Jonathan Larsen is one of the top real estate brokers in downtown Los Angeles, where he heads the brokerage group for the western region of commercial real estate services firm Transwestern. Unlike many brokers, though, he didn’t enter the industry directly out of college. In fact, Larsen played two seasons as a wing guard on a semipro Rio de Janiero, Brazil, basketball team after graduating in 1982 from Seattle University, where he played college hoops. Afterwards, he worked in sales for PepsiCo, where he convinced longtime Coca-Cola Co. customers the Los Angeles Zoo and Santa Anita Race Track to convert to the rival brand. The salesmanship that Larsen learned at PepsiCo has served him well in his 24-year career as a broker, first at CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. and later at Trammell Crow Co. before joining Transwestern in 2006. He has done some of downtown’s biggest deals, including the 1996 sale of the historic Biltmore hotel and office tower. He recently sat down for breakfast at the Jonathan Club, where during his presidency last year he oversaw sorely needed renovations of the women’s facilities to better reflect their status as full members of the 116-year-old exclusive club that was once closed to them. During his meal, he talked about his days in Brazil, his success during the cola wars and meeting President Reagan.
Question: How did you end up becoming a pro basketball player in Brazil of all places?
Answer: It would today be considered professional, but back then it was semipro. I had a coach who had told me that he was going down to South America to coach. The teams would have one American on a team and at the time they were looking for a shooting guard that can rebound. He just as a favor said, “We’re looking for a guard. We don’t pay a lot, but you get a free place to stay and you’re down there for three months. Do you want to do it?”
We know your answer, but what did your parents say?
My dad, who was a Marine Corps sergeant and ran a food company in Seattle, I went to him and he basically said, “No way, you’re going to get your master’s in business or you’re going to law school.” The next morning he woke me up and said, “I thought about it, go ahead and go.”
Were you a star player in college?
For two years I started on junior varsity (at the University of Washington). If I had a good game or practice a few times, I would get called to suit up for varsity. Then I played two years at Seattle University, which went from Division I to (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics). I was a wing guard, now know as a No. 2 guard, because I could shoot and rebound.
What was Brazil like?
It was a great experience for a couple years. I still speak some Portuguese, but not as well as I used to. Brazil is very diverse, and it was a great experience for me at a young age. (We played) all over Brazil, but primarily out of Rio. It was a three-month season, so I was only down there three or four months and then out of there and back here.
Doesn’t sound like preparation for a career at PepsiCo.
Between basketball seasons, I worked in the warehouse in my dad’s company, Associated Grocers, in Seattle. Finally, after two years, I had a chance to go work for PepsiCo and then I got a chance to move down to L.A.
So you joined the cola wars. How’d you get the Los Angeles Zoo and Santa Anita Race Track to leave Coke?
We started a marketing program and set up an area that was the Pepsi Pavilion in the zoo and donated money for education purposes for school kids. We became partners and leaders of these food companies to partner with the L.A. Zoo. With Santa Anita, we had a Miami Sound Machine concert sponsored by Pepsi … and they switched to Pepsi.
Did those sales skills help you succeed as a broker?
PepsiCo was very good at training young people with marketing and sales, and clearly it was a helpful experience for my career.
How’d you become a broker?
PepsiCo wanted me to go to New York City and I didn’t want to do it. I had a college buddy whose dad ran an investment banking group at Coldwell Banker. He was on the 10th floor and he looked out the window over downtown and said, “Lars, you’re not going to sell sugar water anymore. This is going to be the next New York City.” And within two weeks, I was working for Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate.
How do you feel about what’s happening downtown?
It’s exciting when you have a client coming to downtown and walk them around to show them what downtown is like versus what they’d seen 10 to 20 years ago. It would be very exciting if we were able to get the NFL stadium downtown.
What’s been your favorite deal downtown?
Working with the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters and Los Angeles Community College District, and keeping these organizations in downtown. At times, they could have moved outside of the core of downtown. They’ve helped in the continued renaissance and they’re an integral part of downtown.
Any good broker tales?
We were getting ready to take a client to the Texas Rangers game when I was at Trammell Crow. I was waiting in a lobby bar at the Marriott hotel in Irving, Texas, and on TV was a story about Harrison Ford and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” They showed the section when he was in the alley with the Arabic person with the machetes and he says, “Ah, forget it,” and pulls out the gun and shoots him. And I hear this voice behind my back and someone orders a beer, a Corona, and I go, “God, that voice sounds like Harrison Ford.” So I turn around and it is Harrison Ford.
