SELLING CARTIER: A PREPPED TO SELL SUCCESS STORY
- Ashley George
- 3 hours ago
- 7 min read
The First Text Message
She texted me out of the blue — a woman I’d walked dogs with during the quietest parts of COVID, the kind of woman who has walked through fire in high heels and made it look good while doing it.
“Hey, Elisa… I need to sell the house.”
I knew she’d poured six figures into this place. I also knew she’d already moved to another state. Her life had taken a hard turn, and now the life she built in Lake Terrace — her pink-kissed, mid-century, Palm Beach-flavored refuge — needed a new chapter.
When she flew back for walkthroughs, she was proud. And she was mortified. Clutter everywhere. Bags half-packed. Clothes spilling out from the move. I understood it instantly — I live with a one-year-old, two dogs, a husband who paints houses for a living, and a brokerage that runs on creativity and caffeine. Life is messy. Homes are messy. Listing prep is always messy. It’s real.
But beneath her embarrassment was something else: grief. The house had held her through a pandemic, an almost-deadly illness, long nights, long workweeks, and the raising of her son in a moment of national uncertainty. Saying goodbye felt like ripping up floorboards while still standing on them.
And I could feel the pressure of her wanting it to be worth all she’d poured into it.
The Mission Becomes Clear
I looked around that first day. The home was almost 3,000 square feet of mid-century bones — a vaulted brick fireplace wall, original terrazzo, an indoor-outdoor horseshoe layout that wrapped a pool designed to look like the Ritz-Carlton in Paris (gray and white travertine, glossy white bamboo-look furniture, pink everywhere).
But the previous owners had stripped half the mid-century soul out of it and replaced it with metallic moderns: icy grays, black drum lights, silver fixtures, a black ceiling in the hallway. No malice — just the trends of the moment.
And then K — her real initial — had unknowingly layered a second identity on top of that: bright pinks, raspberry sofas, sherbet tones, peacocks, flamingo-pink doors… the whole house was a clash of masculine grayscale and cotton-candy feminine. Both tastes were beautiful. Neither were wrong. But they weren’t talking to each other.
I knew instantly that this house wasn’t going to sell “as is” — not because it needed rescuing, but because it deserved to be seen in its full mid-century spirit. My mission was clear: help her leave it better than she found it — gracefully, strategically, and with the right buyer waiting on the other side.
The Palm Beach Effect
This was the moment Palm Beach started tapping me on the shoulder.
Palm Beach is having a global moment right now. Not the kitschy movie version with bubblegum pink and mint and sherbet (which is what Anne — my design partner — was imagining). And not the austere Cape-Cod-by-way-of-Newport phase Palm Beach briefly detoured into.
I had just come from Worth Avenue and Swifty’s and a string of open houses where billionaires were scooping up Spanish-tile roofs and plaster neutrals and lush palm greens and coral clays — warm, layered, grown-up mid-century. Less Lilly Pulitzer poster. More bougainvillea against terra cotta at golden hour.
And because this house was built in the era Palm Beach helped define, it made perfect sense to pull from that palette.
Anne hadn’t seen what I’d seen. I hadn’t told her everything in my head. And so when I laid out the paint cards — Palm Leaf, Coral Clay, Redend Point, Shoji — she said point blank:
“These are muddy. They’re going to photograph gray. I don’t think you know what you’re doing with these colors.”
Have you ever had someone look at you like you’ve sprouted three heads?
That was the moment.
But I’d just walked through half of Palm Beach. I’d seen these same colors in textiles and wallpapers and on runways. I knew where design energy was flowing. I knew the buyer profile. I wasn’t guessing.
And Anne was imagining the Palm Beach of movies.
I was thinking of the Palm Beach of now.
We were both right — but standing in different places.
The Middle Gets Messy
If you’ve never truly prepped a listing, here’s the truth: the middle is the loudest part of the storm.
Painters everywhere. Paper taped across every inch of flooring. Boxes of staging accessories half-opened. Contractors asking, “Do we have sheets for this bed?” while someone else is asking where the steamer is. My one-year-old — Cooper — crawling proudly down the tiled hallway like a tiny building inspector.
This is what listing prep looks like. Not the chaos of the hurricane’s eye. The chaos of the wall — the part where the wind screams, where you can’t see but you can hear everything.
The middle never looks like the plan.
The plan never survives contact with reality.
My dad says it best: “The battle plan never survives contact with the enemy.”
And while a home is never the enemy (it’s the hero), its plan never survives contact with real life either.
But the middle is where clarity finally shows up.
Because it means you’re close.
The Color Reveal
Midway through prep, Matt — owner of DINOMITE Painting and my better half — called me from the house.
“You have to come see the fireplace at night.”
Not “in the middle of chaos,” but that night — after things had quieted. After the painters had gone home. After the coral clay had dried on that once-white brick wall.
