I don’t remember the first time I was introduced to Leah Caro, but I do recall the early days of getting acquainted. I was a fledgling member of the MLS board of directors, and she had just completed her second term as President of the then Westchester County Board of Realtors. She was broker owner of a respected independent brokerage in Bronxville, and she seemed to hold the entire local real estate community in the palm of her hand. Others have done a far better job of describing her massive contribution to the industry better than I, but my point is that when I met her she was about as big a deal as they come and I was sort of the new guy.
I can recall how warmly she welcomed me into the room when I attended my first MLS board meeting. I thought she had good people skills. Here is the two term association president sitting with me and asking me all about myself. Dale Carnegie would be proud.
It didn’t take long for me to discover that this was not charisma on demand. She cared. Leah was one of the very few important people I ever met who didn’t care about being important. She cared about making a difference. She just viewed being important as a means to that end. Even when she was awarded the Realtor of the Year, she always seemed too busy with RPAC, NYSAR, or some other housing related pursuit to dwell on any accolade.
And she did collect accolades like I collected baseball cards when I was 10. Association President. MLS President. Realtor of the Year. NYSAR Trustee. Instructor. Champion of Fair Housing. Legislative council. She chaired so many committees at the local and state level you wondered if, somewhere, there might be a steam -filled basement with a clone or two in there. And yet when you spoke with her, it would probably veer over to her son or her plans for the weekend.
There were plenty of things vying for our collective attention. As independent brokers we were doing all we could to outrun the housing crash. Zillow was disrupting the industry in ways no outside entity ever had. New business models targeted our agents. We had a full plate. Many brokers at that time were vocally complaining online.
Not Leah. After she came back from the NAR annual meeting sometime around 2010, she shared with me how she spoke at the general session (probably in front of thousands) in support of a code of ethics change adding sexual orientation as a protected class, and how, after she spoke, someone brought me up. She couldn’t wait to tell me about that small world moment, how glad she was that I supported the amendment, and how obvious it seemed to her that this was a more worthwhile hill to charge up than complaining about tech giants.
Years later it was no surprise to me to see her deeply involved with Westchester Residential Opportunities, the most prominent local fair housing support organization.
Leah was an innovator in her own right. She spearhead the HGAR Breakfast with Benefits program to educate association members on industry changes, and both the mission and cheeky title fit her. That initiative has been around for quite a while now, pivoting to virtual when the pandemic hit and still cited in new member orientation.
Forgive my cloudy mind, but it will be easier for me to share memories piecemeal than in chronological order. I apologize in advance if I jump around.
Leah embodied the triple crown of awesome humans. She was inarguably beautiful, mischievously funny, and immensely intelligent.
Yet Leah had another quality that struck me more than the others.
She was kind.
She wasn’t friendly with me early on because she was smart or calculated or well versed in organizational harmony. She was warm hearted. I recall on more than one occasion where she sent me a hand written card or note on significant events of my life. The one most recent was just a couple of years ago when my dog died. It meant the world to me. She knew that pain herself. She adored a photo she took of her big Daisy giving me a kiss, and sometimes she’d mention how much she still missed that dog after she died.
The association had an annual installation gala for the incoming board of directors, and one year when my wife couldn’t come I took my 11 year old child, Cat, as my plus 1. The next morning, she posted this on my wall: “A black tie event, and the most beautiful woman in the room was 11.”
I don’t recall the event we were attending together or any other context, but I recall the first time she randomly sat next to me. “How cool is this?” She said. “It doesn’t get cooler than sitting next to Phil.”
I’m thinking the exact same thing, but in reverse. How cool is it to look over and Leah effing Caro decided to sit with me.
From 2010 through 2020, we served together in one way or another on association matters both at the local and often state level. You could count on her to brighten the room, and even when we were at an event upstate they knew who she 
was whether they came from Buffalo or the east end of Long Island.
Around 2012, the Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors was in the early stages of merging with the Rockland and Orange boards. This would mean an expansion of the board but also one badly-needed consolidated MLS. And in one meeting, she said the joke that makes me laugh to this day:
The Manifest Destiny Association of Realtors and the Manifest Destiny MLS.
She meant it ironically, of course, but jokes aside, she called it.
Since that gag was first uttered, Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, Bronx, New York, Dutchess, and Sullivan Counties became affiliated either as MLS or association members, or both. Many a truth was spoken in jest.
