Real Estates Brokers

In response to "Change in Europe Clouds Defense Industry Outlook," Part A, Nov.

The gig: Ed Rosenthal is a licensed real estate broker arranging sales and leases of commercial buildings. Most of Rosenthal's transactions fall in the historic district of downtown Los Angeles, which he says has a "human scale" that the new financial district lacks. Claim to fame: Rosenthal garnered international attention in 2010 when he got lost on what was to be a brief hike in Joshua Tree National Park. He survived for six grueling days in the desert before being rescued.

I was extremely disappointed by the slanted aspect of "Don't be afraid to sell home alone" (Your Money, Sept. 16). Buried deep in it was a nod to the competence of the full-service brokerage, which was hastily refuted as the writer pushed on to make the point that limited-service brokerages and online ad services are the best approach to selling in today's market.

WASHINGTON — It may be the best-kept secret in residential real estate: For a couple of hundred dollars, a potential buyer bidding on an existing house can ask for a formal energy audit along with the standard inspection clause. That audit, in turn, can save the buyer thousands of dollars in future operating costs and pinpoint the specific features of the house that need correction to improve efficiency. It might also be a tipoff to a sobering reality: This house is an energy guzzler.

Port Hueneme resident Howard Milder died Thursday after a brief illness. He was 88. Milder was born June 20, 1910, in Omaha, Neb. He moved from Nebraska to Ventura County in 1965. He was a self-employed real estate broker for 40 years and was active in community service. He was a past member of the Port Hueneme Planning Commission and a member and past president of the Port Hueneme Kiwanis. Milder was awarded that organization's distinguished Legion of Merit award.

John Clydesdale Cushman Jr., a nationally known commercial real estate broker, has died at age 86. Cushman died Monday in Lake San Marcos, Calif., where he had lived since 1981. Scion of the founding family of Cushman & Wakefield, one of the nation's largest commercial real estate brokerage firms, Cushman took his own place in the New York-based company in 1936 after attending Amherst College and Fordham Law School.

Charles Schleussner, 79, Westside real estate broker and philanthropist. A native of New York, Schleussner attended the Cate School in Los Angeles and UC Berkeley. He raised horses for a time and was an assistant director at 20th Century Fox before turning to real estate and setting up his company, Charles Realty.

Elsie Clara Schumacher, a Thousand Oaks real estate broker and former Marine Corps staff sergeant, died Friday after a brief illness. She was 72. Born in Cologne, Germany, Schumacher was a naturalized U.S. citizen after moving to the United States as a child in 1929. She moved to Ventura County in the mid-1960s after working in the civil service in Turkey. During the Korean War, she was a clerical worker at Marine headquarters in Washington, D.C., and was discharged as a staff sergeant.

Emmett Carlson Ekdall of Ventura, a longtime musician and retired real estate broker, died Thursday at his home following a brief illness. He was 91. "Ek" as he known, was born Oct. 8, 1905, in Cheyenne, Wyo. He attended elementary and high schoolin Cheyenne, and later studied music and graduated from the University of Wyoming. While earning his bachelor's degree, Ekdall met his wife of 69 years, Mary. "He was a pianist and wrote his own music," Mary Ekdall said.

A commercial real estate broker who has served on a variety of committees in the Irvine Unified School District was appointed to the district board this week. Stephen McArthur, 44, will serve the 10 months remaining on the term of Greg Smith, who resigned last year to take a seat on the Irvine City Council. McArthur will be sworn into office at the Feb. 1 school board meeting.

Financially strapped KCET-TV is in talks to sell its landmark Sunset Boulevard studio to the Church of Scientology, according to people who know about the pending deal. The Los Angeles television station, which is struggling to rebuild viewership after its recent split from PBS, plans to move its operations to a smaller location, real estate brokers said. Station officials have been touring potential sites, brokers said. Terms of the potential deal were unavailable, but the 4.5-acre property at 4401 W. Sunset Blvd.