Life imitates art. Did you meet him?
I end up talking to him for 10 to15 minutes. He’s there because Bell Helicopter has a headquarters in Irving, and he was doing a movie and learning the helicopters. I was just laughing that he was just on TV and I heard his voice.
How’d you get involved in the Jonathan Club?
I was on the junior committee, which was kind of a future leaders of the club. Eventually I was able to be on the board of directors, and (then) president of Jonathan Club in probably one of the key periods of its history.
What do you mean?
As we had the aging of the baby boom generation, the club was at a crossroads where we had to keep the history and tradition but be more progressive and give back to the community. Now, we have two women on the board of directors and we have two women as past presidents. Also (we’ve had) to reinvest in the property. We have a lot of deferred maintenance and some capital projects that have been just kind of lingering on. We’ve been able to get those accomplished and the results seem to be new members that we’ve had, and the diversity and the caliber of the new members we’ve had.
I understand there was a lot of renovation work done to the women’s facilities.
I believed it was important – as my two daughters some day may want to be president of Jonathan Club – that women and men have equal locker rooms on the same floor. In the past, the club’s 116 years old, not as many women worked out or were engaged in working out at the club. I and the board of directors saw the trend changing. What we have now are state-of-the-art, top-of-the-line equal men and women’s locker rooms, steam rooms, Jacuzzis and all that.
So what do you do for fun?
I’m an avid traveler. I love to travel whenever I can. It’s probably from my mother, who was born and raised in London. My grandparents were in London so we’d visit them as kids. We really look forward to travel as a family and feel it’s important to travel all over the world so the kids have a perspective of what the word is really like.
How do you balance work and family?
When I’m at work, I’m working and when I’m out of work, I’m trying to spend time with my family. I used to come in the office when I was a young broker at CB. Now with the BlackBerry, I spend a lot of time staying in touch on the weekend, probably an hour each day or I bring papers home. With technology today, it makes it a lot easier.
What’s one of your favorite places to travel?
We like going to Capri, Italy. We met a family whose grandparents invented Limencello de Capri and they have an old villa on the upper part of Capri that they’ve converted to a boutique hotel. You fee like a local Italian. It’s a throwback little village with a Catholic church in the middle with kids playing soccer in the courtyard and just people walking around late at night. Everybody is nice to everybody. It just feels like you’re in a world that used to be.
Are you going anywhere soon?
We are going this summer on a trip to Africa. I’m taking the family to Tanzania and Kenya, and then spending the day with the Masai tribe and school kids to help them with their school. We are really looking forward to that. We are going with (President Reagan’s son) Michael Reagan and his wife, Colleen. They’ve gone on this trip a few years so we are really looking forward to it going with them.
How’d you meet Michael Reagan?
I was able to meet Michael Reagan through a former (Jonathan Club) board member Don Johnson, who was president of American Business Bank. They had dinner at a country club and I met him there a few years ago.
That must have been exciting, since you cite Ronald Reagan as a major influence.
Ronald Reagan just happened to be president when I was able to vote and was an integral part of eight years of my young life. It’s not a Republican-Democrat thing. It’s that he cared for the U.S. and cared for people. For my wife’s birthday, probably 14 and a half years ago, I arranged, because she was a big fan, too, to meet him.
What was that like?
It was unbelievable. (We brought) our youngest son, who was 6 months old. It was surreal. We went to his office, right after he was done being president, at Fox Plaza in 1996. It was before he got full Alzheimer’s. He was a fun guy.
How did it go?
We talked probably for 10 minutes. We got to talk with him about how this was the third generation of my family to meet him. My grandpa had met him (in London with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher) and now I and my son had met him. And he gave us each gifts. He gave my wife a charm bracelet, my son a tie clip and gave me some cufflinks. It was surreal.
Jonathan Larsen
TITLE: Executive managing director
COMPANY: Transwestern
BORN: London; 1959
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s in business administration, Seattle University, 1982
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Starting commercial real estate career at CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.; becoming partner at Trammell Crow Co.; working with George Garfield at Transwestern.
MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE: His wife, Barbara; his four kids; President Reagan.
PERSONAL: Lives in Calabasas with wife; daughter Corinne, 18; son Jonathan Jr., 15; and daughter Kristianne, 13. Son Chandler, 21, is sophomore at USC.
ACTIVITES: Travel to Italy, hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains, coaching youth sports, charity work.
