by Carlene Phillips ·
Friday, March 28, 2025
Nancy Ryan Hazel of Hazel & Company has been in the real estate business in Harvard for 60 years. In a recent conversation at her 1732 farmhouse on Ayer Road, Hazel said everything always worked out, “it’s all been good.” She loved having her work right here in town and close to home so she could check in with her three kids as they were growing up.
Hazel grew up on Depot Road, on a farm her great-grandfather had purchased in the early 1900s. Before school in the morning, she would drive her family’s cows a mile to pasture on Dean’s Hill. She recalled how she loved following the cart path, looking at the flowers along the way. When she reached the gate to the pasture, she opened it and the cows went right in. She would turn around and skip down the hill.
She wanted a career in nursing, but after a time at New England Baptist Hospital, she realized how much she missed the country. The hospital was an excellent one, but she felt unsafe walking around in the neighborhood, and she loved to walk. She left the medical field to attend business school.
In 1965 both she and her husband Bill got their real estate licenses and opened Sunnywood Acres Realty at their home. Bill worked part time, so most of the business fell to Nancy. Bill’s mother, Mildred, raised ponies, and on weekends Bill and Nancy would go to horse shows and “run ponies around the ring.” For publicity, they would have open houses where they offered pony rides. Bill loved talking to people but wasn’t as interested in houses, and after five years, he worked exclusively at his job in Worcester.
“It was a steep learning curve and lots of work, but it was fun.”
—Nancy Hazel
Ed Pieters invited Hazel to work with him at Turner-Pieters Realtors, which Alan Turner had started in 1948. “Ed was very knowledgeable,” said Hazel. “It was a steep learning curve and lots of work, but it was fun.” The office, toward the top of Littleton Road, became Turner-Pieters & Hazel Inc., and when Hazel bought the business from Ed Pieters in 1990, she kept the name but moved the business to Ayer Road. A small house to the north of the farmhouse became the office.
In 2006 the business became TP Hazel Sotheby’s International Realty, and after Hazel’s daughter, Suzanne Dutkewych, joined the business, they withdrew from the large franchise and became Hazel & Company in 2019. Dutkewych said it was more beneficial to become independent because of the greater flexibility; the office was rated #1 in Harvard from 2020 to 2023, based on the Multiple Listing Service that tracks sales data by office and agent.
From left: Suzanne Dutkewych, Nancy Hazel, and Talia Dutkewych. (Courtesy photo)
Hazel recalled the early days when all houses for sale were in the Multiple Listing Service book that was updated once a month. For a while, until Coldwell Banker came, there were just three realtors in town, including Hazel and Peter Warren, and they all worked together and shared listings. Harvard wasn’t well known and people had just started coming out. “I love people and it was a challenge to find what people were looking for,” said Hazel. Then, with an influx of new residents working for Digital Equipment Corporation and IBM, Shaker Hills was developed in the ’70s. Dutkewych recalled having dinner as a kid, and the phone would ring. Her mother would tell everyone to shush and take the long cord into another room. She would sometimes go along with her mom for showings.
“It was good to be stationary. I was here for my family and to care for parents and grandparents, taking them to doctors’ appointments,” Hazel said. She loves Harvard and said it has always been a great location for selling.
Of course the prices were much lower. Hazel laughed as she remembered how when land got to be $10,000, they thought that was really high. And she recalled the highs and lows of interest rates, with 19% for a short time in the ’70s. There’s so much more paperwork these days, she said, and Dutkewych added that the 2024 law regulating disclosure of what commissions seller- and buyer-agents are receiving adds a layer of complication.
“It was a blessing when Suzanne joined,” said Hazel, “and now she’s running the show. Dutkewych has been the top agent in the office for the past five years. Two of her children, Nate and Talia, have their sales licenses and are eligible for their broker licenses. “It’s still a seller’s market, but inventory is starting to increase now,” said Dutkewych.
Hazel stays busy keeping up with all her kids and grandkids and with the management of several properties she owns in town. And she continues to look at the positive side of things.
Sitting in the back office of Harvard Realty, 7 Mass. Ave., an “Agent on Duty” sign behind her, Rhonda Sprague talked about how she came to be owner of the company and how much real estate has changed since she started in the 1990s.
After staying home to raise her four kids, in 1993 Sprague accepted Nancy Hazel’s invitation to join her at Turner-Pieters & Hazel Realtors. One day in 2000, Peter Warren, who had owned Harvard Realty for 40 years, said to Sprague, “You have to buy my building.” He explained that he really wanted to become a firefighter and he couldn’t do that and own a business in town. She was taken aback and told him, “I don’t think so, Peter.” But she changed her mind, and when she told him yes, Warren replied, “Good, we’ll do it tomorrow.”
Sprague added the tag, “Excellence in Real Estate.” For 14 years her company was ranked number one in Harvard, and for 19 years in a row, Sprague was the top agent. Ratings are based on published Multiple Listing Service data that tracks sales volume by agent and office. In this case, the data was for single family homes.
“All I did was work. You had to be ready whenever people wanted you.”
—Rhonda Sprague
She talked about how different things were 25 years ago. “There was enough business to go around for everyone. All I did was work,” Sprague said. “You had to be ready whenever people wanted you.”
She established good relationships with her clients, earning their trust. “I had a lot of loyal people that I worked hard for,” she said. And she enjoyed her colleagues. Before buyers used computers to search for properties, the office was a lively place, with people coming in to learn things and to look through the book of multiple listings. The office used to hold a community event at Halloween, handing out free cider, donuts, and hot dogs at the office building.
One of the challenges, Sprague said, was that you missed out on things because you weren’t always there. The hardest was when you worked hard for a client, and then they went to a different broker for a purchase. Buying or selling a house is a transaction that can be very emotional. “You are in a person’s life at their best and worst,” said Sprague. You often have to deal with different family members and always be “thoughtful about serving others. You have to keep confidentiality.”
Rhonda Sprague (left) and Mary Suter. (Courtesy photo)
In real estate today there’s more of a team approach, said Sprague. While this means an agent doesn’t have to be always on call, it means getting loyalty is harder. And there’s no need for a buyer to come into an office, because they can find everything online, including virtual tours. There are more private transactions—“pocket listings”—where a seller can ask a broker to find a buyer, and the house never goes on the market. And in 2024 the laws for real estate agencies changed. Sprague said a broker used to work for both a buyer and seller to arrive at a deal. They used to negotiate their fee, based on each situation; now a buyer’s agent fee has to be negotiated before anything can move forward. Today in Harvard there are fewer houses on the market, which has fallen to a new low since a peak in 2000.
Although there are more apartments and condos today, there has always been resistance to multifamily housing. Sprague recalled being on a committee to improve livability. Whatever suggestion was made got rejected. Nobody wanted Harvard to change.
As proud as Sprague is of her years in real estate, she is equally proud of her kids and grandkids. And it makes her sad to see the difficult financial times they are living in. She recalled that when she and Whit were just married, living in upstate New York, they were driving around and they passed a nice house with a “For Sale by Owner” sign. “Stop,” she yelled, and they bought the cape for $19,500. “That huge gap—it’s not fair for kids.”
Sprague, who now lives in New Hampshire with her husband, continues to represent some clients in her network. Her daughter, Mary Suter, who lives in Arlington and worked with her mom for five years in the early 2000s, is the managing director of the business. She said they would like to keep the business in the family and are looking to succession and bringing the next leaders into the business.