‘Million Dollar Listing’ Star James Harris Shows Off His Private L.A. Oasis

When “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles” alum James Harris left the hit Bravo series he starred in for seven seasons, he moved into a new real estate chapter of his own, taking up residence in a stunning L.A. estate, where he’s learning to prioritize a better balance between work and family life.

Harris, 42, purchased the six-bedroom, Italian countryside-style abode in 2021, the same year he and his business partner, fellow luxury real estate agent David Parnes, made their final appearance as main cast members on the show.

In the years that followed their run on the real estate reality TV series, which stretched from 2014 to 2021, the British-born duo continued to achieve enormous success together before ultimately parting ways as partners in 2025.

In the latest Celebrity Sanctuary, Harris reveals to Realtor.com® that while he’s no longer working alongside Parnes in the same way as before, the longtime friends remain on great terms—even as they’ve begun navigating exciting new ventures.

“It’s been an absolute whirlwind,” states Harris. “The first two years after the show, we were able to break every single record in real estate that we’ve ever done. We did [$800 million] to $900 million in sales.

“We went our own separate ways, but we have a 41-year friendship, or as he likes to remind everyone, he’s 2 years older than me, which I always warned him one day would bite him in the you know what.

“We had an amazing 13-year run, but we’re different, and it just felt like the right time to go our own separate ways.” 

Harris still passionately serves his roster of high-end real estate clients out of his office in Beverly Hills, CA, but has also taken on the title of CEO at Breezy, a real estate technology company that creates online tools to help real estate professionals and homeowners save time and money.

“It’s an AI-powered operating system for real estate agents, and my No. 1 mission is how can I help agents save time, respond faster, create beautiful reports in minutes, and make smarter decisions using AI and property data to make them more elevated in what they do,” explains Harris. 

“Breezy came from years of just frustration,” he adds. “As a real estate agent, I was constantly going from one app to the next. I was spending hours on repetitive administrative work instead of that time being focused on clients

“So I guess the goal is to eliminate the day-to-day chaos so that these agents can go out and spend more time growing their actual business and doing what they’re best at, which is dealing with people.” 

The company’s most recent rollout is an expansion of its Underbuilt Radar product, which is an AI-powered tool that can quickly determine the development potential of a property based on its address and an immediate interpretation of local zoning laws and land data.

“I worked with developers for years, and the big question they would always ask is, ‘Can I build an ADU? Can I build an addition? How big can this house be? What are the setbacks? What’s stopping me from maximizing the value of my land?’” recounts Harris.

“Until now, finding those answers meant standing in the city for hours calling architects, builders, planning departments,” he continues. “Now, what we’ve built is a software that gives—not just agents, but homeowners—those exact answers in seconds, and our data sets can now analyze zoning, development potential, opportunities so that they can make smarter decisions before spending tens of thousands of dollars.”

Harris reports that Breezy’s Underbuilt Radar feature now works in “28,000 ZIP codes” across “9,000 cities,” including Los Angeles, where he has personally put it to the test.

“I’ve used it in every home that we bought over the last eight years, and that’s been three now,” he says.

Harris’ family home—which he shares with his wife, Valeria Harris, their daughters Sofia (almost 17) and Chloe (13), and two dogs—doubles as his remote office for Breezy.

Yet, the design of the dwelling and its grounds was intended to support a healthy separation of professional and personal time.

In this edition of Celebrity Sanctuary, Harris details how his personal residence—and particularly, the backyard oasis—provides the perfect physical boundary that allows him to disconnect from work so he can connect with family.

I’ve never worked the way I’m working right now. I’m working seven days a week and 12 to 15 hours a day, but I always knew starting a startup, this is exactly what would be required and you have to be willing to go all in. But one thing I’m also learning through the years is balance. 

When I started my real estate career, there was zero balance. It was just go, go, go, go, go. And, “Please get home before the kids go to sleep,” and sometimes I would, sometimes I wouldn’t. 

Now I think I have figured out a healthier balance. Even if I’m working till 6 p.m., I will take two or three hours to relax, be with the family, have a lovely dinner, and then I might go back to work at 9, 10 p.m. and sit at my computer till 1 a.m.

