Realtors Susan Gilmore and Melissa Hennessy each contribute vital skills to their collaboration as Gilmore Hennessy, a partnership that serves residential buyers and sellers throughout greater Chattanooga.
Gilmore, for example, is a wordsmith whose fingers can tap out a listing description suitable for a pleasurable afternoon read. As a published novelist, she says she “loves to tell the story of a home.”
Hennessy, on the other hand, is the resident math expert. Gilmore declares Hennessy to be “masterful at appraisals,” which can be a key tool for a seller who wants to extract every possible dollar of value out of their home, for example.
But there is one skill set in which Gilmore and Hennessy both ostensibly fall short: physics.
One might think a Realtor needs only the instinctive understanding of physics most people have – and one would be correct. Yet Gilmore and Hennessy still found themselves chasing a dozen rolling pumpkins down a steep road in Signal Mountain one autumn day a few years ago.
“We started giving pumpkins to our clients every year,” the storyteller begins as the mathematician throws back her head and laughs. “These were no ordinary pumpkins, either, but big, carvable ones.”
Gilmore holds her hands a few feet apart – as though she’s lifted an invisible beach ball – and explains how the annual giveaway was a simple affair when she and Hennessy were new to real estate and had only a smattering of clients. Over time, however, their yearly promotion became more of an endeavor as their customer list grew.
“A few years ago, we were up to several carloads,” Gilmore continues. “I’d already pulled out my back lifting one of the pumpkins at the grocery store. Then, as we were parked on a hill in Signal Mountain, I opened the trunk without thinking, and all the pumpkins spilled out and started rolling down the hill. We gave chase but stopped halfway.”
The massive gourds – as well as the annual giveaway – came to a messy end at the bottom of the hill in a cascade of orange bursts. As Gilmore and Hennessy scooped pumpkin guts off the road, they conceived a new tradition.
“We gave away pumpkin bread the next year,” Gilmore says.
Anyone blessed to have witnessed this comic caper might have concluded that Gilmore and Hennessy could have benefited from a teamwork seminar. But that would have been the wrong impression, says Gilmore, who insists the pair works hand in glove.
“We do everything together. Some people say we needlessly double up when one person would do, but real estate wouldn’t be fun if we worked separately. We have a good time.”
Essentially, Gilmore explains, their clients belong to both her and Hennessy, and both of them are available to serve these customers, whatever their needs might be. Neither of them is the buyer’s agent, or the listing agent, or the contract-to-close specialist; rather, they work in tandem as needs arise.
“We tried, ‘I’ll do this and you do that,’ but it lasted about a week,” Gilmore notes. “Usually, I gravitate toward one task and Melissa gravitates toward another.”
“We just feel it,” Hennessy tosses in.
“We tell people, ‘When you’re working with her, you’re also working with me,’” Gilmore says. “You get two for the price of one.”
Before coming together as Realtors, Gilmore and Hennessy became family. Hennessy married Gilmore’s nephew, and when Hennessy and her husband relocated from Washington, D.C., to Chattanooga in 2016 to raise their daughter in a calmer setting, Gilmore suggested Hennessy join her in real estate.
“I was feeling like I’d do a better job if I had someone working with me,” Gilmore recalls. “Realtors are on the clock 24 hours a day, seven days a week; there are no boundaries because people are making a huge investment. I love Melissa with every fiber of my being, and I trust her, so I said, ‘Come work with me.’”
Hennessy was ready to complement her new life in Chattanooga with a fresh professional start. A member of the family that owns the National Capital Bank of Washington – D.C.’s oldest bank – she’d grown up in the financial world. Starting in the basement of the bank when she was 13, she climbed the career ladder at the institution as she earned an undergraduate degree at Penn State and later became a securities adviser after obtaining her Series 7 license.
Hennessy says working at the bank became difficult after her father died and she finally left the family business after she and her husband realized they didn’t want to raise their daughter, who was 2 at the time, in D.C.
“Seeing someone else sitting in dad’s chair at the bank was hard, and living in D.C. with a 2-year-old was hard, so we decided to move to Chattanooga, where my husband’s family lives,” Hennessy remembers. “If we were going to move, we were going to be with family.”