She loved to remind me that my first name is Joseph, and that I was a Joe-traitor for using my middle name. I liked her motivation: she named her son Joseph. I could understand the bias. And every March 19th she’d wish me a Happy St Joseph’s Day, often tagging Joe Rand, her compadre in the wink.
She was good at funny. Again, the timelines blur, but early on when I first knew her, I saw that her father made a glowing comment in an online article about her. I think his name was Saul (I could be mistaken) and I remarked to her that a Jewish sounding first name with an Italian sounding last name like Caro was uncommon. “well,” she remarked, “he’s a Sephardic Italian.”
In 2012 my company joined the consortium of independent brokerages that included Leah’s company. We met more or less monthly, and I had a front row seat to observe her as a business person. This woman, so well known for her thousands of hours of volunteer service and legendary attributes as a personal friend was equally savvy in her paying job (or as we all sometimes joked, our non-paying jobs). She was an energetic competitor, a level headed decision maker, and a shrewd judge of character.
There were occasions where we’d seek each others opinion or business advice. It was a comforting thought to know I could call on her, and it was awfully validating to have, of all people, Leah Caro seek my thoughts on something. The last time I sought her advice she was her trademark unfiltered self, telling me what I needed to hear and not what I wanted to hear.
She was absolutely not afraid to say the uncomfortable thing. She once gave me a wake up call after a closing that would have had that record scratch sound if we were on film- she made it clear that it came from a place of love, but that I was a better broker than I was an agent. She further stated that if I intended to remain in the field as a producing broker myself that I’d need to up my game.
A heartbeat later, she moved on the the next wisecrack or pithy observation with the case considered closed, but I can tell you that I did, in fact, up my game after that. I no longer used my ADHD as an excuse for not being better with details.
She was absolutely a kid at heart. Russ Woolley invited a number of the board to his upstate lake house, and I
brought along three of my kids. Leah took a special liking to Mark who was my youngest at age 5, and helped him catch his first fish. She adored that photograph. We both did, and it got recycled quite a bit.
There were some I am sure who’d describe Leah as that friend who would shake you awake on a perfectly good morning to sleep in and cajole you into going on a hike. I could count on her to post lots of pictures online of the Mountain View at Anthony’s Nose or a dozen other beautiful places, and she prided herself on discovering hidden gems like Untermyer Gardens. And then there would be some excursion to Europe or Africa. It wasn’t exhausting just keeping up with her online, but somehow it felt like vicarious cardio.
Leah lived her life like this world was an all you can eat buffet of bucket list experiences.
She just couldn’t sit still; you just knew that to Leah life was urgent, and that home was only for family and recuperating from exploring this big fascinating world with friends in tow. I doubt there is a park within 100 miles of Yonkers that she didn’t know. And she loved to tease me whenever she had a scenic view from a hotel room; I 
seldom have such luck.
For a number of years she hosted a local radio show and podcast on real estate.
Every Thanksgiving she’d post a link to the YouTube for Alice’s Restaurant.
To give you an idea of how over it she was, Leah liked to make me a cup of coffee before meetings somewhere along the way; I think it started the year I was MLS President myself.
She turned me on to chocolate-covered bacon. This might possibly qualify as the only evil-adjacent thing she’s ever done.
At some point, and I regrettably cannot dig deep enough to find it, she started a Facebook page or group documenting her uncovered travel gems.
I could post memories all day and still not do her justice. So yes, Leah Caro was all the things that people say she was. A force of nature. A passion for life. A loyal dear friend. An industry giant with endless energy and a moral compass that was always true. Those are the first things many say, and they are all true. Yet to me, the most memorable thing, the root of all that dynamism and action, was her kindness. She had a kind heart and a curiosity about the world and its people. They say that if Babe Ruth never lived that we would have invented him. You can say the same about Leah. She was a little bit Mary Sue, a little bit of Paul Bunyan, but she was 100% a kind soul. That was for me the source of all that awesomeness.
And, sadly, tragically, we’ll never share another meal, or send a wise ass text in the middle of a dry meeting, or bust each other’s chops on social media. My Fit Bit will never light up at the mere mention of her name, and all we have left are images and many happy memories. At the end of the TV series 1883, a mention is made of a woman who died before her time, and it was said that she outlived the others. Leah did not get as much time in her life as I wish she had, but yes, she got more life in that time than anyone I know. She lived to outlive. I can’t express my deepest condolences to Doug and Joe enough. I am so terribly sorry for your loss.
