A high Hamptons dealer has left Saunders & Associates to affix Christie’s Worldwide Actual Property Group.
After a decade together with his former agency, Ed Bruehl has taken up a brand new submit as managing director of Christie’s East Hampton workplace, the brokerage’s solely outpost within the luxurious enclave.
Bruehl and his former enterprise companion, Jennifer Wilson, closed $177 million price of offers between June 2024 and June 2025, incomes them the No. 9 spot in The Actual Deal’s latest ranking of the highest brokers within the Hamptons.
Wilson won’t be part of Bruehl at Saunders, although he has introduced over his junior companion, Angel Theodore. Bruehl shouldn’t be becoming a member of Christie’s with any of his Saunders listings.
Although Christie’s opened its East Hampton workplace in November 2023, the agency has yet to make a splash within the enclave, a sentiment Bruehl acknowledged to TRD. He described the brokerage’s debut as “underbranded.” Now that he’s on the helm, nonetheless, Bruehl plans to construct up consciousness of the outpost.
As managing director, Bruehl is tasked with main the 15 brokers headquartered on the agency’s East Finish location, together with 30-year veteran Bonita DeWolf and Sanda Busch of the New York Metropolis-based Gottlieb Staff.
He plans on hiring a small variety of “top-shelf senior producers” with the aim of finally opening places of work in Southampton and Westhampton. He added that he intends to double down on harnessing social media and podcasts to promote actual property.
Bruehl mentioned he “couldn’t be happier” together with his time at Saunders. He added that he wasn’t trying to depart the agency when he met with the Christie’s affiliate’s proprietor, president and CEO, Ilija Pavlovic. He mentioned the choice to exit Saunders got here after the 2 had a four-hour lunch on the high of the Rockefeller Middle,
He mentioned a significant promoting level for him was that he’d be working the one Christie’s workplace within the area. He additionally touted the agency’s relationship with the public sale home and the chance to journey to the corporate’s associates in different international locations, together with an upcoming journey to Portugal, Amsterdam and London.
“I all the time knew that there would come a time once I would wish a global model,” Bruehl mentioned. “As soon as my on-line model was sufficiently big, my purchaser pool broader and my vendor shoppers broader, I knew I would wish an even bigger platform.”
Pavlovic added that the Hamptons have more and more grow to be “a global vacation spot.”
“That’s a truth,” Pavlovic mentioned. “For us, that is the primary large step in a brand new course.”
Pavlovic additionally touted the agency’s relationship with builders as a draw for Bruehl, together with what Pavlovic claimed was the biggest portfolio of recent improvement in New Jersey, with greater than $1 billion within the pipeline. In New York, the agency formed a partnership with new improvement veteran, Shlomi Reuveni.
Andrew Saunders, president of Saunders, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Earlier than becoming a member of Saunders in 2015, Bruehl was with Sotheby’s Worldwide. He additionally served as a monetary advisor with Morgan Stanley through the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s.
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