The allure of flying for Jonathan Gordon, 37, can be found in the blue yonder of a summer afternoon coupled with a self-professed love for speed. You might even have seen him: in the same instant a dot against the heavens and a man Zen-like at one with his task.
Gordon recently wangled a couple of hours off so he did what he loves to do. He drove his Porsche convertible up to Panorama Flight School at Westchester County Airport and took to the skies. In a complicated world, there is something basic and wonderful to his description of the flight: up the Sound to Bridgeport, Conn.; double back to Stamford, Conn.; on to Poughkeepsie; across the Hudson River to Orange County; back to the airport ”“ along the way doing touch-and-go landings-takeoffs at four regional airstrips.
“The world is much smaller in an airplane,” he said of his adventure, reflecting on the flight with an ain”™t-life-grand smile. “It”™s a great way to get around ”“ you fly to Stamford and take a left.”
His wife and business partner in Admiral Real Estate Services Corp. on Pondfield Road in Bronxville is Jessica Munzel. She had gifted him a military-style dogfight over Long Island”™s East End in 1999 while they were still dating. Gordon called that flight “exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. They put a parachute on you and say, ”˜If the pilot”™s not there with you, you should be leaving also.”™”
Gordon”™s love of flight had its roots in childhood. He spent his summers in Sherman, Conn., and watched prop planes landing and taking off from a grass strip. “I always wanted to do it,” he said. The love of flight dovetails into a general love of speed. A former motorcycle rider, he drives a 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera. A lot of otherwise workaday vehicles on the road possess rear spoilers for show; on the throaty, coiled Carrera, you can tell the spoiler actually does something important.
Because he had not flown in a month before his Bridgeport-Stamford-Orange County flight, Gordon took a flight instructor with him. After all, he only caught the flying bug for real in February 2004, rather a sudden and encompassing case of it one could say: bitten while driving past the airport and in possession of a little time. “I took what”™s called a discovery flight ”“ a 20-minute flight to the Tappan Zee Bridge and back,” he said. “I was hooked.” Still: “I never dreamed I”™d get my license.” He did just that in November 2006, a process he described as tougher than a driving test: “Weather, aerodynamics, mechanics, federal flight regulations ”“ there”™s a lot to know.”
Gordon and Munzel”™s company is sometimes misidentified as a real estate firm, Gordon said. Rather, the couple oversees real estate assets via:
Ӣ property leasing;
Ӣ property management;
”¢ asset management ”“ using properties toward different ends: cash flow vs. establishing multigenerational family plans, for example;
”¢ facility management ”“ for companies with numerous assets;
”¢ financial analysis ”“ “That”™s Jessica”™s department. She”™s a financial genius. And that”™s not just me being subjective; everyone who”™s worked with her would agree.”
Gordon and Munzel met in graduate school at New York University, where both received Master of Science degrees in real estate.
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The worlds of business and flight are linked, it turns out, to a degree greater than simply getting a person to a conference. “You need to be precise,” Gordon said of flying. “You can”™t think about anything else but what you”™re doing. That same attention to detail and precision required in flying ”¦ we use that same approach to handle our clients”™ real estate issues.”
There”™s another benefit to flying. Call it life management. “It costs about the same per hour as a good therapist and for me it provides the same end result,” he said.
Munzel has not flown with her husband. He has picked up her parents on Long Island in a plane, however, and he said she encourages his passion. The couple”™s 6-month-old daughter is Marlo T. Gordon, presumably mum on flying, as 6-month-olds will be. The company, which also maintains a Manhattan office, is at www.admiralrealestate.com.
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