The Hubble Bisbee Group is thrilled to receive the 2020 Family-Owned Business Award from the Baltimore Business Journal. Nancy, Karen and Abby were pleased to sit down with reporter Melody Simmons to talk about their family’s 102-year journey in the Baltimore real estate community.

Founded in 1918 in a three-story Baltimore rowhouse in Federal Hill by L.L. Hubble, the Hubble Bisbee Group has become a highly regarded institution on the Baltimore real estate landscape. “The company today has plush offices in Lutherville’s Green Spring Station where residential settlements can range from $160,000 to $5 million. Karen Hubble Bisbee, 60, principal with her mother, Nancy Hubble, are extremely close and have carried the family’s real estate sales torch for decades. The company has 14 realtors and three employees working full-time in the office.”

A pillar of the real estate community, Nancy Hubble received her real estate license in 1957, and joined her husband in his family business, L.L. Hubble & Co. where she ran the day to day operations of the company and began to shift into residential sales. She went on to own and operate her own highly successful brokerage business, The Hubble Company, which is now known as the Hubble Bisbee Real Estate Group, specializing in Baltimore’s fine homes and estate properties. “Nancy, 81, has served as president of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors, on the board of the Enterprise Foundation and on a city panel that focused on solving Baltimore’s vacancy problems.”

Licensed in 1977, third generation Karen Hubble Bisbee became a full-time agent following graduation from Hollins College in 1981. Karen was a partner in The Hubble Company from 1983 until the firm’s merger with W.H.C. Wilson & Co. in 1990. In 1996, Hubble Bisbee and her mother, Nancy Hubble, joined O’Conor, Piper and Flynn, which went on to become Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage. There the nationally recognized team were Top Producers for the company from 1996 through 2015. In October 2015, the Hubble Bisbee Group left Coldwell Banker and opened their own office in Green Spring Station under the banner of Long & Foster/ Christie’s International Real Estate. Karen Hubble Bisbee/Hubble Bisbee Group has been Top Producer for Long & Foster since that time.

“’I get a lot of credit for my mom’s 63-year effort,” said Hubble Bisbee. “What I’m doing today is because I’m standing on my mother’s back, and she has what she has because my grandfather started it.’” When asked about what professional lessons Hubble Bisbee has learned from her mother, Nancy, she shared that, “’ My mother is a legend in our industry. The thing that defines her is she has operated in integrity and high ethical standards from the day she entered this business. She is a formidable advocate for her clients, but she never steps off that white line. If anything is less than perfect, she won’t participate in it.’”

The fourth generation to earn her real estate license, Abigail Bisbee works currently at Christie’s in New York. Hubble Bisbee highlights that “freedom from the family business is part of a family tradition to find your own way. ‘”My parents didn’t want me to rest on their laurels, rather they wanted me to know what it takes to survive in this business,” Hubble Bisbee said. “I paid my dues. I sold houses that I was literally afraid to open the door because I didn’t know what was on the other side of it. I sell luxury today because I’ve worked from the ground floor up.’”

Hubble Bisbee specializes in properties in and around Maryland, ranging from quaint, 18th century brick-faced homes in downtown Baltimore, luxury condominiums overlooking the Charm City’s outstanding Inner Harbor and pristine 100-acre horse farms in the surrounding counties to remarkable waterfront homes on Gibson Island and Annapolis. “’Everything my family does, it’s all about lifestyle,’” says Hubble Bisbee. “’You don’t spend $3 million or $4 million on sticks and bricks, you spend that on a lifestyle.’”

Abigail Bisbee, Karen Hubble Bisbee and Nancy Hubble