SLO County Realtor sold beach house 36 years ago. Now her daughter is selling the same home
If imitation truly is the best form of flattery, Cayucos resident Patty Frawley must be mighty flattered this Mother’s Day.
Her 61-year-old daughter, Morro Bay resident Alice Frawley, has followed her mother’s lead by carving out a career in real estate sales. She recently scored a listing as the selling agent for a dramatic Cayucos home — one that her 86-year-old mom sold twice before.
Patty Frawley sold the home at 14 Oceanfront Lane in 1985 for $775,000. In 1993, she listed it and sold it for $1.35 million.
The current listing price for the circa-1969 beach house is $7.49 million.
“The mid-century modern house with a lot of Asian influences is very much original,” Alice Frawley said. “It’s like a time capsule.”
In late April, she had three potential buyers lined up to purchase the property, and others waiting in the wings to view it.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the exclusivity of the home and neighborhood, prospective buyers must show in advance that they’re qualified to see the property.
Mother and daughter work in real estate business
Patty Frawley went into the real estate business in 1976 at age 43 while her daughter was still in high school. (Alice’s older brother Eddie had graduated recently.)
“My sister-in-law was in real estate and I really admired what she was doing,” Patty Frawley recalled.
After years of working with her husband, Edward, at his Whittier pawn shop, and doing his bookkeeping, Patty Frawley got her real estate license and signed up with a Century 21 office as a Realtor.
“I enjoyed sales and I love people,” she said, so it was a perfect fit. She retired in 2015, after nearly four decades as a Realtor.
Her daughter decided to become a Realtor after working in the family’s pawn shop.
“It looked like fun to be in real estate,” Alice Frawley said. “And it is.”
Eventually, Frawley said, she realized that a young real estate agent “needed something else” as a fiscal backup, so she went to work in the related escrow field.
After her family moved to Cayucos, Frawley continued in the escrow field until Fidelity Title closed its Morro Bay office in 2018.
Almost immediately, one of her best clients — Jay Chiasson, founder and owner of Navigators Real Estate in Morro Bay — found out from a mutual friend that Frawley was momentarily at loose ends, jobwise.
“He knew I still had my brokerage license,” Frawley recalled, and urged her to join his firm. She did.
“Alice is truly an amazing Realtor, and we are extremely lucky to have her as a part of the Navigators Crew,” Chiasson said.
He commended Alice Frawley’s “commitment to excellence and fostering lifelong relationships with her clients.” That’s “evident in everything she does,” he added.
Cayucos home for sale
According to Frawley, the striking home at 14 Oceanfront Lane was designed for the Reynolds family in 1969 by noted San Francisco architect Robert Stanton.
Throughout the years, the home — with its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and a courtyard and pool that greet guests as they go through the front entry gate — has been used primarily as a vacation destination.
That’s true for the current owners, heirs of the late Chase and Mimi Hoffman of Tulare.
Mark Hoffman, a son who represents the trust’s interest in the home, remembered when “we’d open up all the doors and wander around the patio, playing pool and shuffleboard, the kids in the pool, going to the beach. It’s a wonderful place to open up.”
Hoffman said he based his decision to hire Frawley on the long, lovely relationship his family has had with her mother.
Some Realtor interactions with their clients end when the sale is completed, he said, but that wasn’t the case with Patty Frawley. Even though she wasn’t an official property manager, she continued to be available to the Hoffmans long after the escrow closed on the Cayucos home.
“You were always handy,’ Hoffman told Frawley during a Google Meet conversation. “I remember when somebody had changed the locks a couple of weeks before I got there, and I was able to call you at 11 at night to get a new key.”
He’s not sure what the trust will do once the home sells.
Hoffman and his wife, Anne, live in Tulare while their son, Cal Poly graduate and engineer Sam, his wife Holly and their two children live in San Luis Obispo. Mark Hoffman’s brother lives in Atascadero, and their sister has a different house at the coast so there’s strong incentive to consider a reinvestment somewhere on the Central Coast.
“It’s not very often a family of Realtors is asked to represent the sale of the same home. It’s an accomplishment we don’t take lightly,” Chiasson said. “We thank both Alice and her mother, Patty, for fostering such meaningful relationships with their clients and we look forward to being a part of this family’s next chapter.”
This story was originally published May 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
