If there’s ever a contest for Mr. Palos Verdes, Dana Graham is it. A well-known realtor, he has lived here most of his life and is often seen zipping around town in his BMW M sports car, or he’s showing clients properties in his 1929 Packard or his 1932 Chrysler Imperial convertible sedan.

Dana was born in his parents’ house on 3405 Via Palomino in Palos Verdes Estates on Halloween night in 1947, delivered by a doctor who lived a few streets over. “There was a dearth of hospitals,” Dana explained in an interview at his current Berkshire Hathaway Realty office recently. The entire population in PV at that time was about 2000.

And how did the family end up in Palos Verdes? As the story goes, Dana’s father, an artist, and his mother, a musician, were stuck in Mexico City penniless and destitute. “So, Dad called up old friends from Michigan who by twists and turns had ended up here and asked if he and his wife who was pregnant (with Dana) could live with them for a couple of weeks,” Dana recounted. “It so happened that the friends were going on a two-year cruise around the world. And so, we ended up living there for a couple of years.”

In 1949, the Grahams bought a lot on Via Pinzon for $2000 and built a small house for $10,000. “Via Pinzon was a dirt road,” Dana said. “The city was still broke after the war so [the city council] had the bright idea that if you wanted to build a house on a dirt street, you had to pave the street. So, my dad and Bob Norman, who bought the lot across the street, got together and had the street paved.” There was no money for curbs and many streets still don’t have any.

Dana and two younger sisters went through the local schools as they opened – Valmonte Elementary, Dapple Gray, Malaga Cove, Palos Verdes High and finally Rolling Hills High. He graduated from UCLA in 1970, double-majoring in military history and music. Two days later, he joined the Marine Corps.

Because he had to have his military uniform cleaned and pressed, he had befriended the owner of the drycleaners in the Peninsula Center. He had sometimes seen the owner’s daughter there. “And I asked the mother if she could set me up with her,” Dana recalled. “She did. But it turned out she had another older daughter, so when I showed up at the house, there was the sister.”

He worked his way over to the younger one, and they married in 1972. After stint on the East Coast where Dana worked in management at Bose and later for JBL, the couple moved back to Southern California, and in 1980, they decided to buy a house at 404 Via Colorin, PVE, for $350,000. “That was, a lot of money for us, especially with a 17% interest rate.”

The experience was a life-changer. “The agent didn’t know anything. She didn’t understand financing or construction. For what she’s making on this deal, she should know more, so I thought to myself that one of these days I’m going to look into maybe becoming the kind of realtor I wish I could have found, someone who understands the nitty gritty of real estate, someone who understands financing, construction and contract law but who also is empathetic to the client. I didn’t see why the two had to be mutually exclusive.” He took the real estate test in 1984 and started with Century 21 on Crenshaw and Sepulveda. “But most of my business was in Palos Verdes,” Dana said. And soon he transferred to Coldwell Banker in the Peninsula Center.

Dana Graham with Bruce Short.
On March 16, 2024, Dana Graham was distinguished with membership in the Chairman's Circle at Berkshire Hathaway, a testament to his exceptional sales achievements.

Although his marriage didn’t last, business was good. Parents of kids he went to school with were aging and wanted to sell. One day, a woman came by to the office selling purses. Dana recalled. “I happened to be in the office when she was there, and, wow! She was good-looking, but I didn’t see a white cane or anything wrong with her, so I didn’t think I had a snowball’s chance in hell, but I went in checking her out, pretending to look at purses. Before she left, I asked her out.” Their first date was at an Italian restaurant in Brentwood where she lived. “And we really hit it off,” They married in 2000.

At that time, Dana was into building model war ships, a popular hobby, especially among engineers. Everything has to work; guns fire BBs, and people take their creations to battles all over the country. “My first battle was in Oklahoma in 1999, and I got slaughtered,” Dana recalled. “Several of us from Southern California rented a van. We put the ships -- 4-7 feet long -- in the back.” There may be 80 ships on nine or ten-acre lakes, and, yes, the geek factor is high, Dana admits.

Leaving the boats behind, Dana and his wife bought their first antique car in 2003. They traveled through Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan before they found the 1929 Packard in a museum. “It looked unbelievable, but it didn’t run” Dana recalled. “But if we could just get that engine to turn over, I could rebuild the engine, not a problem.” The engine turned, and the Grahams bought the car.

The 1932 Chrysler came here from Washington, one of only eight left in the world today. Today, each car is valued in the six figures.

His interest in history led him to the local historical society, of which he’s now the president. “I had given lectures on the history of Palos Verdes for them before, which was easy for me because I lived through it, saw it with my own eyes.”

But Dana is also interested in the future and how to preserve this beautiful area. “Right now, the state is trying to shove low-income housing down everyone’s throat,” Dana said. “But we do not have much open space left. There’s a canyon below Silver Spur School that I sold to a guy in 2002 who was going to build a dream house for him and his wife, but his wife died and he wanted to sell it. It's zoned R-1. It was on the market for months, but finally a guy from India, I call him Crazy Horse, comes in saying he wants to build a dream house for him and his wife. A few months after we close escrow, his name shows up in the L A Times as the builder of high-density, low income housing., and now he wants to build 482 units, four buildings, eleven stories high in the middle of that residential area, and the City has to pay to have the infrastructure expanded to support it. The architectural drawings are alarming. My prediction is that if it comes to breaking ground, we’re going to make the six o’clock news [because of protests]. People will not put up with it.”

At age 76 but looking years younger, Dana has no plans to retire and will continue to help families find their dream homes in his home town. For more information: https://danagraham.com/

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Kari H. Sayers BIO

With a BA in English and an MA in linguistics from California State University, Long Beach, Kari Sayers went with her husband to Saudi Arabia, where she first worked as a music teacher at Riyadh International Community School and then as a journalist for the English newspapers the Saudi Gazette and the Arab News as well as in-flight magazines. When she returned to Southern California, she taught literature, college composition, and English as a Second Language at Marymount California University in Rancho Palos Verdes, while freelancing as a theater, classical concert, and opera reviewer for local newspapers and magazines in the Los Angeles area.. In addition to authoring the novels Roses Where Thorns Grow, Under the Linden Tree, and the soon-to-be-released Justice for Lizzie, all published by Melange Books in Minnesota, she is the developer and editor of the anthology Views and Values, published by Cengage. Now widowed,. Kari lives in the Los Angeles area.