Founding broker Kathryn Hill explains how Thornwall Properties, Inc. came to be almost 28 years ago after one office dissolved and a new one was formed…
“…We had many meetings to discuss what to do. We talked about joining another office, going our separate ways or opening our own office. There were nine of us attending these meetings. We really wanted to start our own office but we didn’t want the responsibility or worry. We couldn’t imagine nine rather independent women being able to smoothly make decisions together. Even finding a name was difficult so at times we amused ourselves thinking of silly names such as The Golden Fleece Realty, and San Andreas Realty, with the slogan “We’re honest to a fault.” Finally, Marilyn Pursley made the suggestion that we call ourselves Thornwall. This had been one of the Berkeley telephone exchanges. It was the perfect name. It was rooted in Berkeley, but not obviously. It was not limiting in terms of the kind of real estate we did, or what area we sold in. We settled on the ending – Properties, and Thornwall Properties was born. I believe we all felt that if nine of us could agree on a name, it might be possible to agree on just about anything that might lie ahead of us…”