Commercial real estate investor Todd J. Drowlette has brokered boatloads of deals with major corporations, including Starbucks and Dunkin’, but when it came to signing on the dotted line for his own property purchase, “The Real Estate Commission” star was swayed by something far more important than a bottom line.
The 44-year-old A&E star, who documents the very lucrative world of commercial real estate investment in his series, spends his days enmeshed in the hustle and bustle of the industry—and was eager to find a retreat where he could carve out at least a small slice of relaxation, even as he continues to negotiate multimillion-dollar deals.
So when he happened upon a lake house in Saratoga Springs, NY, in 2014 that he felt would give him the best of both worlds, he jumped at the chance to make it his own, particularly after he had the chance to experience the cabin’s “million-dollar view.”
The view, Drowlette tells Realtor.com®, was all the more astounding because the listing agent for the property had neglected to highlight it as one of the home’s most impressive—if not the most impressive—asset.
“It’s funny, the people who had it listed didn’t even show any of the pictures of the lake and literally, if you walk out my back door, you’ve less than 10 feet and you’re in the lake,” the TITAN Commercial Realty Group founder shared. “You can’t be any more directly on the lake.”
For the last 11 years, Drowlette has continue to hammer out huge real estate deals from the deck of the property—and even keeps a framed picture of the incredible waterfront view in his office in Albany, NY, so he can soak up that feeling of bliss any time he’s not able to enjoy it in person.
Between the months of April and October, Drowlette, his wife Camila Rodriguez Drowlette, and their 15-year-old pitbull rescue, Zoe, spend every weekend at the lake house, which is located about 40 miles north of their primary residence in the Albany suburb of Glenmont, NY.
While those weekends away are full of family time—especially because Drowlette is often joined by his mother, stepfather, and their two dogs—business continues as usual, albeit with a much more scenic backdrop.
Having a full house has Drowlette dreaming of expanding his lake escape, though he acknowledges he’ll have to find a creative solution to find additional square footage since both of his neighbors seem locked into their land.
“The guy next door built a beautiful house, [and] my other side neighbor, maybe at some point [would sell], but they’re already on the third generation,” explains Drowlette. “They just use it on the weekends and they all live like 10 minutes away so I don’t see them giving it up any time.”
For now, Drowlette is content regularly dropping his anchor at his Adirondack-themed cabin. In this installment of Celebrity Sanctuary, Drowlette details the unique property history of his Saratoga Lake retreat and shares all the upgrades he’s completed himself to make it a picture-perfect place for whenever he needs a change of scenery.
I was looking for quite a while, and I walked around the back and I saw the view and I was like, “This is it.” It was just, like, peace, calm—everything I was looking for.
It had the convenience of like, “Oh, you can be in shopping and restaurants in 10 minutes,” but when you’re on the lake, if I’m floating or I’m sitting on my dock, I’m so far off the road it feels like you’re kind of out in the middle of nowhere, compared to other lakes where you’re literally three hours in the middle of nowhere.
When I saw the view, I was like, “This is it for me. I can knock [the house] down.” I just wanted the land.
It’s on a street … that there’s, like, 12 houses on. Originally, it was a bunch of people who [worked] at [General Electric, because] headquarters globally used to be in Schenectady, which is in the capital region. So it started off as, like, a campsite.
There were originally tents on this lake back in the 1940s or ‘30s and then somewhere around the ‘50s or ‘60s, a bunch of people who had campsites started taking all the excess crate shipping stuff from GE that would come in from all the huge things they would assemble.
They would take the wood and they built houses out of that. As time went on in, like, the ’80s, then people started knocking those down and building normal houses.
I would say [my] house was built in probably 1980, but I literally knocked it down and rebuilt it. It’s a two-story modern with an Adirondack kind of cabin motif. On the outside, it’s a modern-looking house but on the inside, it’s Adirondack. Inside, it’s all hickory. We vaulted ceilings.
I left a wall up, and then basically redid everything else. I left the foundation. The house was built on temporary jacks and cinder blocks. My stepfather is retired now, but he’s a civil engineer.
