When Carl Met Jess: How Two NYC Agents Became Partners in Business and Life

When you listen to Jessica Peters and Carl A. Ekroth talk about their lives together, it sounds uncannily like the Douglas Elliman agents are pitching a reality TV series. Two top New York City real estate brokers and romantic partners share a townhouse with her sister, her retired father and four dogs. Hilarity ensues! But as they recount the dramatic circumstances that long predated their October 2023 engagement and decision a month later for Ekroth to become a member of The Jessica Peters Team , it’s clear they are hopelessly in rom-com territory. Speaking on a video call over the summer, Ekroth began to lay out the circumstances of how he and Peters met nearly 20 years ago, as junior members of the Darren Sukenik Team at Douglas Elliman. When Peters joins the call mid-narrative, Ekroth says, “I was just telling the story of when I fired you.” “Oh, that’s the best story!” says Peters. Truly, a “meet cute” classic. In 2006, when Peters joined the team fresh out of college, her uncle—Chris Peters—was then manager of the Chelsea office where the team was based. Although Ekroth was only a couple years older and “somewhere between a junior agent and an admin” himself, Sukenik assigned him to “mentor” the younger rookie. All seemed well. “And then one day, out of the blue, I’m on my way to an open house, and I get a call from Darren,” Peters recalled. “He says, ‘It’s just not working out.’” At a meeting the next morning, when Peters asked what she had done to warrant being fired, Sukenik unexpectedly deputized Ekroth to detail the reasons. “I was really put on the spot, so I was really flustered,” he explained. “And I think my exact quote was: ‘Sorry, Jess, but you just don’t have what it takes to make it in this business.” Despite such an inauspicious beginning, Peters went on to prove decisively otherwise. After joining Elliman’s Brooklyn office in 2008, she embarked on a decade-long partnership with Stephanie O’Brien that established her as one of the borough’s top new development brokers. Ekroth, meanwhile, built his own career at Elliman, becoming an exceptionally experienced and knowledgeable agent in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The two didn’t cross paths again until 2015, when their respective achievements brought them to a new development launch party for top-producing agents. “We saw each other from 20 feet away,” Ekroth recalled. “I think we both decided at the same time to bite the bullet and talk.” What began as small talk became a two- to three-hour bonding session over their shared experience with recent divorces and total devotion to their work. Since attending an Elliman retreat held a month later in Miami, at which they spent the entire weekend together, Peters and Ekroth have been inseparable ever since. “We really match each other’s energy in terms of how we show up for work, which is rare,” Peters said. In addition to marveling at her intuitive “Rain Man-like” grasp of price per square foot, Ekroth credited Peters for the creativity and design sensibility she brings to new development. “She’s working with the developers from day one covering design, finishes, floor plans and more,” he said. “She’s now designing townhouses and boutique condos. And when you know the numbers as well as she does and you’re having that first conversation with a new developer, it’s incredible to watch.” Even spending downtime at home with Peters is educational, Ekroth added. “Just being next to her in the living room during the first five years of our relationship taught me so much about real estate that I didn’t know before,” he said. Although Peters had effectively begun courting Ekroth to become her partner in business since that long weekend in Miami in 2015, he was initially resistant. In 2019, he formed the Ekroth Fishkind Margolin team with Andrew Fishkind and Emily Margolin. Jess Peters in her element... In the spirit of the season. Dogs in disguise. Dogs in disguise. But when her former business partner recommended that Ekroth serve alongside Peters as her Manhattan-based counterpart on sales for the Brooklyn condo development 575 Fourth Avenue, the experience persuaded them both that it would soon be time to join forces. Ekroth became head of the Jessica Peters Team’s Manhattan division in November 2023. “For the first time in my life, I feel like I have someone who can truly cover me–who’s interchangeable with me and capable of doing all of the things that I do,” said Peters, noting that the other agents on the team have appreciated being able to draw on Ekroth’s experience. As for the couple’s engagement a month prior, it’s no coincidence that it happened in October. Both Peters and Ekroth are devoted horrorphiles who live for Halloween. “As far back as I can remember, we’ve always done things like staying at haunted houses and asylums and penitentiaries,” Peters said, recalling a memorable experience in an old warehouse that involved being kidnapped, blindfolded, made to witness a staged murder and then challenged to escape. “‘Spooky’ is our love language.” In October 2023, the couple had booked a weekend at a Marblehead, Mass., inn and were all set to attend the Salem Witches’ Halloween Ball when Ekroth popped the question. They never made it to the event, but they’ve been wearing their wedding bands in anticipation of a formal celebration in spring 2025. Jess Peters (right) at the Rescue Runway event, along with actor Alexandra Daddario (left). (Photo by Tommy Chan of GreenehouseNYC) In the meantime, the two have built a loving, multigenerational home that includes Peters’s father (in the basement “grandfather apartment”), her sister and four dogs—three of which are rescues. (Peters recently partnered with NYC Second Chance Rescue for a fashion show at Olympia DUMBO.) And they are grateful to have found a supportive professional home at Douglas Elliman, particularly amid the current uncertainty of the real estate market. Having both endured the ups and downs of the industry’s business cycles, Peters and Ekroth are confident that they—and the brokerage—can “weather the storm.” “Elliman is such a storied brand,” Peters said. “From the support system to the way it’s structured to the assurance it gives to developers we work with, it’s just a great place to be.”