A Southern California showplace: real estate developer Sharon Sumpter highlights traditional furnishings in her elegant home

As a child growing up in rural Orangeburg, S.C., Sharon Sumpter often busied herself building tree houses while other girls played with dolls. She saw cleared fields as potential neighborhoods designed with her own touch.

Her dream rarely wavered. Sure, there were times when she toyed with the idea of being a doctor or lawyer, but she always came back to the idea of land and building. "I thought about other careers, but there was this burning desire in my belly to see things erected and to somehow participate in how communities and cities develop and grow," she says. "And I've had a love affair with architecture and seeing things change over time."

Sumpter attended the University of Wisconsin, where she received undergraduate and graduate degrees in urban regional planning. She studied abroad in Europe and Africa and then landed a job with a major engineering firm in the planning department. "I knew that real estate development was for me," she says, "because I learned that land is the only commodity or element that we can't move or reproduce."

Now in her 40s, the single mother moved to Los Angeles in the 1990s, just as that market's real estate industry hit rock-bottom. She persevered and now is executive vice president of the Bedford Group, a highly respected development company. Among Sumpter's major achievements at the company was developing a project that included 172 condominiums and featured 9,500 square feet of mixed-use development.

The project is situated near Sumpter's home in the elegant View Park section of Los Angeles, a hillside community that is home for a number of Black professionals. She shares her two-level home with her 10-year-old daughter, Najah Sumpter-Diop.

Najah, whose father is from Senegal, attends a French academy in Los Angeles, and is fluent in French and Spanish. "I don't speak French, but I understand it," Sumpter explains. "Najah's father's family lives in Senegal and Paris and only speak French [Sumpter has an apartment in Paris near the Champs-Elysees], so my daughter can communicate with them."

Sumpter's elegant home features traditional furnishings, numerous maps (another passion of hers) and earth tones throughout. And Sumpter points out that she selected and arranged each piece without any assistance. And she made sure the furnishings were traditional because of the "timeless" element of those pieces.

The home features numerous pieces of African art and several works designed by female artists. She has traveled to six of the planet's seven continents, and she has a special appreciation for Africa.

"I have a particular appreciation for African art," she explains. "But things have to reach out and touch me. I tend to acquire those things and keep them for a very long time. So, wherever I move, I don't care how traditional the house is or the decor, you'll see hints of Africa."

The real estate developer, who says she loves supporting women artists, proudly points out that she has works by indigenous women of numerous cultures. Her most prized possession, she says, is a piece drawn by artist Ramos Martinez in 1934. "He did it on a piece of the L.A. Times newspaper" she says. "That is my greatest acquisition to date."

When not collecting art or traveling with Najah, Sumpter enjoys ballroom dancing. She now competes on the amateur level, sometimes training for 20-25 hours a week. In the future, she hopes to dance professionally.

Even so, she will never give up her love for design and real estate. "Real estate is in my blood," she says.

Although Sumpter has a full plate of activities, she has no doubt that she can continue her pace because, she says, she lives and thrives on intense challenges.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning