‘The Real Deal’ Spotlights Maria Mendelsohn, Elliman’s Equestrian Powerhouse in Wellington

For the July issue of its monthly magazine , The Real Deal takes a deep dive into the career of Douglas Elliman agent Maria Mendelsohn and her rise to the top of Wellington, Florida’s equestrian real estate market. Ranked by TRD last year as Wellington’s No.1 agent, with $116 million in on-market sales, Mendelsohn has helped numerous ultra-wealthy clients—from BET co-founder Sheila Johnson to Johnson & Johnson heiress Alison Firestone Robitaille—to buy and sell properties in the South Florida equestrian capital. The article (by writer Kate Hinsche) includes a quote from Jay Phillip Parker, Douglas Elliman’s CEO of Brokerage for the Florida Region, attesting to Mendelsohn’s unassailable reputation for tact and discretion. “She is intentionally under the radar…. She knows exactly where she wants to be seen, and she’s seen in those places by the right people, in the right way.” In addition to charting Mendelsohn’s circuitous path to real estate—from her childhood in the Caribbean, where she grew up riding ponies and “catch[ing] donkeys” on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, to her early career on Wall Street, where she became an expert on “buying companies’ distressed bank debts”—the article touches on the controversial “Wellington 3.0” development plans, which involve the transfer of 96 acres from the village’s 9,000-acre equestrian preserve and the relocation of the annual Winter Equestrian Festival. Whereas the plans met “heated opposition from the equestrian community,” Hinsche writes, they got a thumbs-up from Mendelsohn, who declared, “It’s going to be a very positive move. The change is exciting.” Read the full article.