How a top RIA recruiter made an 18th century landmark into a breakaway safe house

Brooke’s Note: No matter how automated, digital, fiber optic and virtual the advisory business becomes, it will survive based on its humanity. Being human means loving things for reasons that go beyond their immediate utility. So it was nice to see that a prominent recruiting company had become the resident curators of a bit of a money pit. It just so happens that the building also supports wildlife and the friendly ghosts of American history. I admit that in my many conversations with Mindy Diamond over the years I pictured her in a brass-and-glass setting — an image she affirms is not out of keeping with her general predilections. But she says she often gets to the office early, before 7:30 a.m. when nobody else is around, opens the windows and knows that she has made the right choice, even as she slaps a mosquito.

My husband and partner, Howard and I must have passed by our current office a million times in our travels over the years. It’s only minutes from our home and located on the main street we travel daily. At that time, it was an A.G. Edwards office, and we often remarked about what a cool old house it was and how much we would love office space like that.

I had just started Diamond Consultants in my home as a part-time endeavor — first in a spare bedroom, then expanding to the basement, and wasn’t thinking beyond that. The business and staff continued to get bigger, however, and in 2003 we knew it was time to move to more formal office space that provided room to grow. See: Why Mindy Diamond is morphing her firm away from pure wirehouse recruiting.

We were fortunate to find just the right set-up above a pizza parlor in the heart of the quaint town of Chester, N.J. Fast forward a year and Howard and I — together since our late teens — knew that while easy access to pizza was convenient for lunch, the atmosphere did not adequately reflect our sophisticated business, style, and growing staff. We were adding client firms quickly and catching the attention of many more advisors.

I knew that the business had “legs” and we would soon need to focus on making a bigger move. My thoughts were oddly aligned with discussions I was having with advisors about the pros and cons of making a move — and determining if their needs were still being met or if they had outgrown their current environment. See: 8 ways that the RIA business is achieving scale at breakneck speed.

Welcome Home Farm

As months went by, we continued to add staff and look for new space but nothing seemed quite right. We thought about adding on to our house and looked at five-story office buildings and office condos by the highway. I said: 'yuck’ to every one of them.

In early in 2006, we got lucky. Howard and I were passing the “cool old house” and noticed a “For Rent” sign. This building had been speaking to both of us over time and we knew immediately that we needed to learn more. We discovered that the house dates back to the mid-1700s and is referred to in historical literature as the “Seward House,” built by Obadiah Seward, an ancestor of Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state.

The Diamond office had a more
bucolic tone in 1900 when this
photo was taken.

The more we learned about the house, six minutes away from our very contemporary home, the more intrigued we became. It’s not because I like old things — just the opposite — but I love this one. This building was originally the main farmhouse for a large farm that encompasses many acres of the surrounding area. The original part of the building — where mine and Howard’s offices are – was built in 1737. It was completed in 1782 and called Welcome Home Farm. Everyone with roots in Chester knows the building and its story.

It’s significant to us that for approximately 275 years, it’s been in continuous use. Howard was a history major in college and we tend to think of things in a historical context. Knowing that we are keeping the flame alive and well in this beautiful building means a lot to us. You can’t help but walk through the front door and think about those who came before us and what the country was like back then.

Creaky floors and flat screens: The
downstairs conference room

Old phones and cabinets

Purchasing this building was a lofty goal for us as a growing firm and a challenge for me personally, with little imagination, to picture it beyond the cold, damp vacant building it was. A.G. Edwards left nothing in the building except for an antiquated phone system and some old brokerage-form nameplates in a cabinet.

Howard, the visionary, saw the potential immediately and we rented it the following week. We knew it was going to cost us much more than the rent we were paying over the pizza parlor but we loved it and wanted to make it work. Howard and our accountant knew that from a tax and investment point of view, by buying the building and paying rent to ourselves we would come out ahead in the long run. I think we were hoping for some kind of “historical landmark” tax status, but while the farm itself is historic — like much of Chester — it’s not a documented historical landmark. We bought the building in 2007 for $725,000 just before the market crashed, and we probably overpaid a bit, but this is exactly where Diamond Consultants is meant to be.

Amityville Horror ooze

Fireplace: Then, of course, there were
the bats that lived in the
foyer and one of the fireplaces
upstairs.

Without question, it’s a labor of love to restore and care for an historic structure, and we were not ready for some of the discoveries that we have made over the last several years. We have spent about $100,000 on restoration work. There are structural issues that are not ideal and unfixable like having our staff of 12 people on two separate floors

Most recently we found thick burgundy liquid seeping through some of the walls and dripping down the various chimneys. We joked about how “Amityville Horror” it was — but only after we learned that it was just old creosol which had built up over centuries, and now loosened from a new furnace blowing heat up there. Then. of course, there were the bats that lived in the foyer and one of the fireplaces upstairs. Fortunately one of our employees thought they were cute and had no problem capturing them while they were sleeping and taking them outside.

We’ve been surprised by doors that lead to a fantastic attic with exposed brick that my husband has an eye on for his new office, and a gigantic basement which is a labyrinth of various rooms. One can only imagine what went on down there in the day. We recently had it professionally cleaned, sealed and painted since it was too creepy to get to the circuit breaker down there. My husband’s pet peeve is that at 6-foot-2 he tends to hit his head in the doorways if he forgets to duck. Apparently, aside from Lincoln himself, people were much shorter back then. My biggest complaint is that we have to all have window air conditioning units since installing central air would be a tremendous amount of work given the age of the house and “bones.”

Character costs money

Because most of our business is phone-based, not many clients get to see our charming office space, though recently we were happy to host executives from Wells Fargo, Raymond James and Focus Financial who are looking to add advisors. Those who do, however, always compliment us on how much character the building has and they want to know about its history. Howard always smiles when someone uses the word “character”; one of the contractors once told him that the building has character, but character costs money.

College sweethearts Howard and Mindy Diamond
passed by 'The Seward House’ hundreds
of times over the years.

We encourage clients to visit us whenever possible. We’re less than an hour’s drive from New York but when you’re here, you feel like you’re a million miles away. Howard and I have an apartment in the city, too, that we work from a couple of days a week.

Stability and commitment

It took a lot of time, effort and money to maintain as much of the original house — with its deep roots and documented history — as possible but also to update it with a few modern conveniences. Today it’s a beautiful example of the regional Greek revival style with many typical details surviving — including a sign telling all it was “Built in 1782” (we were to learn that the original part of the house was built in the 1730s), extensive moldings, exposed brick, wood floors, six fireplaces, and various nooks and crannies.

While the floor of our downstairs conference room is not level and the chairs on casters move around a bit, and our back staircase is lopsided and creaky, we do have large flat-screen televisions, cloud technology and a functional kitchen (except when the pipes freeze in the winter). All in all, we embrace the home’s imperfections and are extremely proud to be the caretaker of such an important structure — one that reflects our own firm values of stability and commitment.

Mindy Diamond is president of Diamond Consultants, in Chester, N.J., a nationally recognized search and consulting firm in the financial services industry.