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It was the early 1970s when a young Sandy Gottesman heard of a man starting a new magazine in Austin. Gottesman knew that meant one thing: there was an entrepreneur looking for office space.
Gottesman was relatively new to town at the time, arriving in Austin in 1969 to attend the University of Texas as a business major. He finally got his start in real estate as a leasing agent with Trammell Crow Co. in 1973.
He quickly proved he was willing to go to great lengths to get business from the magazine publisher; He made numerous phone calls and showed up at the man's doorstep unannounced. Repeatedly and relentlessly, Gottesman kept trying to lure the publisher into closing a deal.
"I'd tell him to make an appointment, but he kept showing up," recalls Michael Levy, publisher of Texas Monthly, arguably the Lone Star State's most successful magazine.
Gottesman never did get that piece of business. But he succeeded in making a friend for life.
Levy says his annoyance with Gottesman turned to admiration as he got to know the man beyond the persistent pitch. And he says it isn't surprising that so many other real estate deals have gone Gottesman's way since he turned him down nearly 30 years ago.
"He's one of the nicest people on the face of the earth," Levy says. "He's genuine. He's been successful in large part because people trust Sandy."
For Gottesman, it's "truly pathologically impossible but to tell the truth and do the right thing," Levy says.
Another friend that pre-dates Levy...