Every morning, Lawrence Taylor, founder and president of Malibu-based Christina Development Co., wakes up at 5:30 and checks the Los Angeles Times. He scrolls through the obituaries, in what some might consider an odd attempt to scope out potential real estate investments that may be hitting the market.
Taylor founded Christina, named after a fourth-grade crush, in 1977 after graduating from USC.
And after nearly five decades in business – in which Christina has grown into a major real estate investment company, currently operating with roughly $250 million assets under management – Taylor said that the key to his success is consistency.
Since Christina’s inception, the firm has been devoted to developing exclusively on the Westside – mainly in the areas of Westwood, Brentwood, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Century City, Silicon Beach and Malibu – where Taylor believes his niche geographic focus gives his investors greater confidence in their returns.
The company’s latest development, Beverly Drive Promenade, is a 1948 portfolio that Christina demised to feature both office and retail on the trendy South Beverly Drive. The space has been fully leased and is awaiting tenant move-in.
You structured your first real estate deal when you were only 12 years old. Tell me about this and how that interaction sparked a lifelong career.
I’m a transplant from the East Coast. I was born in Pennsylvania in a coal-mining town. For the first nine years of my life, my existence was very rural, with no real understanding of the bigger world. I was like this kid that fell out of the sky when my family moved to Los Angeles, and I saw this amazing metropolis. What I didn’t realize was that people lived in apartment buildings. I found myself crammed into a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment with two older sisters who were teenagers. I was desperate. I was sleeping on the couch. I just picked up the phone one day and called a realtor and said, ‘I need a…
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