New Development in Ellen Terry Move: Robbie Briggs Had Been Courting ET for Months!

Last month, as I sat in her Luther Lane office as Ellen Terry and Dave Perry-Miller hugged and talked about their future together, I do recall Ellen saying that several Dallas brokers had dialed her that very morning, inviting her to come on over. Well. Great Q & A with Ellen Terry and Robbie Briggs in Friday’s Dallas Business Journal with some new details about the merger. Candace Carlisle sure does a great job of covering commercial & residential real estate as well as sports biz. You have to subscribe to read the interview, but here are a few salient points:

-Robbie and Ellen first started talking about her coming on board six months ago.

-Ellen told Ebby two weeks ago about her decision (which is when I heard rumblings) and Ebby said, “honey, you do whatever you need to do. I support you.”

-Sotheby’s was a real hook for Ellen:  “They have improved their brand and I saw what they were doing marketing wise and I found I had stronger and stronger competition. I was already feeling it in the marketplace that they were growing in a lot of the high-end real estate and I figured, if you can’t beat them, join them.”

-Ellen is keeping her listings. 

-Robbie is an ace recruiter. “I’m not leaving because I did not love the Ebby Halliday company. Ebby was my mentor and role model. I had been there 17 years and loved it. … [But] Robbie pursued me heavily and I decided this was a good time to make a move.”

-I speak from personal experience of my own recent car fate: Ellen had better be careful in that Jag. Last week, she had a fender bender on Northwest Highway with Ebby in the car. She also once told Robbie she didn’t know whether to join him or run him over: Says he: “I was walking across the parking lot at work and Ellen pulled up in her Jag six months ago, saying, “You’re marketing is fantastic. I don’t know whether to congratulate you, or run you over.”

And a new development: Ellen’s assistant Caroline Summers, daughter of designer extraordinaire Emily Summers, will be joining Ellen at Briggs Freeman Sothebys.