William Mitchell and Kimberly DiBenedetto

[00:02] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: Hi, my name is Kim DiBenedetto. I am 49 years old. Today's date is Tuesday, February 9, 2021. I am recording from downtown Carmel, California, and I am here with Bill Mitchell, who is the owner of Carmel Realty Company, which I work, and I think Bill needs to do the same introduction. Is that right?

[00:34] WILLIAM MITCHELL: And my name is Bill Mitchell. I'm 78 years old. Today's date is Tuesday, February 9, 2021. I'm recording from Pebble Beach, California. I'm here with Kim DiBenedetto and she is my conversation partner for this interview.

[00:55] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: Thank you, Bill. So we're here to talk a little bit about Hospice Giving foundation and what it's meant to you and your family over the years. You've been a loyal donor for years, and we certainly appreciate that. Maybe talk a little. Let's just start talking a little bit about your parents and growing up. You grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, I believe, and found your way to Carmel.

[01:29] WILLIAM MITCHELL: Yes, I grew up in Piedmont, California, but my family had been in California or in Carmel for a long time. My grandparents lived there, and my great aunt lived there. And they were. They lived there until they passed away. And they were some of the original pioneers in California, in Pebble beach and Carmel in particular. My mother and father. My father's from San Francisco originally. My mother is from Piedmont, Alameda area originally. And we. They raised us. And we grew up in Piedmont and eventually came down to Carmel. My mom and dad came down personally permanently in about 1975. That was when my father retired from his business in San Francisco. He was in the printing business in San Francisco. And they stayed here until they passed away. My family, my wife and my. Well, actually, my wife and I came down here earlier than that. We had a second home here, but we didn't live here permanently for quite some time. We lived in the Bay Area, in the city of Atherton for about almost 20 years. And when we finally came down here was around 1990 permanently, and we bought a home in pebble beach, and we've lived in this home ever since.

[03:04] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: So. And it sounds like you had. Even though you had other careers and were an airline pilot and everything, you always had a love for real estate and started your real estate company, the Mitchell Group, in Atherton area, and then brought it down here. And that was something that your mother very much enjoyed.

[03:28] WILLIAM MITCHELL: That's true. When I originally graduated from the Air Force Academy, I spent six years as a pilot in the Air Force. Quite a bit of that time, most of it was in the Vietnam War area. And after I got out of the Air Force, I went to work immediately for American Airlines as a pilot. And shortly after I'd been a new pilot with American, there was a big furlough. And I was caught up in that furlough and forced to find another way to make a living. And so I started at Stanford Business School to get an MBA during that period. And at the end of the two year furlough period, I completed my MBA and was able to come back to work at American Airlines as a pilot. But because I had the MBA and because airline pilots in those days had a lot of free time, I was able to pursue a second career. And so I started a real estate company called the Mitchell Group. And that was way back in 1974. 75.

[04:39] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: Wow.

[04:40] WILLIAM MITCHELL: That became a second full time occupation for me. I was a full time pilot and a full time real estate broker for the next 30 years. And eventually that real estate business after I retired from American, took me down to Carmel, where I'm still working today.

[05:02] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: That's amazing. So in the meantime, your mom, it sounds like your mom held down the fort down here when you opened the Carmel office.

[05:12] WILLIAM MITCHELL: Yeah, she was a. She was a real stem winder back in those days when I first came down here to see what they were doing to back up a little bit. When they came down here in the late 70s, I was still up in doing real estate in Palo Alto, commercial real estate. And as I may have explained earlier to you, Kim, I encouraged my mother and father to come down here and open a real estate office under the same name in which I was doing business, which was called the Mitchell Group. And so they opened a small Mitchell Group residential mom and pop operation down here in Carmel. And my mother was a real pistol and she sold almost everything there was to sell in Carmel for quite a few years. And when I came down and saw what they were doing, when we finally moved down here permanently, I found that there were about nine agents in that office and most of them weren't really doing any business at all. But my mother was doing a lot of business. And so after watching that operation for a while, we began, I decided we really needed to grow the business. And so over period of time, from that time in probably 1990 until about 2005, we were able to grow the company to about 140 to 150 agents. And we had five offices and we were the largest independent real estate company in all of Monterey county. And in 2005, we were a very Attractive candidate for acquisition. And so several companies attempted to acquire us and we decided to allow ourselves to be sold to Sotheby's International Realty. And that was in the very end of 2005. And at that time we then became Carmel Realty Company. Basically, we'd owned Carmel Realty earlier as a very high end property management company that had a wonderful inventory of beautiful old homes along the 17 mile drive and in Carmel that had been in families for many generations. And we used that primarily as a high end luxury vacation rental business as an adjunct as part of the Mitchell Group. Until the Mitchell Group was sold to Sotheby's. And once it was sold to Sotheby's, it turned out that Sotheby's wasn't interested in the Carmel Realty side of the business. They only wanted the brokerage business and not the property management. And so we, we thought that was just terrific. As soon as we finished the sale to Sotheby's, we built up the brokerage side of the business at Carmel Realty and began growing the business accordingly. That was in around. Started in 2005, but it really got a lot of traction by 2010. And so that today Carmel Realty is now two companies. We have a sister company and the parent company with a total of about 80 agents and about 20 staff members.

