Owner & Managing Broker, Realty ONE Group Enterprise
KEVIN ZELLMER Agent Spotlight
It started with a referral. Kevin Zellmer, owner and managing broker at Realty ONE Group Enterprise in Bothell/ Eastside and Lake Chelan, Washington, connected with a client who, as it turned out, had no idea just how perfectly suited for the job he’d be.
BY MELISSA KANDEL
So that’s how the story started – with a simple referral – and while it would end with a 7,000-square-foot Tudor Castle in Kent, Washington, (just outside of Seattle) it’s the middle part where the real (estate) mystery unfolds.
She was a professional chef in need of a commercial lease for her fast-expanding cooking empire. He was a real estate agent with a long career sparkling in hospitality highlights.
Zellmer arranged to meet with his new client, Christina Arokiasamy, a Malaysian-born award-winning cookbook author, former chef of various Four Seasons Resorts throughout Southeast Asia, and the first-ever Food Ambassador to the United States.
“I worked for Embassy Suites, Hilton, Starwood, Hotel Monaco in Seattle, private golf clubs, five-star hotels, top restaurants,” Zellmer says, rattling off famous hotel names like the ingredients to a prized recipe. “The client who referred me only knew I liked food and beverage, and this new client was a professional chef. She wanted space to open a retail shop and HGTV-style cooking school.”
“I have an idea,” he told her, after learning the details of her particular culinary query, which also included the need for enough room to house a cook-your-meals-with-the-chef B&B. “We could look for a commercial space, but do you really want to have that downtown lease? Pay for the infrastructure and equipment? And can we even guarantee there’ll be enough space for everything you want to do?”
18 | ONE LUXE MAGAZINE VOLUME IV