Q: How did you wind up in Denver six years ago?
A: My fiancé at the time, Larry, was asked to come work for a company here. I was a vice president with Hewlett-Packard’s headquarters in San Francisco, running a software division worldwide. My fiancé said, “I just can’t always meet you in London or Frankfurt. You have to come to Denver.” It was a very difficult decision to give up my career.
Q: How did your family influence your choice of real estate development as a new career?
A: They taught me that a bulldozer is a toy.
Architecture is in my blood. I’m not an architect, but I have a full appreciation in terms of the calculation and construction of it. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle that you made happen.
What I do now encompasses everything I did before plus a whole lot of creativity. You cannot say I want to do an infinity pool at Hewlett-Packard.
Q: How did your family get into real estate development?
A: When China became a communist country in 1949, my father escaped. My parents were very rich because they owned casinos. My mother used to complain because she had to count gold late into the night.
They escaped into Hong Kong. It was just a fishing village, and my father decided to build housing. He started with seven-story buildings that were low income because everyone was a refugee. Then they started building higher and higher. My father did up to 35 stories, which isn’t high for Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is a challenging place to build because it’s very hilly, and the buildings are narrow and tall.
Q: What is your biggest challenge as a woman in real estate development?
A: As a woman and a minority, and because I look young, as well, people think I don’t have experience. But it’s not the experience, it’s the personality not to give up.
As anyone who runs a business, I provide vision and lead the team. I’m there to make decisions. If I don’t make decisions, the team cannot go forward.
When things don’t work out, I have to be strong enough to say let’s change things.
Q: Will you live at Watermark?
A: I bought a penthouse, including a dog run for Clover (her 5-year-old Scottish terrier).
Q: What other Denver projects have you worked on?
A: I was the project consultant for One Lincoln Park, but Watermark is my first project as a developer.
When I ran the software division for Hewlett-Packard, I was not a software expert. I didn’t need to be. I needed to have the best people. It’s the same as a developer.
Q: What do you do in your spare time?
A: I play the piano. My training is classical, but I play movie music. We bought our house in Cherry Hills because of the piano. The room is 40 feet long and 25 feet wide. It’s good acoustically. A square room is not good acoustically.
I’m Clover’s mother – that’s a full-time thing. It’s always my dream to have a baby. Clover is a dry run. Clover is the first living thing I didn’t kill.
I like walking in the mountains. I miss water. This is the first place I’ve lived that is spare of water and full of mountains.
Q: What charities are you involved with?
A: The Junior Symphony Guild. I took three years off to work on the show house and raise money and work with kids.
I was involved in the Buell Mansion. I sent over 20-something designers to transform a white elephant into something beautiful.
Edited for space and clarity from an interview by staff writer Margaret Jackson.
