There’s really no property line separating Melissa Principi’s personal and professional life.
Principi, who has become one of Douglas Elliman’s top North Fork brokers while also raising a family and serving on the board of the Southold Mother’s Club, credits her success to being “a part of the community.”
That philosophy was on full display when Principi got a call recently about an estate house in Fairway Farms in Cutchogue. She saw more than a cluttered home at the end of a familiar street. The house, with creek views and a glimpse of the golf course, belonged to a man with no direct heirs, and under the terms of his will, the proceeds of his estate were to go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Principi said she knew that if the house was going to do the most good, it couldn’t simply be cleaned out and rushed onto the market.
“We have one chance to do this the right way,” she recalled telling the estate attorney. “I said, ‘if we don’t do anything, I would list it at $999,000.’” But with some work, she was sure, “I could get more.”
What followed was a group effort. Her father, a builder, assembled a punch list and brought in help to repaint peeling trim and freshen up problem spots that might scare buyers. Her mother, an interior designer, helped stage the home and draw out its charm. Wildflower Tag Sales came in to sort and document the contents for the estate.
Greenport photographer Jeremy Garretson captured the house’s stately charm on film. A land use attorney friend of Principi’s determined where on the property a pool could be built, and a local pool company put down stakes so prospective buyers could immediately imagine the property’s possibilities.
“It was calling in all our resources,” Principi said of the effort. “We will not leave a penny on the table.”
By the time the work was done, the house sold for $1.3 million after a single summer open house. The contents of the house and the cars generated another roughly $100,000 for St. Jude in addition to the sale of the home itself.
“We treated his stuff with care,” she said of the deceased owner’s belongings.
Third generation realtor
Principi is a third-generation realtor. Her grandmother was “a dynamo” of a broker in the 1970s. Her father is a builder; her mother is an interior designer; her aunt has spent decades with Douglas Elliman in East Hampton and her sister is an architect.
She grew up around construction and real estate on the South Fork, then moved to the North Fork at about 15, when her family sent her to Mercy High School in Riverhead. Principi liked the broader mix of kids from different towns and later headed off to Merrimack College on a Catholic school scholarship.
She studied business and double-majored in Spanish and pre-law, intending to go to law school. But that didn’t prove to be the right path for her. She graduated with a B.S. from Merrimack College Girard School of Business, more recently earning her Master of Business Administration from St. Joseph College.
In between those two degrees, she served for five years as sales and marketing manager at Wölffer Estate Vineyard, where she came to understand what suited her, and what did not.
“I realized I didn’t want to be in marketing, I didn’t want to be writing, I didn’t want to be behind the scenes,” she said. “I want to go out with people. Any excuse I could get to meet new people I would be selling to.”
That instinct led her from Wölffer to a job in Manhattan with The Wonderful Company, the Los Angeles-based firm behind Fiji Water, Wonderful Pistachios and other big brands. There, she learned how big companies build demand and support sales teams, working with hospitality clients tied to hotel groups and national beverage accounts. She thrived there. “I was cranking,” she said. “I loved it.”
When the pandemic hit, her division was eliminated in a nationwide shakeup. But her severance gave her room to take a risk. She had earned her real estate license in 2016 and had already spent years helping her father while she and her husband bought, fixed and flipped homes on the East End. She had also been doing deals for friends and family on the side, first in Huntington and then out east. By the time she went full-time with Douglas Elliman in 2020, where she had been an office admin in 2007, she was already .
When she joined Elliman, she paired her family background with the company’s training and a rigorous apprenticeship under veteran North Fork broker Tom McCluskey. She worked seven days a week for two straight years, she said, building her business through local ties and referrals, and then showing up and knowing her product.
“The beauty of real estate is that, if you do it well in your town, you’re in your town … I look at all of my leads every year, and I analyze where they come from, and it’s being a part of the community. It’s not just Instagram.”