and, typical of most women at that time, I depended on him for taking care of all business and financial decisions. I felt pretty desperate and vulnerable. Fortunately, a few years earlier, I had started performing in local musical productions at the Jewish Community Center. I was in ‘Guys and Dolls’ and I played Eliza Doolittle in ‘My Fair Lady.’ I had always enjoyed singing in church and college choirs, and it was great for me to have this newfound outlet. More importantly, I met Allen Weiss, who was the lighting designer for ‘Guys and Dolls,’ and we again worked together on ‘My Fair Lady.’ After my husband died, Allen wrote to his dad in Santa Monica describing my plight. Mort Weiss responded by writing a very kind and warm letter to me encouraging me to come to California and said he would help me get settled. Concurrently, Allen, recently graduated from NYU, was accepted into the graduate school of physics at UCLA. So, still pretty numb from the curveball life had thrown me, I placed a two-line ad in the local paper advertising the sale of my house and sold it to the first person who came to see it. Then I flew to California with Allen, met his dad, and went house hunting. I didn’t really know the Valley from Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Santa Monica or the Palisades, but Mort set me up with a young realtor who was none other than Jon Douglas, then working for George Elkins. Jon showed me property all over the Westside. I was hoping to find something for about $60,000, but it wasn’t easy because I needed four bedrooms and I wanted a big yard. He showed me a home in the Huntington Palisades, but it was $72,000 and I thought that was too expensive. Then Mort drove me to this area called Pacific View Estates (up above J. Paul Getty’s ranch), where they were literally taking orders. I signed up for a five-bedroom house with a huge yard and beautiful ocean and mountain views. It was $65,000. When my Allentown lawyer flew out to see the house, he thought I was crazy because the house I sold in Allentown was a gorgeous old Georgian colonial, solidly built, and just half the price. Nevertheless, in July of 1965, Allen and I packed my five children into my two cars, a Buick Riviera and a Dodge station wagon, and drove across the country to Pacific Palisades. The house was still two weeks from completion, so we checked into the Lindomar Motel at the corner of Sunset and PCH and drove the other guests to distraction while we waited for move-in day. I immediately enrolled Billy, Kathy and Terry in Marquez Elementary School and looked for a preschool for Kevin and Maura. Allen moved to Berkeley to work on his experiment at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory. This was during the People’s Park era when students, including Allen, were gassed for expressing their views. It was also a time when one could fly up to Oakland for $20, and so Allen flew to L.A. frequently. Our friendship grew and in November 1969 we were married in my Pacific Palisades home. All the children took part in the ceremony performed by Ernie Pipes of the Unitarian Church. While Allen studied for his Ph.D. in physics, he accepted the job of heading up the science department at Windward School. Kathy and Terry, by then enrolled at Paul Revere Junior High, had come home to tell us about Shirley Windward and Carl Parsons, two of their teachers, who were starting up this school in Santa Monica. Even though I was always an advocate of the public school system, they convinced me they should transfer. It turned out to be a wise decision, and eventually Kathy, Terry and Kevin graduated from Windward. Billy graduated from Palisades High and Maura from Westlake School for Girls. Happily, all my kids graduated from college and all are married with one exception, and there are seven grandchildren. Family reunions are high on our list of vacations and we recently spent a week in Yosemite with 14 of the family. My first job after moving to California was as administrative assistant at Windward. For two years I answered phones, served as a liaison between faculty and parents, taught a yoga class and ran tennis tournaments as fundraisers for the school. After having a taste at working outside of the home, it occurred to me that I might be able to make more money in another type of profession. In 1977, I received my real estate license and started my career with Haddad Realty, a small office in the Palisades. Maura, my youngest child, was then in eighth grade, and I was ready for a change. I found the world of representing buyers and sellers in home purchases and sales exciting, and was thrilled when my total commissions for my first year came to $17,000. Over the past 30 years, I’ve had many challenging, interesting experiences in the field. I’ll never forget my first sale of over $1 million. It was in 1978. I had met my client while sitting on an open house in the Palisades. This was a very small house listed for about $350,000. I followed up the next day by calling the client who had left his phone number with me on the guest register. I showed him a few houses but nothing seemed to interest him. Then, I heard about a property that would be available to show for one day only, and it wasn’t advertised anywhere. It happened to be owned by a Windward parent whom I knew. The listing price was $1,100,000, and even though it was much higher than anything else I had previously shown my client, I had a hunch he would like it. Immediately after my client and his wife saw this beautiful Santa Monica home, they wanted to write an offer. The listing agent told me that there would be at least two other agents writing offers. I wrote a letter to my friends, the owners, telling them why they should choose my buyers. I was so happy when they selected my offer and I couldn’t wait to tell my clients. Then the euphoria deflated. My buyers had cold feet and wanted to cancel the deal. I immediately drove to their very humble home on Bundy Drive and sat down to talk with them. It turned out that their biggest concern was that they were moving so far out of range in price from all of their friends, they were worried about their friends’ reactions. I assured them that their friends would be thrilled to visit them in their grand, new home and would not think less of them for “moving up.” Happily the escrow closed and those clients have remained loyal to me over the years. After three years with Haddad, I joined Lelah Pierson Realty, spent three years there, and then moved to the Jon Douglas Company. He was eventually bought out by Prudential and then, finally, Coldwell Banker. In the midst of my real estate commitments, I still find time to nurture my passion for tennis, bridge, reading (I’m in three book groups, including one for just James Joyce), gourmet cooking, travel, and music, from opera to jazz. Allen and I joined the Riviera Tennis Club in 1985. Tennis is my favorite form of exercise–I try to play at least twice a week, in a doubles league and in special events’and much of our social life centers around our friends from the Riviera. When Allen retires as Director of Management Learning at a large aerospace company, I hope he will spend more time playing tennis. He also plans to expand on his love of photography. Every year at the Riviera, I’m also in charge of finding housing for more than 150 collegiate tennis players from all over the country who play in the Women’s All-American Tennis Championships at the club the first week of October. I place the girls in the homes of members for the week. Meanwhile, my love of singing led me to an interesting involvement in Chamber Music Palisades. Back when I moved to Pacific Palisades, I won the lead in “Little Mary Sunshine” at the Morgan-Wixson Theatre, and I started studying voice seriously, and opera specifically. But when the realization hit me that I would have to spend a lot of time away from home if I wanted to sing professionally, I stopped, cold turkey, and that’s when I got into real estate. I still love opera and most any form of music, but I never perform; maybe in a future reincarnation! Along the way, I met Dolores Stevens at the Unitarian Church where she was the choir director. I sang with that group for 10 years, until Delores left. She later co-founded a wonderfully professional organization, Chamber Music Palisades, with Susan Greenberg, and I have been an active board member the past seven years. In 2001, Chamber Music Palisades (with sponsorship at my urging by Coldwell Banker and manager Robert Sedway) began inviting the entire Palisades community, free of charge, to a yearly children’s concert at the Palisades Branch Library, featuring mini-musical productions of works such as ‘Peter and the Wolf’ and ‘Ferdinand the Bull.’ When the concert is held next month, it will again be ‘Peter and the Wolf,’ and families are forewarned that the ‘wolf’ (played by my husband) might be lurking around the library during the program. After all my years in real estate, I still find the business exciting and challenging, and I’m rewarded by helping people with their real estate needs. Of course, one thing that drives me crazy is when I find the perfect property for someone and they love it, but then a friend or mother and dad put the kibosh on it and all effort is wasted. What I love is the satisfaction I feel when I make a great sale either for buyer or seller and the client is very pleased during the process and at the end and lets me know it.
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