This article has been revised from the original version.

Jason Somers, founder and chief executive of Crest Real Estate LLC, and his younger brother and business partner Steven Somers, president of Crest, have helped create some of the most luxurious homes in Los Angeles. But they’ve also been behind some of the legislation that regulates the scale of new single-family residential construction, making it nearly impossible for immense mansions to ever be built again.

They specialize in what’s called permit expediting – they serve as middlemen between the city and property owners, architects, real estate agents, developers and others on what can be achieved – to offer entitlement services and lead projects from concept to shovels in the ground.

Together, they’ve been behind permitting homes for some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including actors Brad Pitt and Warren Beatty and chief executives of Fortune 500 companies. They’ve fulfilled unique desires for billionaire clients, such as building shark tanks underneath home offices and ornamenting homes with taxidermy peacocks.

The brothers are capitalizing on L.A.’s notoriously difficult permitting process, guiding the design process and working to get projects greenlit for their high-end clients in the most expedited fashion. According to Jason Somers, the duo has been involved in upward of 50% of all luxury real estate in the hills. They are typically brought in by clients on a referral basis and charge on an hourly basis against an estimated contract. Due diligence is typically a fixed fee, however.

“It’s not a very known industry – this code-consulting, land-use blend of law and architecture,” Jason Somers said. “So that was the fortune of our career paths, but it’s a skill set that fits both of ourselves perfectly.” 

Learning curve

One of the brothers’ most difficult projects was The One, a 105,000-square-foot mega-mansion in Bel Air that sold for $141 million last year to Richard Saghian, owner of the fast-fashion company Fashion Nova, which Jason and Steven Somers permitted very early on in their careers.

Its development faced a lot of backlash from neighbors and city officials claiming the home was radically out of proportion with its lot size.

In 2017, just after The One was permitted, the city of Los Angeles was looking to update the baseline hillside ordinance, which regulates the overall scale of new construction to maintain relative uniformity within residential neighborhoods throughout the hills of Los Angeles.

The original hillside ordinance was created in 2011, however, that version was loose, and loopholes were being exploited, according to Steven Somers. Homes were becoming dramatically bigger and bigger – especially during the boom of the neo-modern mansion era which was taking over L.A.’s hillside – and The One was the final straw.

“(The city) didn’t foresee certain limitation requirements that should have been there,” Jason Somers said, recognizing the need for reform.

Despite being integral parts of that property’s development, the Somers brothers saw the city’s plea for stricter coding as an opportunity to join that conversation. They wanted to help craft the new code in a way that would prevent overly expansive and egregious projects from being developed in the future. 

Being agreeable

In acknowledging that construction is always going to have an impact, the two agree that reasonability is key in order to minimize the scale of mansions.

“We want to be doing work here and in these communities for many, many decades to come,” Jason Somers added. “And a project that is not seen as wanted in the community, we don’t want to be a part of that. It gives us no joy in having neighbor opposition.”

While the creation of the new code was ultimately up to the city, the Somers brothers played integral roles in terms of offering suggestions on what they felt was appropriate. 

“They’re still big houses. This is L.A. Homes are large. People have a lot of money,” Jason Somers said. “But there are certain limitations that make sense. And we really felt it was important to push for these new restrictions.”

The updated ordinance includes a new set of codes based on ratios, with limitations depending on the size and topography of the property, to ensure there’s no room for misinterpretation.

According to Jason Somers, if a developer wanted to tear down The One and build a new home on its lot today, it could probably only be built at 25% of its current size, capping it at roughly 25,000 square feet.

Now, the two are in constant conversation with the city, giving their feedback and sharing project information. They’ve been a part of city discussions regarding haul route approvals, the designated route used to haul materials to and from a construction site, and have worked with the building and safety board of commissioner’s office to implement additional regulations that improve safety.

They also continue to update their clients on the changes of codes, such as the proposed wildlife ordinance – a series of land use regulations that attempts to maintain wildlife connectivity. 

“If you’re the person who knows how to work the system and work the rules to build more than other people, it makes sense for you to be the consultant to say, ‘How do we stop you?’,” Michael Nourmand, president of Nourmand and Associates Realtors, said. “I also think that speaks to them being the authority on both sides of the equation.”

Developer hat

And after years of permitting projects behind the scenes, the Somers brothers have taken on the developer hat. Disco Volante is a West Hollywood-based design and development firm that Jason Somers founded along with real estate moguls Rayni and Branden Williams after forming a close relationship with the husband-and-wife team as their “go-to permit guy” for over a decade.

“My husband nicknamed him Jerry Maguire when we first met him,” Rayni Williams said. “He was super young. He had come out of one of the biggest firms of a husband-and-wife team for entitlement that there was, and he decided to branch off on his own. And here is this young kid trying to make it in this big city. We saw that he was hard-working, super ethical and extremely talented.”

The trio have developed three major projects together, including The Stanley House, a $31 million mansion designed by rockstar legend Lenny Kravitz located in the hills just above Sunset Strip, as well as the adjacent Californication House, which just hit the market last week for $38 million. The Californication House, which is being sold fully furnished, is a James Bond-themed homage to Hollywood’s Golden Age, featuring a hidden nightclub and a $40,000 rotating bed.

According to Jason and Steven Somers, the inspiration behind taking on developmental projects as well was to be able to understand the evolution of a project.

“It’s been very fun because at Crest, we are not the final decision-maker on a design of a project. We give you the guidelines of what you can design,” Jason Somers said. “But in doing these developments, we are utilizing our knowledge gained from working with so many remarkable architects and clientele from all over the world. And it all relates back to everything Crest is about, which is providing a comprehensive service, that now we really can say, it can help you through the entire project.”

Branching out

And while the Somers brothers surely gained prominence permitting high-end single-family homes in Los Angeles, they’ve since branched out, taking on a heap of permitting projects for both commercial and multifamily projects within the last five years.

Some of Crest’s latest permitting projects include The Shops at Sportsman Lodge, a new shopping center in Studio City featuring high-end retailers such as Fred Segal, Erewhon and Equinox; 6733 Sepulveda Blvd., a 176-unit multifamily complex in Westchester; Cara Hotel in Los Feliz; Violet Bistro, a California-French restaurant and cooking school located in Westwood Village; Rimowa in Beverly Hills; David Kordansky Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in Miracle Mile; as well as the new Century City headquarters for Angeleno Group, an investment group specializing in clean-energy and climate solutions.

They’ve also expanded out of Los Angeles to work on permitting projects up and down the coast, while also tapping into new markets such as Austin, Miami and Aspen, Colorado.

Steven Somers said he’d like to see them continue to expand Crest’s growing portfolio of multifamily projects, adding affordable-housing components, with the overall goal of creating a sustainable future of developments.

“We want to do projects that the city and us are proud of,” Jason Somers said.