We spent what I think was six weekends in a crawlspace that I had to crawl through with a shovel that I had to break the handle off because it was too tall. We dug down 5 feet, I think 35 piers, pulled sonotubes through the crawl space, put them in there, and then brought 80-pound bags of cement in through the crawlspace window, poured that, filled the piers, then we ran steel beams across and basically rebuilt the floor.
Then we went up, built out. We put a two-story deck on it that I love.
A lot of the stuff is just Adirondack-themed, which I, being born in Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains, a lot of those things are just Adirondack-inspired, like, remind you of home-type of [stuff].
We went with hickory floor because it feels the most Adirondack-y, kind of log cabin without the log cabin. We did vaulted ceilings on the second floor. We have custom-made hand railings. The spindles are all custom-made with wrought iron that go up.
Then we have hickory stairs and a hickory banister. The deck wraps around on the ground floor, and then the second floor, you’re less than 10 feet from sitting on the dock. You could jump—I wouldn’t, but you could jump off the second story into the lake.
As decor, my grandmother, who died when she was 100, we kept all of her [things] that I remember since I was a little kid, all of her plates and cups. At the lake house, we have her teacups. It’s a certain kind of porcelain. I don’t remember what it is, but that’s there. When I sit on the [deck] and have morning coffee or whatever, it’s in my grandmother’s coffee cups or teacups.
I’m generally on the deck unless, like, I don’t do well in direct sunlight so you’ll find me there in the morning, and then as the sun gets overhead, then I’ll either be on the lower deck or I’m in full sleeves with a UV protectant and a big, stupid hat that stops me from getting burned.
I’m either floating off the end of the dock—We have these huge inflatable, like, 10 people can sit in them things—or I’m on one of the Jet Skis ripping around the lake. Or, we’re on the boat, depending who’s at the lake and who we’re entertaining.
I always say, “Come to our camp! Come to our camp! Come to the camp!” And then people come and they’re like, ”This is a house.” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah, but we just call it the camp.”
I think I set expectations very low so then when they get there, they’re expecting an outhouse or something. They’re like, “Oh, wow, you have running [water]! This is a normal house.” I’m like, “Yeah, it’s a year-round house.” It’s a million dollar view. When people walk out, they’re like, “Oh, my God, OK, I see why you like it here.”
This will blow people’s minds, probably, of just ridiculousness, but when you work the way I work, I’m just hardwired that way. You have to drag me on vacation, right? Because it’s just not who I am. But on the weekends, I’ll be at the lake. [On] Fridays I’ll wear a bathing suit and be barefoot and sit on my deck and I can work all day long, and I’m drinking an iced tea or whatever and to me, that’s like taking a day off.
When I get to lake season, looking out [at] the view, I could have deals falling apart left and right, and I just don’t care. My temperament when I’m in the lake, it’s like, f–k it, I just don’t care. It’s whatever. So that is very much my place of zen. Looking at the water just has a calming effect on me.
People are like, “Oh, it should just be [for] relaxation.” To me, that is relaxation. A lot of people hate what they do for a living. I love what I do for a living. To do it isn’t a burden to me, but if I can do it barefoot and being able to look out at the water, that’s like a vacation to me, so that’s how I feel about a sanctuary.
I go every single weekend. I tell people, “If you invite me to anything and it’s during lake season, I’m not coming. I’m telling you in advance if you want me to go do something on weekends, ask me after Oct. 1 and before, like, April 15. Otherwise, I’m not interested.”
I’m there every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Sometimes I’m there also during the week if the weather’s nice.
I grew up on the Canadian border. It was 30 below zero. I don’t like being cold anymore. I’m over that. The wind coming across the lake is freezing, so although I heat the house and it’s a year-round house, I do not go there during the winter.
My wife’s like, “Oh, let’s use it this winter.” Last winter, we didn’t use it once. I didn’t go there a single time, so it’s pretty much as soon as April hits and feels like it’s spring till middle-end of October, and then I’m out for the season.
I kick myself because the guy who I bought it from also owned the house next door and I should have bought them both and I should have made the house three times bigger. Everybody wants to come to the lake house, so if I had to do it over again, I would have probably had a six or seven-bedroom lake house.
I could have built probably three times the size house if I had bought the property next door, but you can’t live life in reverse. Like, I wanted a lake house, I have the lake house, great view, and if people want to come visit, they just got to schedule the weekend for the guest room.