[08:52] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: It's been amazing to watch you grow both Mitchell Group and Carmel Realty Company and all along you've always been a huge part of the community. That's always meant something to you, giving back to the community. And so maybe just tell us a little bit about what giving back to the community has meant to you and your parents and now your children and what you get out of it. How do you feel when you see the fruits of your labor going into these wonderful organizations?

[09:38] WILLIAM MITCHELL: Yeah, well, I think, I guess I got a taste of philanthropy from my parents who were big community supporters and givers. My father was, I think he was a vice mayor of Piedmont back in the day. Before they came down here, my mother was in the Piedmont Garden Club. And when they came down here, she founded the Carmel Garden Club. And they both remain very active in the city of Carmel. And they were always supporters of the symphony and hospice and a lot of other causes. One of the things I wanted to accomplish down here was to really build a philanthropic kind of aspect of our business. And so we've really been proud of what we've been able to do philanthropically. And we try to encourage and we've successfully done so. All of our agents and staff members to be contributors to the community in one way or another, either in terms of their activity or their donations, or in any way they can. And so we have a tremendously supportive group of people in the community from within our company. And part of that was my personal involvement was with the Community foundation of Monterey county, where I served on the board and was able to see a lot of the smaller charities that were out there that we could help support. And what we try to do within the company philanthropically is support just local causes, local people who really can feel the impact from relatively small contributions that we were able to make, rather than some large national or international charitable organization.

[11:36] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: Nice. Nice. When you talked about your parents in their eulogy, you talked about your dad's sense of integrity and honesty and that he was a consummate gentleman and what a true lady your mother was. What is one of your favorite memories about them?

[12:01] WILLIAM MITCHELL: Well, I guess. I guess honesty and integrity were instilled certainly in me by my. My father and my mother, for that matter. But I can't really add to that.

[12:21] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: Okay, you. When your parents health started to decline, you said that they both passed not too far apart, which is always the sign of true love. Right. What was important to you in taking care of them in the final years and days of their life? You did have some hospice care at the house for them. Maybe talk a little bit about what led to that decision and how it made your family feel to have that care for them.

[13:08] WILLIAM MITCHELL: Yeah, well, my mom and dad were very, very close to each other and to the rest of the. The family. I have. I have a brother and a sister, and they have. They were married for 64 years. My dad died at age 88 and my mother passed away at 91. She was about three or four years after my father's passing. And they both lived long, really healthy and productive lives. And they were both pretty much joined at the hip throughout their entire experience in life. And all our family lives pretty close. My daughter lives in Carmel, as you know, and my other daughter lives in San Francisco and she visits us frequently. So we. I personally have five grandchildren now, and we really spent a lot of time together, but my mom and dad preferred to pass away or live their lives in their own home. They wanted the luxury and the dignity of being able to stay in their home until their last days. And they were fortunate enough to be able to do that. And it was a really pleasant time. They were happy and they were bright. They're mentally very astute throughout their lives. They were Healthy almost to the very end. They both played tennis until they were about 80, and they. They played bridge, and they. They just really enjoyed time with their friends and family. My mother stayed active in the garden club right to the very end. And she was. She was always so happy to be able to, in her last days after dad passed away, to be able to just sit in her beautiful little cottage in Carmel, look out at her lovely garden with these big French doors open to the. To the wonderful flowers, and just be able to smell the roses and read. They were very active readers, very to the very end. Very well educated, of course, Cal Berkeley people. They really made the most out of their lives to the very end in a very dignified way.

[15:45] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: That's amazing. And that all we can hope for, right? You want to, I think, end your life in the same way that you lived it. So that's wonderful that they had that opportunity. I think one of the things that your sister Hallie had mentioned, too, about the hospice care that you had for them was the way that hospice also helped him prepare the family and checked in on the family and made sure that the family was prepared for things as they were happening. And I don't know if you want to speak to that at all.

[16:28] WILLIAM MITCHELL: Yeah, Hospice is tremendously supportive throughout the entire period when they were there helping mom and dad, and they managed to choose some really wonderful people. I remember this little Filipino lady who was so happy and helpful throughout the whole thing. I think it was fortunate, too, for them that my sister was in town and very close to mom and dad, and so she was there often, and I was there as much as possible. And my brother, who lives up in St. Helena in the Napa wine country, was there as often as he could be. But they were fortunate to have that wonderful hospice care and a lot of family support nearby. Hospice kept us really well informed throughout the period that they were there, so we always knew what to expect, and there were never any real surprises during their convalescence.

[17:30] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: That's nice. You've been supporting Hospice Giving foundation for a number of years now, and I know that they appreciate that you take the time to attend the events that they have, and you've just been a bright light, I know, for not only our recipients of the work that we do, to be there to support them. So thank you for that. Hold on. Just in general, going back a little bit to your parents, Bunky and Jean, maybe, was there anything with their health that was sudden, or were they. Were they. They just grew old gracefully, I assume.

[18:49] WILLIAM MITCHELL: Yeah. They did. There was never really any one single thing that bothered them. It was just a series of old age issues that came upon them. If you can make it to 88 or 91, I think you've done pretty well.

[19:05] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: Well, you've got a lot of years left on you then, Bill.

[19:09] WILLIAM MITCHELL: I hope so. But. But they were, you know, they were endeared to all of us. And so, yeah, the name. The name Bucky. I'm not sure how he ever wound up getting that name, but that was my father's family name. Everybody called him. My mother, who was always known as Granny Jean, eventually got shortened by my kids and my grandkids to Gigi. So it was Bunky and Gigi right to the very end there.

[19:44] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: That's great. And do your. I know your children, and I assume probably your. Even your grandchildren are involved in the community and doing philanthropic work still, too, to this day.

[20:00] WILLIAM MITCHELL: They are. They really? Yeah, it's kind of a family tradition. We're really proud of it. Shelley and Dan are both very active in the community, as you know. Dan's very active with this First T business, which is a great youth organization out in Salinas, helping a lot of underprivileged kids and teaching them sportsmanship and integrity and character development. And Shelley's so busy doing everything with three kids and all her community activities in her business that I don't know how she holds it all together.

[20:37] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: Personally, I don't know either. But I know they're dedicated to the community, and that's something. You know, when I talked with them about moving over to Carmel Realty, that was something that really spoke to me because I always found myself and Carmel Realty sponsoring the same events and stuff. So I figured, know, at least we have the same philanthropic, you know, goals.

[21:10] WILLIAM MITCHELL: So I think that that motivates a lot of our people, though. I. I think it makes them really proud to be part of the organization. One of the things we've been fortunate to. To be voted by the community the best real estate company year after year. But the. The one kind of a moniker that I always was most proud of was the fact that we were frequently voted the best company to work for. And I think that says a lot about the culture of Carmel Realty and the kind of people we have, like you, for example, who are really active in the community and really care about more things than just selling real estate. So we're really proud of that.

[21:57] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: Yeah. You know, in talking on the real estate front, you and I were talking when we were kind of Preparing for this. About how I think because of the acceptance and popularity of, if you will, of hospice care and more people wanting to, you know, to have their final days in their own home instead of in a hospital or care facility, I think it's kind of helped destigmatize the stigma around a death in a home when you go to sell it. We don't typically see as much resistance to that when it happens now, as long as it was a nice, peaceful death. And I think it speaks to the movement of hospice.

[22:57] WILLIAM MITCHELL: I think it's a trend that's increasing too, as people are. Well, first of all, this Covid issue with nursing homes has really put a lot of concern out there about using those kinds of facilities. And if you're fortunate enough in life to be able to afford to continue your life at home and have the luxury and the. The dignity of doing so with hospice care, it's really a wonderful benefit and opportunity. There's just a lot of dignity attached to being able to spend the rest of your life in your own home with live in care. It seemed rare and rather unusual not very long ago, but today it's. It's something that is treasured by people who can afford to have it.

[23:53] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: Sure, absolutely. In closing, are there any final thoughts that you have that either about, you know, your parents, your legacy, hospice care, anything in general?

[24:14] WILLIAM MITCHELL: I guess I would just say that we're very fortunate to have the hospice care we have in the community now, and they've done wonderful things for my family and for a lot of other families that we're familiar with, and we're grateful to them, and we're happy to support them in any way we can.

[24:33] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: We really appreciate it. Is, I guess, is there a philanthropic effort that impacted you in a big way or changed your views on life? Anything that you've done that you know? I know you're also involved with the Veterans Transition Center. Is there anything, you know, any sort of. Any philanthropic effort that has impacted you in a big way in your life?

[25:05] WILLIAM MITCHELL: Well, I did spend a lot of time in the military, and I value those years. They were formative years in my life. But here in Monterey county, we have a really large homeless veterans population, a large homeless population in general, and particularly among veterans, which always has concerned me. And the Veterans Transition center in the Fort Ord area now has been a wonderful way to take in veterans, improve their lives, get them straightened out from drugs or alcohol or any PTSD or any other issues they might have had, and they were able to accommodate them using some of the old rehabilitated four door living facilities they've since the early days really grown the organization They've got a wonderful new executive director now and I served on their advisory board for a number of years and I was really proud and felt kind of humbled to be able to participate in that homeless veterans cause. The improvement we made in these young people were was really remarkable we were getting people jobs getting back on on their feet and getting them back in the street and getting them in homes and so it was, it was a very rewarding experience to be part of the veterans Transition center and it still is I'm still involved but not as active as I was.

[26:40] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: Well that's wonderful there's so many great causes out there so we certainly appreciate your giving back to all of them but in particular to Hospice Giving foundation and with your time and your philanthropic efforts so thank you so much thank.

[27:01] WILLIAM MITCHELL: You for your efforts on the board and all you're doing.

[27:05] KIMBERLY DIBENEDETTO: Thank you. It's a pleasure.