Family included Aunt Susan, or Susan Gregg Gilmore, as her name appears on the covers of the three Southern fiction novels she’s written.
Gilmore is no self-published dreamer but a USA Today recommended read. NPR critic Alan Cheese called Gilmore’s first book, “Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen,” a “standout coming-of-age novel,” while New York City book review magazine Kirkus Reviews described her third, “The Funeral Dress,” as a “revelatory novel that offers an evocative account of the lives of Appalachian working women.” (Even more impressive, Dolly Parton once expressed her interest in starring in a film version of “Dairy Queen.”)
Despite selling 130,000 copies of “Dairy Queen,” writing novels wasn’t paying the bills, Gilmore says, so she became a Realtor at the urging of her oldest daughter’s mother-in-law, a real estate attorney.
Gilmore intended for real estate to boost her income but not replace writing. However, as she grew busier and busier with her new enterprise, she noted that her success was coming at the cost of precious time at her keyboard. When Hennessy arrived in Chattanooga, Gilmore saw an opportunity.
“We both wanted to have a life,” Gilmore says. “Melissa wanted to spend time with her daughter and be involved in school and sports, and I have grandchildren and am still writing, and working together allows us to be available full-time but still have a great quality of life.”
Today, Gilmore is anticipating the publication of her fourth book, “The Curious Calling of Leonard Bush,” in 2025 and is working on a sequel to “Dairy Queen.” While her partnership with Hennessy has helped to make this possible, she still has to squeeze bursts of writing between bouts of real estate – a process that is at least partially responsible for her taking seven years to complete “Leonard Bush.”
“I shift back and forth between real estate and writing all day,” Gilmore clarifies. “Melissa and I will work, then I’ll run home and write for 30 minutes, then we’ll show houses, and then I’ll race back home and write. I’m constantly flip flopping between the right and left sides of my brain because I need to touch my writing and my business every day.”
“Her brain gets a full workout,” Hennessy smiles.
Despite having active lives beyond real estate, Gilmore and Hennessy appear to spare no effort in taking care of their clients. The proof is in the concierge-level of service they provide, Hennessy says.
By this, Hennessy means the way she and Gilmore roll up their sleeves and get dirty up to their elbows to prepare a house for sale.
“We’ve mowed yards, cleaned toilets, planted flowers and hung wallpaper,” Gilmore says as she counts off tasks on her fingers.
“We’ve also done some light staging,” Hennessy adds. “Susan is a master at organizing bookcases, for example. We tell people, ‘How you live and how you should show your home are two totally different things.’”
As an example of the extra effort the pair has poured into a listing, Gilmore recalls the time she and Hennessy helped an elderly widower who was moving into assisted living.
“He was overwhelmed,” Gilmore frowns as she places a hand on her chest. “We cleaned out his closets, boxed his stuff and tossed out the things he didn’t need. We feel like everybody deserves that level of service, whether you’re buying a $250,000 home or $1 million home.”
Gilmore and Hennessy will also stage entire portions of a seller’s house using either the furniture and decor that’s available in the client’s residence or items from their business inventory. Despite the added labor, the ladies provide this service for free.
“Many people in the $300,000 to $500,000 range don’t have the money for staging their home,” notes Gilmore. “But we can stage a couple of rooms and give your house the feeling of home at no cost.”
After eight years of collaboration, Gilmore and Hennessy have reached the point where most of their sales are derived from past clients and referrals. While their previous clients know they enjoy working together, new buyers and sellers will sometimes play favorites.
“Some callers will say, ‘I want the one with the white hair,’ or, ‘I want the one who looks like my mother,’” says Hennessy. “They feel like Susan will be more seasoned and will guide them in the right direction.”
“Or a young mother will ask about working with Melissa because she feels like Melissa will speak her language,” offers Gilmore.
At the end of each day, however, and all through the next, Gilmore Hennessy is a partnership that was born out of necessity and thrives on respect, admiration and love.
“This would be a lonely career without you,” Hennessy says to the storyteller. “I’m thankful you’re with me.”
“And it would be stressful without you,” Gilmore informs the mathematician. “I’m glad we’re together.”