I think it would be fitting for the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors rename the Realtor of the Year award the Leah Caro Realtor of the Year Award. I say this not just because it will commemorate our beloved friend who is no longer with us. It would mark what she did when she was with us. If Leah Caro had been selected Realtor of the Year in any or all of of the many years that I knew her, no one would have second guessed the selection.
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Remembering Leah Caro
I don’t remember the first time I was introduced to Leah Caro, but I do recall the early days of getting acquainted. I was a fledgling member of the MLS board of directors, and she had just completed her second term as President of the then Westchester County Board of Realtors. She was broker owner of a respected independent brokerage in Bronxville, and she seemed to hold the entire local real estate community in the palm of her hand. Others have done a far better job of describing her massive contribution to the industry better than I, but my point is that when I met her she was about as big a deal as they come and I was sort of the new guy.
I can recall how warmly she welcomed me into the room when I attended my first MLS board meeting. I thought she had good people skills. Here is the two term association president sitting with me and asking me all about myself. Dale Carnegie would be proud.
It didn’t take long for me to discover that this was not charisma on demand. She cared. Leah was one of the very few important people I ever met who didn’t care about being important. She cared about making a difference. She just viewed being important as a means to that end. Even when she was awarded the Realtor of the Year, she always seemed too busy with RPAC, NYSAR, or some other housing related pursuit to dwell on any accolade.
And she did collect accolades like I collected baseball cards when I was 10. Association President. MLS President. Realtor of the Year. NYSAR Trustee. Instructor. Champion of Fair Housing. Legislative council. She chaired so many committees at the local and state level you wondered if, somewhere, there might be a steam -filled basement with a clone or two in there. And yet when you spoke with her, it would probably veer over to her son or her plans for the weekend.
There were plenty of things vying for our collective attention. As independent brokers we were doing all we could to outrun the housing crash. Zillow was disrupting the industry in ways no outside entity ever had. New business models targeted our agents. We had a full plate. Many brokers at that time were vocally complaining online.
Not Leah. After she came back from the NAR annual meeting sometime around 2010, she shared with me how she spoke at the general session (probably in front of thousands) in support of a code of ethics change adding sexual orientation as a protected class, and how, after she spoke, someone brought me up. She couldn’t wait to tell me about that small world moment, how glad she was that I supported the amendment, and how obvious it seemed to her that this was a more worthwhile hill to charge up than complaining about tech giants.
Years later it was no surprise to me to see her deeply involved with Westchester Residential Opportunities, the most prominent local fair housing support organization.
Leah was an innovator in her own right. She spearhead the HGAR Breakfast with Benefits program to educate association members on industry changes, and both the mission and cheeky title fit her. That initiative has been around for quite a while now, pivoting to virtual when the pandemic hit and still cited in new member orientation.
Forgive my cloudy mind, but it will be easier for me to share memories piecemeal than in chronological order. I apologize in advance if I jump around.
Leah embodied the triple crown of awesome humans. She was inarguably beautiful, mischievously funny, and immensely intelligent.
She was kind.
She wasn’t friendly with me early on because she was smart or calculated or well versed in organizational harmony. She was warm hearted. I recall on more than one occasion where she sent me a hand written card or note on significant events of my life. The one most recent was just a couple of years ago when my dog died. It meant the world to me. She knew that pain herself. She adored a photo she took of her big Daisy giving me a kiss, and sometimes she’d mention how much she still missed that dog after she died.
The association had an annual installation gala for the incoming board of directors, and one year when my wife couldn’t come I took my 11 year old child, Cat, as my plus 1. The next morning, she posted this on my wall: “A black tie event, and the most beautiful woman in the room was 11.”
I don’t recall the event we were attending together or any other context, but I recall the first time she randomly sat next to me. “How cool is this?” She said. “It doesn’t get cooler than sitting next to Phil.”
I’m thinking the exact same thing, but in reverse. How cool is it to look over and Leah effing Caro decided to sit with me.
From 2010 through 2020, we served together in one way or another on association matters both at the local and often state level. You could count on her to brighten the room, and even when we were at an event upstate they knew who she
was whether they came from Buffalo or the east end of Long Island.
Around 2012, the Westchester Putnam Association of Realtors was in the early stages of merging with the Rockland and Orange boards. This would mean an expansion of the board but also one badly-needed consolidated MLS. And in one meeting, she said the joke that makes me laugh to this day:
The Manifest Destiny Association of Realtors and the Manifest Destiny MLS.
