From neon to Inspirada.
Before real estate, there was a neon shop, a blind date, three boys, a few records and a movie. These days there’s also a dog named Sophie and a home in Inspirada.
Everything we’ve done has taught us the same thing: where you live makes life better.
Jeff & Lee Ann
Glass and a job offer.
Jeff comes from three generations of glassblowers and sign makers. At 19 he was spending his free hours on scrap tubing at a neon shop, working toward the day somebody would pay him to do it.
That day came over breakfast. His dad announced he had good news and bad news. The good news: he’d lined up a neon-bending job for Jeff. The bad news:
Jeff’s answer, “What’s the bad news?”, has been a family punchline ever since.
He packed up, left Orlando on his own, found a studio apartment in Las Vegas and learned the trade on the job. Neon paid the bills for close to 20 years, and Jeff still makes it today.
Dad used to come home and tell stories about two men on his crew who’d come here from other countries. He thought the world of them. Those dinners taught me people are people, no matter where they started out.Jeff
Las Vegas fit that. Almost everyone here came from somewhere else.
A blind date and three boys.
A few years on, Jeff was back in Florida bending glass next to a coworker who happened to be Lee Ann’s brother. Jeff got to know the whole family first, and they decided he and Lee Ann needed to meet.
The first date was a Saturday. There were three more before the next Friday. Three months in, we were living together. A year in, we were married.
I grew up with an artist for a dad. He taught kids to paint for free, and my parents opened our home to two teenagers who stayed and became family. Watching them, I learned to treat everybody with the same kindness. I still try to.
When our three boys came along, I stayed home to raise them. Today they’re grown men.
If they weren’t my sons, I’d want them as friends.Jeff
Westbound in August.
By the early 2000s, LED signs were taking over and neon shops were closing. Las Vegas still needed glass benders, so the five of us loaded up and pointed the car west.
That year Jeff bent about three miles of gold neon for Mandalay Bay’s new tower.
I had never seen the West Coast. We came in on I-15 in the middle of August, the dashboard said 115, and then the Strip appeared out of the desert. After years of Florida humidity, the dry heat felt almost easy. I loved this place from that first drive.
Two licenses, one team.
Once the boys were in school, Lee Ann studied for her real estate license and passed in February 2006. Jeff was tired of neon by then, and watching her work made the business look like a lot more fun. His dad’s best friend was a broker, so the idea had been in the back of his mind for years. He was licensed by October.
We’ve shared every client since. Lee Ann calls herself the yin to Jeff’s yang.
Signs, songs, records, a film: each one starts as something you can only picture, and then you figure out how to build it. Deals work the same way. When plan A falls apart, I start on plan B.
I’m the one with the rulebook and the paperwork. Every page gets checked, the broker gets everything they need, and you know what a document says before your pen touches it. When something goes sideways, I look for a fix that works for both sides.
Records, a trade and a movie.
We’ve been making music together for as long as we’ve been together. We’ve recorded, played shows on the road and spent a couple of years living in Nashville.
Our friend Aaron Lee Tasjan, a Grammy-nominated songwriter, recorded an album with us at Sonic Ranch, a studio on a 1,700-acre pecan farm along the Rio Grande near El Paso. One song from those sessions didn’t make the album.
Jeff had learned a lot about mixing from online videos of Bob Clearmountain, the engineer behind Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. and the Stones’ Tattoo You. So he wrote to Bob’s manager with an offer: custom neon for Bob’s studio in exchange for a mix of that leftover song. Bob said yes.
We hauled the signs to Apogee Studio in Santa Monica, which Bob runs with his wife. Then he invited us to his home studio to hear the mix, in the same room Jeff had watched in all those videos. Jeff still calls Bob the nicest person he’s ever met.
Our latest album, Lost Vegas Hiway, was mixed by Eddie Spear before he won his Grammy for Brandi Carlile’s By the Way, I Forgive You. One of our favorite road memories: driving into Taos, New Mexico with the band on the way to a show and hearing one of our songs on the local radio.
The movie started with real estate. Jeff spent two days showing $2 million homes to a client who turned out to be a con man running from Arizona police. That story grew into a set of characters living at a run-down motel, then three music videos, then an hour-long film. Lost Vegas Hiway streamed on Amazon Prime for nearly eight years.
We also wrote a book together, Roadmap to Your First Home, for people buying for the first time.
Home is Inspirada.
We live in Inspirada, and most of our days start and end here. Sophie gets her walks at Potenza Park. Lee Ann has morning playdates with the grandkids at the park. Jeff has filmed hundreds of videos on these streets and in these parks, and we’re proud to sponsor the Inspirada Community Association.
Some nights after a long day I take Sophie out, look around the neighborhood and think, this is what all the work is for.Jeff
Lee Ann checks in with the kids, feeds her sourdough starter, bakes a loaf and walks Sophie, sometimes with Jeff along. Jeff works most of the day, because he likes it. We meet up for dinner at our favorite sushi place.
Being a granny is my superpower, and this neighborhood makes it easy to use.
Our favorite moments in this business happen far from the paperwork. For Lee Ann, it’s handing keys to someone who saved for years to get them. For Jeff, it comes later, usually around Thanksgiving, when a past client posts a photo of their family at the table in a house he remembers sitting empty.
Neighbors first.
Jeff Mix
REALTOR® · Nevada License S.0074457
I hope people remember two things about working with us: we worked hard, and we were honest.
Lee Ann Mix
REALTOR® · Nevada License BS.0143453
I want people to feel warmth and sincerity from us.
Jeff Mix, S.0074457 · Lee Ann Mix, BS.0143453 · Realty ONE Group · 8395 W. Sunset Rd. #190, Las Vegas, NV 89113 · Equal Housing Opportunity