But I do find that healthy balance and I do try over the weekends to go lighter and spend time with the family because one thing I’ve learned is you can’t buy back time. It’s so true and I don’t want to wake up one day and my kids have left and gone to college, so I’m definitely focused on having a healthier balance.

My real estate team are located in Beverly Hills out of the Carolwood [Estates] office. Our Breezy team, which is approximately 30 people, we are all remote, and my home office—which my wife wants to kick me out of as soon as possible—is sort of in the eaves of our house at the top floor. 

I love it, ’cause I can see everything, I can hear everyone, and I love life. All my wife wants is, “Go and get an office.” We’re going back and forth between the two. But today, we’re remote. 

I do look at my home as the sanctuary, so I wouldn’t say, “Oh, I’ll get an office next week.” I’m very happy there. It’s just her that’s not; so for me, it’s definitely the sanctuary.

Sanctuary to me is peace and serenity and privacy in a world that is so public. Everything is filmed and taped, and I’m not talking about TV. I’m talking about social media. So the home is a place where you can just be quiet and peaceful and with your family and quality time, and that’s really important. 

My home is my sanctuary. The outdoor area of our home is our sanctuary. That was the space that we really spent the most time and money on because in L.A., you live outside as much as you do in. So when I want peace and quiet, I’ll go sit outside, relax. It’s quiet, it’s peaceful. 

We bought our home in 2021, and we’ve spent a considerable amount of money on it, just remodeling it and creating it to be the perfect sanctuary for our family. I will say, owning a home, you don’t just wake up one morning and you’re like, “Everything’s done.” It’s an ongoing, never-ending project because it’s where you live and you come up with new ideas. 

Actually, I remember when we first bought our house. There was this batting cage in the backyard [from] the family before. I was in escrow and I had all these ideas of how I was going to get rid of the batting cage and I just jumped into it. Then, like six weeks after the work was finished, I was like, “Oh, my God, I’ve done the wrong thing here.” 

It taught me you’ve just got to take a beat, relax, think about it. Now that space is our pickleball court. It completely changed because I rushed into doing it, and I could have saved myself quite a lot of money had I just taken a breath and held a beat.

It took us about six months to [renovate] ’cause it was all cosmetics. 

General style, I would say, Italian countryside. There’s a lot of greens, a lot of travertines, gravel, grass, six bedrooms, pickleball court, and then I’ve really dedicated a lot of the space to wellness.

You know, the cold plunge and the sauna and creating that moment because, like we keep saying the word “sanctuary,” it’s a place you want to just go and relax, and so we’ve really created that with the outdoors. 

The outdoor space is very special. It’s [got] this gorgeous outdoor kitchen, barbecue, [and] pizza oven that has a very European feel. My wife gets 100% credit for all of that. It almost feels like you’re outdoors in the south of Italy, and it’s just absolutely gorgeous. 

Then we’ve created an exterior gym, which, it’s a real wellness sort of backyard. We go outdoors and we work out, and then we have an indoor space that is created as a gym—covered awnings, seating area, really nice pool and spa. 

Then we’ve got this gorgeous seating area with [a] fire pit that I wanted to create for summer evenings with the kids, where, in my eyes—it’s travertine—I could sort of sit there, do s’mores with the kids, albeit they’re 17 and 13 now, and if I mention the word “s’mores,” I’m a loser. 

We have the sauna area and the cold plunge that leads onto the pickleball court. 

Our home, whilst I love peace and quiet and privacy, I’m also the house where the doors are open, our friends are always welcome. We always have people over. We have two guesthouses, so we always have guests coming to stay. 

That backyard should always feel like it’s filled with family and friends. Bringing people together. 

I look at a house as very different to a home. You know, I feel like these big developer-built houses, they’re houses, a family buys it, they create a home. 

I feel like we live in a really special home. It’s warm. It’s inviting. It has a good energy, a good feel, and so the sanctuary is the place where our family and friends get together and we build memories. It’s very special.