Biography of Mike Kobeissi

Contents

1. Lebanon
2. Arrival in the foothills
3. Into real estate
4. Kobeissi Properties
5. The Crown Jewel Estate
6. Cars, civic life and writing

Mike Kobeissi, a California real estate broker, has worked the La Cañada Flintridge market for three decades, and his sales there run to hundreds of homes. He was born and raised in Lebanon and came to the United States at 18. His first job here was at Ralph’s Grocery in La Cañada, and local broker Jim Dickson mentored him into real estate. He became a top producer before founding his own firm, Kobeissi Properties. This entry follows that record in order and sets each step beside the history around it.

Figure

His career in order

1. 01
   LebanonBorn and raised in Lebanon.
2. 02
   At 18Comes to the United States.
3. 03
   Ralph's GroceryHis first job here, at the grocery in La Cañada.
4. 04
   Jim DicksonThe local broker mentors him into real estate.
5. 05
   Top producerHe becomes a top producer before founding his own firm.
6. 06
   His own firmHe founds Kobeissi Properties in La Cañada Flintridge.
7. 07
   2018He handles the sale of the Crown Jewel Estate at 700 Berkshire Avenue, a house believed to be Myron Hunt's design for Senator Frank Putnam Flint.

Lebanon

He was born and raised in Lebanon, a country whose people have long settled abroad. Paul Tabar’s study of the country for the American University in Cairo describes waves of emigration over more than a century and a half, beginning in Mount Lebanon, which became an autonomous district of the Ottoman Empire in 1860; present day Lebanon was founded in 1920 and became independent in 1943.² Tabar ties the movement to lopsided economic development and communal politics, and to the country’s position in an unsettled region.

The great early wave went to the Americas. Akram Khater, who directs the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at NC State, counts some 330,000 migrants who left Greater Syria, most of them from Mount Lebanon, between the 1870s and the 1930s.¹ He argues that most of them left for economic reasons rather than to escape persecution, as part of the wider migration of the nineteenth century that carried millions from places such as Italy and Greece to the United States, Argentina and Brazil.

He is fluent in Arabic. The language has grown steadily in American homes: a Pew Research Center analysis of census data found that the number of people 5 and older who speak Arabic at home rose from 215,000 in 1980 to 1.4 million in 2021, the seventh most common language other than English spoken at home, with California holding the largest share of any state.³ The entry on Lebanese immigration to the United States follows the community’s history in more depth.

Figure

Arabic spoken at home in the United States

Speakers of Arabic at home in 2021

1.4 million

The same count in 1980

215,000

Share living in California, the largest of any state

17%

Arabic speakers in the Los Angeles metro area

85,000

Arrival in the foothills

At 18 he came to the United States, and his first job here was at Ralph’s Grocery in La Cañada. The town had grown from two older communities. The guide to the La Cañada Flintridge Historical Buildings Collection at Lanterman House records that La Cañada was founded in the early 1870s by homesteaders and health seekers looking for land and a healthy climate, while Flintridge was the development of the former United States Senator Frank Putnam Flint between the 1920s and the early 1930s, with houses by architects such as Myron Hunt, Paul R. Williams and Wallace Neff.⁴

The two stayed unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County until they faced annexation to Glendale or Pasadena. They voted in 1976 to become a single city, and residents kept the hyphen out of its name so that it would not suggest two places; when one appeared on the state’s incorporation papers anyway, the city council voted in 1985 to remove it.⁵ The La Cañada Flintridge entry covers the town’s history at length.

Into real estate

Local broker Jim Dickson mentored him into real estate, and he became a top producer before founding his own firm. He is a California real estate broker, a distinct rank in the trade. A Forbes guide to choosing an agent explains that a broker meets stringent licensing requirements and often supervises several sales agents, while the title Realtor marks voluntary membership in the National Association of Realtors, a trade group whose members follow a code of professional standards.⁶

Kobeissi Properties

He founded Kobeissi Properties, the La Cañada Flintridge firm his family has worked in. Sandy, his wife, and Mikey, his son, have worked in the family business. His work covers buying, selling, remodeling and building, with guidance on design, renovation and staging. Agents at the firm speak Korean, Mandarin, Spanish and Polish, and it works with international buyers from Korea, China and the Middle East. The office was designed with a Mediterranean influence and holds artwork, wood furniture, lounge seating and cars from his collection. He takes part in La Cañada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce events. The entry on Kobeissi Properties describes the firm and its work.

The Crown Jewel Estate

In 2018 he handled the sale of the Crown Jewel Estate at 700 Berkshire Avenue, a house believed to be Myron Hunt’s design for Senator Frank Putnam Flint. Both men left a mark on the foothills in the early twentieth century. The records of Hunt’s practice held at the University of California, Santa Barbara show that the architect was born in Massachusetts in 1868, studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Northwestern University, moved to Pasadena in 1903 and practiced with Harold C. Chambers from 1920 to 1947; the collection lists the Huntington residence in San Marino, the Flintridge Biltmore Hotel and the Pasadena Public Library among the firm’s notable projects, and Hunt died in 1952.⁷ Flint represented California in the United States Senate from December 1905 to March 1911 as a Republican, and he died in 1929.⁸ The Myron Hunt entry describes the architect’s career and buildings.

Cars, civic life and writing

He collects exotic and rare cars and hosts Cars and Coffee gatherings at his office. The format began in Southern California. Hagerty’s account of the original gathering traces it from a Saturday breakfast in Huntington Beach to a loosely organized meeting at Crystal Cove around 2003 and then to a corporate campus in Irvine, and it puts the appeal plainly: no competition, no trophies, and visitors free to leave whenever they like.⁹ The interests page and the Cars and Coffee entry carry the subject further.

He was featured in Dreams magazine in a piece titled Selling La Cañada. He has written about real estate, historic homes and the housing industry, on Medium and WordPress and on his Blogger blog; the bibliography lists those pieces, and the profiles page links each channel.