HOUSTON – (By Michelle Leigh Smith for Realty News Report) – Edith Trimble Personette brought prestige and refinement to condominium living in Houston beginning in the early 1980s. “Before that, Houstonians were content to live on the ground,” recalls Broker Associate Rosie Meyers of Douglas Elliman. “Edith presented the numbers and showed them that high-rise living could actually cost less than paying for a gardener, a window caulker, pool maintenance, a roofer and a lawn service. She singlehandedly created the high-rise mystique.”
Pioneer in the sale of high-rise condominiums
“Edith was a pioneer in the sale of high-rise condominiums,” says Robert Bland, 95, CEO of Pelican Builders, a Houston firm that built residential towers and credits Personette as vital to its success. “I met Edith in 1974. She was very articulate; she told us what mix of units buyers wanted and we did exactly what she recommended. She studied the market and listened to customers without being pushy. She was a perfect lady.”
Edith Personette died peacefully Tuesday morning, August 23, 2022. She was 89.
“She was the Grande Dame of the high-rise era in Houston,” says Sandra Gunn of Sandra Gunn Properties, who has worked in downtown and Inner Loop markets for decades.
Born on Long Island to Irish immigrants Thomas Trimble and Molly Reilly Trimble, Edith grew up in New York and loved the bright lights of Broadway. She met Alan Personette on a blind date in New York City; during that meeting he told her he intended to marry her.
Edith married naval officer Alan Personette in 1953 after he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. She accompanied him around the world as his career as a weapons officer advanced. The couple moved to Houston in 1970. In the early 1980s, Edith joined Schey Advertising, working with Dick Schey on accounts that included Kenneth Schnitzer’s Century Development (which later became Centeq Investments), representing leaders such as Ric Campo and Keith Oden.
“At the time there was a glut of condos, some at Four Leaf Towers, and she developed a leasing program,” recalls Theresa Hill, who served as Personette’s vice president and broker until 2013 and is now sales manager for Compass’s Westheimer office. “By leasing to tenants who later became buyers, she effectively rescued these buildings. She touched so many lives. She was my number-one mentor and hero. I learned so much from her; it was a true privilege to work for Edith.”
Ric Campo, CEO of Camden Property Trust and chairman of the Port of Houston, recruited Personette in the early 1980s from Schey Advertising after she had become president there. “We had the Spires and Bayou Bend and were having trouble selling units,” Campo says. “This was the eighties, when oil had crashed. Edith said, ‘Let me take a swing at it,’ and the rest is history. We appreciated her forthrightness. Her work ethic raised the bar for the entire industry.”
Campo and Keith Oden, then young professionals who later founded the large Camden Property company, recognized Personette’s market insight and hired her to market condos exclusively. This partnership launched her career representing top developers across Houston and beyond. She later formed her own agency and became a sought-after consultant and broker for high-rise developments worldwide.
For nearly 35 years, Personette & Associates was Houston’s premier residential high-rise real estate firm.
“Edith was never one to chit-chat,” Campo recalls. “She wanted to get right to it. She’d call and say, ‘I need to meet with you tomorrow at 10 a.m. at my office in Greenway Plaza.’ She was all business. She loved the building process and learned it from the ground up. Developers from around the globe sought her advice on the right mix of units and the latest buyer preferences. Coming into the industry later in life was an advantage; having followed her husband’s naval postings, she was eager to learn and shape a business of her own.”
She sold properties for Giorgio Borlenghi and worked with elite developers including Marvy Finger and Randall Davis. Some of her early and notable projects included Greenway 14 and 15 (initially called I and II) in Greenway Plaza, 5000 Montrose, Bayou Bend, Four Leaf Towers, The Huntingdon, Villa d’Este, the Montebello, Tealstone, and projects in Austin such as the Towers of Town Lake. Her reach extended to La Tour in Dallas, developments in San Antonio, Randall Davis’s Sapphire tower on South Padre Island, and beachfront and gulf condos in Surfside, Destin, Florida and Bel Soleil in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Wherever vertical development rose, Edith was often at the center, hailed as the Queen of the High Rises.
She always had the Midas touch
Edith carved an exceptional niche at a time when it was uncommon for women to lead large-scale real estate efforts; she graduated from New York City Business Night School in 1951 and built her expertise from experience and observation.
“Edith always had the Midas touch,” says Keith Oden, president of Camden Property Trust.
Oden credits her honed instincts to the many relocations during her husband’s naval career. Repeatedly finding the best neighborhoods, schools, and safest communities for her family developed a keen eye for what worked in housing markets. “I learned more about business and life from Edith than from anyone else in my career,” he says.
“Edith was amazingly adaptable and intuitively understood the market,” Campo reflects. “If you look at the owners and developers of most of Houston’s high-rises today, Edith had a hand in it.”
She hosted social dinners in empty penthouses to showcase high-rise living and shift public perception. By 2007, Mary Candace Evans wrote in D Magazine that Personette had closed $7.5 billion in condo sales over 20 years. “When she started, she did not even have her real estate license but she was a marketing genius,” Meyers notes. One of her memorable advertisements read, “High-rise owners live above it all, while others mow their grass.”
“Houston, and the real estate community in particular, has lost a trailblazer with the passing of Edith Personette,” says real estate leader John Daugherty. “Edith was at the forefront of the wave of high-rise popularity. She positioned high-rise living in Houston. Edith was a savvy business owner and will be deeply missed.”
She was predeceased by her husband, Alan Personette, a career naval officer who died in 2005 after battling congestive heart failure. Edith is survived by her son Jay Personette Jr.; daughters Laurie Null and Nancy Frederick (and husband Art); grandchildren Michael Null and his wife Jessica (and their sons Miles and Mason); and granddaughter Zoey Frederick. Her favored charities included the Ronald McDonald House and the Houston Parks Board.
A Memorial Mass and services will be held at 10 a.m. on August 31 at St. Michael’s Catholic Church, 1801 Sage.
Aug. 25, 2022, Realty News Report. Copyright 2022.
File: Queen of the High-Rise, Edith Personette, Passes Away