We love living in Westlake Village. The neighborhood is beautiful with amazing oak trees, fantastic landscapes, and breathtaking views. The country club lifestyle here is great with 10+ fantastic restaurants just a few minutes away. More importantly the people that we’ve met have been truly a blessing.

The story of how we came to Westlake Village is an interesting one. In early 2021 I decided to sell my company that I had started 35 years earlier. We prayed about it and committed to giving 10% to charity. What happened after that commitment was truly amazing. Covid hit during the sales process and the two companies bidding pulled out. A year later I ended up selling the business for three times more even though my sales were stagnant during Covid.

After the sale we told everyone that we were moving to Newport Beach where we have family and friends. During Covid we got bored and decided to take a trip to look at homes in Santa Barbara as the prices in Orange County were very high. Our good friends Brian and Celeste Forester convinced us to stop in Westlake Village on our way up to Santa Barbara to see a home that hadn’t hit the market yet. We had no intentions of moving here but decided to make a fun trip out of it and check the home.

The next day Michelle and I woke up early, and we put low ball offers on the home in Westlake Village and a smaller home in Santa Barbara with 15 day escrows and to our surprise the next day they both said YES. That was a big life changing event that really worked out great for us. We worked with our amazing agent and now good friend Shari Schiff on our North Ranch home. Shari not only did an excellent job on our deal; she and the Forester’s were instrumental in introducing us to new friends and this wonderful community.

After moving to North Ranch we were blessed with our two beautiful grandchildren, Vos 3 years old and Kaia 1.5 years old. They live nearby and we get to spend a lot of time with our children and grandchildren.

Back to the 10% and one of the best parts of the story, we got to work with Ken Craft of “Hope the Mission” to build a kitchen that is currently feeding 14,000 meals per day to the homeless! We have done a few events for Hope over the years. Their work is very important; it is truly life changing for those in need.

So now we live a happy, blessed life in Westlake Village. We tell everyone one of the great things about living here is everything you need is only five minutes away. There are great eateries, golf and tennis, lakes, biking, and shopping.

Something that was very important to us was finding a great church that we believe in and could help grow. After visiting a few churches, we found Atmosphere Church which was rated five stars on Yelp. It was a strange place to find a church, but it worked for us. Pastor Jim Crews is doing so many great things for our community. They have SERVE DAYS a few times a year where hundreds of volunteers go out into the community to make a difference.