
©2017 Saratoga Photographer.com
By Maureen Werther
As Jeff and Deane Pfeil prepare to transition out of their commercial real estate and development careers and into their new lives on Bainbridge Island in Washington state, they have a lot to be proud of and a lot to be grateful for.
The husband-and-wife team created Pfeil & Co. Real Estate and moved to Saratoga Springs from Westchester in 1994. Both were commercial real estate brokers and they started out managing shopping center developments, moving into doing historic restorations and adaptive re-use apartments. Deane was born and raised in Troy, while Jeff comes from the small town of Carmel, in Putnam County.
Looking back on their careers, Deane recalls that there was no internet when they first began and it took a lot of cold-calling to develop a client base, something at which she excelled.
“We liked to joke that I would get them on the line and Jeff would reel them in,” she said.
The Pfeils first major project in Saratoga Springs was the office building at 340 Broadway.
“The property had been sitting vacant since 1969, and we kept asking ourselves why nothing had been done with it,” she said. Deane zeroed in on Eddie Bauer and “barraged” them with flyers, mailings, and information about Saratoga Springs.