While Kirsten Jordan lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, she always has one outstretched limb in Rye. This is where she grew up, starting in fourth grade, and was an All-American track star. She and her husband and three children, ages 10, 8, and 6, are here on weekends from May through October and for most of the summer. Their home at The Ives is right next door to her parents, Karen and Victor Kiarsis.

Jordan wakes up early to enjoy some quiet time before heading off for the day to continue her ascension in real estate. In addition to selling out three different new developments in New York City, she was the first female agent asked to appear on Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listings: New York.”

After earning an undergraduate degree in geography from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Jordan lived briefly in Chicago before moving to Milan, where she got into sales and ended up as international sales manager at Design Bank, an Italian art licensing company. 

“I realized I liked sales and was pretty good at it,” she said. “Perhaps the fact that I was the only person in my office who spoke English helped.” It may also have helped that she decided to learn Italian.

By 2008, she wanted to sell something bigger, so she moved back to New York and went to work for Douglas Elliman. “That’s where I learned the business and where I returned, in 2021, to start my own team.” Elliman developed the team structure early, Jordan said. “It’s part of what makes it possible to have a family life, too.”

After spending so much time in Rye, as an adult and parent, Jordan said she now fully understands the community’s appeal to City dwellers. “Rye is a bite-size experience; its schools are relatively small, its downtown vibrant, unlike when I grew up, and it has maintained its integrity.” 

The enviable lifestyle here is achievable, avers Jordan, as long as one household member has a successful career in New York City. “The high taxes here are always going to be a factor.”

A tremendous amount of business flows from New York City to Rye and environs, noted Jordan, who has sent a fair number of buyers up our way. “I have great admiration for the handful of agents who have differentiated themselves here. It may be harder to be a successful agent in a town this small than it is in a big city,” reflected the 40-year-old wunderkind.