Catalogue No. 14 · Autumn 2026
Founded in Montecito in 2009. Two partners, twelve houses a year.
How it began
Claire Havilon left, in 2009, a firm that carried two hundred listings and, by her own count, knew perhaps thirty of them. The rest were photographs taken in an afternoon, square footage copied from the last brochure, and descriptions written from the photographs.
She opened an office on Alameda Court with a rule that sounded like a limit and turned out to be the product. Twelve instructions a year. Each house measured by a licensed surveyor, photographed at first light and again at dusk, and written up in one hundred and twenty words by the partner who walked it.
Seventeen years on, the rule has not moved. Rafael Montoya joined as a partner in 2016, the private list opened in 2019, and the fourteenth catalogue went to print this autumn. Four colleagues joined along the way — a registrar, a photographer, an editor and completions — but there are still no juniors, and still nobody between you and the person selling your house.
The office · 18 Alameda Court, Montecito
What we hold to
12
Two partners can know twelve houses properly and not thirteen. When the catalogue is full, we say so and keep a waiting list.
0
The partner who values your house writes its entry, conducts every viewing and sits beside you at completion.
11
Every entry goes to the private list before the public launch. Four of this year’s eleven sales were agreed inside that window.
100%
Except for private listings, every house carries its figure. We would rather defend a number than hide one.
Seventeen years
Houses sold to date, at the end of each year shown. Every one of them is printed in the market report.
Read the market report2009
One partner, one room on Alameda Court, five houses.
5sold
2012
Twelve lots, numbered, with guides. It has gone to print every season since.
38sold
2016
A surveyor by training. Measured areas become the office standard.
83sold
2019
Registered buyers see each entry eleven days early.
117sold
2026
$412 million sold since the office opened.
196sold
The partners
Founding partner
Nine years at a two-hundred-listing firm before founding this one. Writes the entries for Montecito, Hope Ranch and the Riviera, and still walks every house twice before a word is set down.
Partner
Trained as a surveyor, which is why our square footage survives a contract. Joined in 2016 and brought the measured survey with him. Writes the entries for Toro Canyon, Summerland and Upper East.
On the record
