CAPITAL BUZZ: REGION’S SECOND TIGER 21 CLUB COMING TO TYSONS

Capital Buzz: Region’s second TIGER 21 club coming to TysonsBy Thomas Heath, Published: October 20, 2013

Homes for horsesWashington horse barn architect John Blackburn willcelebrate the launch of his coffee-table book, “HealthyStables by Design,” at the Acela Club in the Verizon Centeron Oct. 25 at the annual Washington International HorseShow. Beth Herman of Maine is the co-author.

Blackburn runs a far-reaching architecture business nearDupont Circle that designs horse barns throughout theUnited States – 160 in the past three decades. His clientlist has included everyday horse lovers and high-profilepeople such as Under Armour mogul Kevin Plank andWashington Wizards/Capitals co-owner Fredrick D.

Schaufeld and two big philanthropists: the late billionaireJohn Kluge and the late real estate scion Robert H. Smith.

He designs homes as well, and the jobs include notableclients such as the Shriver family and Danaher Corp. co-founder Mitchell Rales.

**Washington is getting a second local chapter of Tiger 21,the social club for wealthy individuals to share ideas andexperience, as well as investment strategies.

The first chapter opened two years ago and has between12 to 14 members who pay $30,000 in annual dues. Thatchapter meets the third Thursday of every month at theHotel Jefferson in the District of Columbia, while thesecond chapter plans to meet at the Tower Club in TysonsCorner.

Local chapters are run by Cal Simmons, a former chairmanof the D.C. chapter of the Young Presidents Organization.

He is currently the chairman of the Virginia TourismCorp.

Smmons said the D.C. group meets from noon to 7 p.m.,while the new group will meet from 4 to 9 p.m.

“When it started, it was thought that much of the groupwould be semi-retired,” Simmons said. “But we attractedentrepreneurs, and we decided that the time frame [ofnoon to 7] was problematic” because it interfered withwork.

Therefore, the second group will meet from afternoon toevening.

The hefty fee comes with a minimum requirement of $10million in investable assets, Simmons said.

“A lot of people are drawn to it with expectations that it’san investment group that shares deal flow and shares intelligence. But it’s more than that. It’s about being properstewards of one’s wealth … and not wanting to mess up. Alot of people work hard to build significant wealth, andthey look around and say, ‚ÄòI don’t want to do anythingstupid.'”

Tiger 21, which has 220 members worldwide, wasfounded in 1999 in New York by real estate entrepreneurMichael Sonnenfeldt. Longtime District residentJonathan Kempner (brother of documentary filmmakerAviva Kempner, creator of “The Life and Times of HankGreenberg”) runs the national for-profit organization dayto day.

In addition to Washington, Tiger 21 has chapters in NewYork, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Miami,Dallas, as well as Canadian groups in Vancouver, Toronto,Calgary and Montreal.

Factoid of the Week$147MThat’s the amount that will be spent by Washingtonarea consumers on moving, storage and freight costs forhousehold items in 2013, which comes to an average of$67.39 per household, according to SpareFoot, whichrelied on statistics provided by Geographic Research.

This puts the D.C. area as number three in the top 20metropolitan areas in the United States for spending inthis category.

The Buzz HearsDistrict-based CareLuLu, the child care and preschoolstart-up that allows you to search and filter day care optionsfor your family, is a finalist for the pitch competition at theWomen 2.0 Conference in Las Vegas Nov. 14 and 15.

CareLuLu co-founders Evgeniya “Jen” Usmanova, PatrickMatos and Gabriel Marques will compete against 10 otherteams when they pitch a panel of judges that includesShanna Tellerman of Google Ventures, Joy Marcus of DFJGotham, Jeff Clavier of SoftTech, Christine Tsai of 500Startups and Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures.

Ben Lieber’s Potomac Law Group opened a Connecticut/New York office and is filling it with trusts and estatesattorney Amy Breslow, a New York University law schoolgrad who spent three years at C ravath, Swaine & Moorein the late 1980s. Breslow eventually took time off toraise a family, went back to school to get an advancedlaw degree in trusts and estates, then joined a trusts andestates boutique law firm in Connecticut for five years(Cummings & Lockwood) before joining Lieber.