I walked into the living room and froze.
The gallery lights created a warm glow that wrapped the room like it had been designed for that exact color the whole time. It lit the Shoji White walls. It embraced the raspberry sofa (already owned by the seller). It made the palm leaf-painted kitchen wall sing.
It was bold.
It was warm.
It was… right.
I had a new found appreciation for red brick fireplaces. And a new found assurity in my own color instincts.
When Anne saw it later, she half-laughed, half-sighed:
“Okay… it’s a lot. Especially with the raspberry sofa. But somehow it works.”
The next morning, Lust Homes sent an email announcing that raspberry and orange were the next big color combo.
Sometimes you’re early.
Sometimes the world catches up.
When the Neighborhood Shows Up
We didn’t let a single soul inside for five days. No sneak peeks. No early showings. No previews.
Instead, Ashley and I hand-delivered 50 invitations to neighbors for a Mid-Century Monster Mash — an early-October open-house-meets-cocktail-party where people could experience the house at magic hour. Where they could feel the indoor-outdoor horseshoe layout the architect intended — crossing from the primary suite to the kitchen patio, moving across the pool deck, seeing how this house lived.
And they came.
They all came.
Nearly 70 guests, including at least 18 neighbors, and the full crews from the local mid-century Facebook group and Historic New Orleans Homes.
Craig and Matt arrived in matching ’50s bowling-dad shirts.
Buyers showed up in Mad-Men chic.
Witches drifted down the walkway lined with luminaries.
Cooper was a black cat shaking a bag of M&Ms like a rattle.
And the house… the house absolutely glowed.
People lingered.
People fantasized aloud.
One couple whispered, “What do we need to do to buy this house?”
One older gentleman pulled me aside and said, “You’re the witch who priced this, right?”
I nodded.
“You’re $50,000 too low. I’d have listed at $750,000.”
He told me his strategy. "You're supposed to list higher and then drop the price so people know they're getting a deal. It should sell for $720k not in the sixes!"
I smiled, thanked him, and made a mental note to send him a handwritten card after closing — letting him know our strategy worked too. And well above that $720k he swore it was worth.
The Offers
A couple arrived at the Monster Mash with an offer already drafted, waiting only to confirm that the house felt as magical in person as it did in the photos.
They submitted their offer within three hours of leaving.
By noon the next day, we had four offers.
And by the end of negotiations, we closed at $730,000.
In a buyer’s market.
During a season when more than half of listings citywide were withdrawing unsold.
In 28 days from live to close.
K and her husband had hoped for $800K+ originally. Reluctantly agreed to $685k no prepping or $700k prepped. After all that's what the comps showed.
They were elated at $730k "it'll cover those agents fees too!"
K knew enough to trust a strategic price anchored in buyer psychology.
“If it feels like a find,” she told me, “people move fast and ask for less.”
And they did.
And the appraiser? "This is hands down the nicest joke I've seen for awhile!"
The day before closing, I stopped by to give K a real goodbye.
She was packing, spinning, emotional.
She told me the house had held her through some of the hardest years of her life.
She said she knew it was time.
She said she could breathe again once she’d gotten out and given us the reins.
When it was all finished and I walked out onto Lakeshore Drive, I poured myself a small glass of champagne and toasted the house.
“We did it, girl.”
Because she had done the heavy lifting — not me, not Ann, not Matt, not the stagers.
The house.
She had been waiting for someone to see her as she was meant to be seen.
And once she was seen, she could finally let go.
What’s Next
This wasn’t a fluke.
This was framework.
And if you want the method behind it — the recipe, the measurements, the bake times — it’s all in Prepped to Sell, out NOW in hardcover on Amazon and dropping December 1st in paperback.
The hardcover includes bonus chapters like:
how to choose your agent
mistakes almost every seller makes
the psychology behind pricing
and how to prepare your home with intention, not panic
In short it’s the perfect gift for anyone you know who’s
Even fantasizing about selling their home in 2026
Is thinking of buying and wants to think like a seller
Has a real estate license of is thinking of getting one
And if you want to see the next project in real time, you can follow along on Instagram.
We’re already halfway through prepping a historic home on Esplanade — another house with a story ready to be told.
Come with us.
The water’s fine.
And a new era of real estate is here.
Celebrated for her next-level creative approach to real estate, Elisa Cool Murphy is an award-winning, top-performing real estate broker in New Orleans and the founder of Cool Murphy Real Estate.
Contact Her -
email: cool@coolmurphy.com
Facebook: @homeinneworleans
IG: @coolmurphynola
YouTube: @coolmurphynola
phone: 504-321-3194
Voted Neighborhood Favorite by Nextdoor three years in a row, Cool Murphy Real Estate is a top-producing, licensed real estate team based in New Orleans, brokered by Cool Murphy, LLC.
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