Who

With her partner Elizabeth Lee Sample, Powers is a top luxury broker at real estate agency Brown Harris Stevens. The two are best known as the guardians of the single most expensive listing in the city.

Backstory

The daughter of a Swiss diplomat, Powers had a peripatetic childhood: She was born in Winnipeg but lived in such far-flung locals as Morocco and Brazil before going to France to attend college. She went on to hotel school in Switzerland and was working at the Royalton Hotel on West 44th Street when she linked up with Brown Harris Stevens broker Elizabeth Lee Sample. The two teamed up as partners—both professionally and personally—and have since established themselves as among the highest-producing brokers at Brown Harris Stevens, along with Kathy Sloane, Curtis Jackson, Paula Del Nunzio, and Wendy Maitland.

Of note

Powers and Sample have notched well over half a billion dollars in sales over their careers. Their noted coups include the sales of 281 units at the Worldwide Plaza and $60 million worth of apartments at the Time Warner Center. Most recently, they made news when they brokered a London oilman's purchase of a $56 million triplex at the Plaza Hotel. But their biggest listing at the moment is the 16-room, 5-fireplace, 3-story penthouse at the St. Regis, which is now on the market for a staggering $70 million. The seller is stock market maven Martin Zweig, who retained Powers and Sample when he purchased the property in 2000 from Lady Mary Fairfax for a then-record-breaking $21 million.

Personal

Powers and Sample live in the Mandarin Oriental hotel-condo at the Time Warner Center. They spend weekends in Wainscott.