A Bel-Air compound owned by the late real estate broker Jon Douglas has come on the market at $18.7 million. Set behind gates on nearly 2 acres and built in 2001, the property includes an 11,700-square-foot main house and a 1,750-square-foot guesthouse. The main house features a grand circular entry hall, a wood-paneled library, a gym three guest bedrooms and a master suite that includes a study, a sitting room, his- and-her walk-in closets, his-and-her bathrooms, a sauna and a kitchenette.

Ed Rosenthal sipped the last of his water the morning after he lost his way in an isolated canyon deep in Joshua Tree National Park. It tasted sweet and delicious. He carried a pack stuffed with survival equipment ? a whistle, matches, flares, even a space blanket ? but he brought a large water container that was just an eighth full. He left two huge bottles in his hotel room and passed by a spigot in the park. He meant to hike for four miles at most on a trail from Black Rock Campground that he has walked at least five times before.

Ed Rosenthal, the real estate broker from Culver City who was lost in a remote area of Joshua Tree National Park for six days before he was rescued, remained in the intensive care unit Friday at Hi-Desert Medical Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., but his condition was upgraded from fair to good. Rosenthal, 64, was stable, sitting up and taking fluids, said hospital spokeswoman Karen Graley. "He's resting comfortably," she said. It remains unclear when Rosenthal will be discharged.

Lost in a hot, dry, rugged canyon in Joshua Tree National Park, with no water and no food, Ed Rosenthal, a prominent real estate broker and experienced hiker from Culver City, took out a pen and started to write on his hiking hat. Rosenthal, a poet, never went anywhere without a pen. But he didn't write a poem. He wrote to his wife and his daughter to say he loved them. He wrote advice to business partners. He wrote instructions on where to donate money in his memory. And he wrote an account of what he believed was his last trek in a lifetime filled with hikes.

In the Middle Ages, moats were the thing. More recently, the rich have taken refuge behind tall hedges, view-obscuring walls and guarded gates. But today's super-wealthy, seeking even greater privacy, are increasingly buying adjacent properties as a buffer zone around their mansions. And that's made the compound the hottest commodity on L.A.'s high-end market, real estate brokers say. On the Westside, the growing list of compound owners includes movie industry titan Terry Semel, financier and producer Tom Gores and corporate housing kingpin Howard Ruby, founder of Oakwood Worldwide.

Real estate brokers are typically those sunny types who can always find a ray of sunshine in a heavy overcast, and the ones attending the 80th convention of the National Assn. of Realtors here last week were no exception. They even managed to find a positive fallout from Black Monday, the stock market crash of Oct. 19. Association President William M.

Jack D. Cogert, a longtime San Fernando Valley real estate broker, has died at a Reseda convalescent home. He was 85. Cogert died Wednesday of complications of his advanced age, said his son, Alan Cogert of Canoga Park. Born in Manhattan, N.Y., Cogert came to California in 1946 and ran a chicken ranch in Canoga Park. Two years later, he went into the real estate business, starting out at Arleta Realty. In the early 1960s, he moved his business to Sherman Oaks. Cogert retired in 1980.

Gene Greytak, whose resemblance to Pope John Paul II turned the retired real estate broker into a papal impersonator with appearances in movies and television, has died. He was 84. Greytak died Sunday at his home in North Tustin of cancer, said his wife of 62 years, Dorothy. He was a lifelong Catholic who at first was reluctant to become a celebrity impersonator despite the obvious physical similarities and the encouragement of family and friends. "It took me about five years to get up enough courage," he told the Orange County Register in 1987.

Dan Naddor, a real estate broker who coped with cancer diagnosed five years ago by learning to construct crossword puzzles that were regularly published in the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers, died Dec. 28 in Newport Beach. He was 53. The cause was complications related to cancer, said his wife, Tracie. The pastime "definitely prolonged his life because he created a bond with a community of people who looked up to him," his wife said. "Everyone knew who he was in the puzzle world.