She meant it ironically, of course, but jokes aside, she called it.
Since that gag was first uttered, Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, Bronx, New York, Dutchess, and Sullivan Counties became affiliated either as MLS or association members, or both. Many a truth was spoken in jest.
She was good at funny. Again, the timelines blur, but early on when I first knew her, I saw that her father made a glowing comment in an online article about her. I think his name was Saul (I could be mistaken) and I remarked to her that a Jewish sounding first name with an Italian sounding last name like Caro was uncommon. “well,” she remarked, “he’s a Sephardic Italian.”
In 2012 my company joined the consortium of independent brokerages that included Leah’s company. We met more or less monthly, and I had a front row seat to observe her as a business person. This woman, so well known for her thousands of hours of volunteer service and legendary attributes as a personal friend was equally savvy in her paying job (or as we all sometimes joked, our non-paying jobs). She was an energetic competitor, a level headed decision maker, and a shrewd judge of character.
She was absolutely not afraid to say the uncomfortable thing. She once gave me a wake up call after a closing that would have had that record scratch sound if we were on film- she made it clear that it came from a place of love, but that I was a better broker than I was an agent. She further stated that if I intended to remain in the field as a producing broker myself that I’d need to up my game.
A heartbeat later, she moved on the the next wisecrack or pithy observation with the case considered closed, but I can tell you that I did, in fact, up my game after that. I no longer used my ADHD as an excuse for not being better with details.
She was absolutely a kid at heart. Russ Woolley invited a number of the board to his upstate lake house, and I
brought along three of my kids. Leah took a special liking to Mark who was my youngest at age 5, and helped him catch his first fish. She adored that photograph. We both did, and it got recycled quite a bit.
There were some I am sure who’d describe Leah as that friend who would shake you awake on a perfectly good morning to sleep in and cajole you into going on a hike. I could count on her to post lots of pictures online of the Mountain View at Anthony’s Nose or a dozen other beautiful places, and she prided herself on discovering hidden gems like Untermyer Gardens. And then there would be some excursion to Europe or Africa. It wasn’t exhausting just keeping up with her online, but somehow it felt like vicarious cardio.
Leah lived her life like this world was an all you can eat buffet of bucket list experiences.
She just couldn’t sit still; you just knew that to Leah life was urgent, and that home was only for family and recuperating from exploring this big fascinating world with friends in tow. I doubt there is a park within 100 miles of Yonkers that she didn’t know. And she loved to tease me whenever she had a scenic view from a hotel room; I
seldom have such luck.
For a number of years she hosted a local radio show and podcast on real estate.
Every Thanksgiving she’d post a link to the YouTube for Alice’s Restaurant.
To give you an idea of how over it she was, Leah liked to make me a cup of coffee before meetings somewhere along the way; I think it started the year I was MLS President myself.
She turned me on to chocolate-covered bacon. This might possibly qualify as the only evil-adjacent thing she’s ever done.
At some point, and I regrettably cannot dig deep enough to find it, she started a Facebook page or group documenting her uncovered travel gems.
I could post memories all day and still not do her justice. So yes, Leah Caro was all the things that people say she was. A force of nature. A passion for life. A loyal dear friend. An industry giant with endless energy and a moral compass that was always true. Those are the first things many say, and they are all true. Yet to me, the most memorable thing, the root of all that dynamism and action, was her kindness. She had a kind heart and a curiosity about the world and its people. They say that if Babe Ruth never lived that we would have invented him. You can say the same about Leah. She was a little bit Mary Sue, a little bit of Paul Bunyan, but she was 100% a kind soul. That was for me the source of all that awesomeness.
And, sadly, tragically, we’ll never share another meal, or send a wise ass text in the middle of a dry meeting, or bust each other’s chops on social media. My Fit Bit will never light up at the mere mention of her name, and all we have left are images and many happy memories. At the end of the TV series 1883, a mention is made of a woman who died before her time, and it was said that she outlived the others. Leah did not get as much time in her life as I wish she had, but yes, she got more life in that time than anyone I know. She lived to outlive. I can’t express my deepest condolences to Doug and Joe enough. I am so terribly sorry for your loss.
I think it would be fitting for the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors rename the Realtor of the Year award the Leah Caro Realtor of the Year Award. I say this not just because it will commemorate our beloved friend who is no longer with us. It would mark what she did when she was with us. If Leah Caro had been selected Realtor of the Year in any or all of of the many years that I knew her, no one would have second guessed the selection.