Suzy Dix has been a Realtor in Spokane since 1989, but don’t call her one; she would much rather be called a conservationist who does farming and real estate on the side. 

Dix serves as chairwoman of multiple philanthropic boards and helps organize the Cobra Polo Classic, one of Spokane’s biggest fundraising events that’s held annually at the polo fields on the West Plains. The Journal sat down with Suzy at the Dix Farm on the Moran Prarie recently to talk real estate, conservation, philanthropy, polo, and British royalty. 

Take me through your early career history—how did you get started in real estate?

Suzy Dix: Well, my dad bought and sold a lot of land. He was a polo player, and he said that polo made him money because he had to buy land to put his horses on it. As a little girl, I used to walk land with him all the time, and I loved it. 

In high school, I actually said I wanted to be a Realtor, and I didn’t think about it again until I was 33. Between that time, I thought about vet school and I traveled back East and to England horseback riding very seriously. I came back home and went back and finished my schooling, and I taught one quarter of biology at community college. Then I started running cattle and running the farm, got married, and had two kids. Then I got into real estate because I wanted to make some money, and I thought I could do it. 

I thought I was going to be part time, but I soon learned you can’t be a part-time Realtor; the minute you have one listing, you’re full time. I love real estate, and I’ve been successful at it. I love the people I meet. It’s fun to help people. Most of the time, it’s a happy event; sometimes you’re saving them from financial disaster, or a divorce situation, but you’re still helping them. And then I’ve still run this farm the whole time as well. 

What are some of your predictions for the future of the real estate market here?

SD: I think we’re going to have, I hope, slow growth. I’m a conflicted Realtor. I want to see slow growth with great planning, and the focus to be on conservation of land. I think that the market is coming back; it’s certainly been better for me. My clients are doing better; we’re finally selling land again. I think we’re on the up, and I think everybody’s cautious.  I’m totally optimistic that it’s coming back, but I see all of my clients being cautious about what they’re going to spend on land. 

Would  you say that you sell more land or residential property?

SD: No, that’s sort of been a fallacy through the years, because people identify me with doing a lot of land. I do a lot of houses on land. I used to do a lot of land, then it went down to none. No one was buying land to build, because they couldn’t afford to build. It was cheaper to go buy an existing house and either remodel it or be happy with that. 

For instance, you could go out and buy a house for $500,000, and when they built it, they paid $850,000. So now we’re seeing people saying, you know what? I don’t want a great big 10,000-square-foot house. I want a 3,000-square-foot house that is super quality, and I want less maintenance, less upkeep, and I want to be environmentally friendly.

Tell me about your family’s history in Spokane. 

SD: My mother was born here in 1914; her father was a dentist at the Paulsen building. They lived off of 12th and Wall, and my mother lived here her entire life, except for a stint during World War II when my dad was in the Navy, she lived in Southern California. He went overseas, and when they came back, they moved back to Spokane.

Now, there’s four of us siblings, and we all live within two miles of each other. My dad started Dix, which was originally Dix Steel Buildings, then became Dix Steel, and then now it’s called Dix Corp. They’ve gone from steel to being general contractors, but they did make their mark in Spokane. My brother started another business called Cobra, which has branched out to Tacoma and Fort Worth and Portland offices. But we’ve all been bound by family. We all ski race together, and we all play polo together.

What are some of your favorite things about Spokane, and what would you like to see here in the future?

SD: What I love about Spokane is the access to the outdoors. I mean, if I want to go for a hike in the afternoon, I can. If you want to fly fish, you can. If you want to go skiing, you can go after work. And it’s not expensive, that’s the best part. It’s not a place you come to make a lot of money, as my dad said. He said, ‘I didn’t come to Spokane to make a lot of money, I came here to raise a family and enjoy life.’ And it worked. As for things I’d like to see in Spokane: more planning, again, more conservation, more care of the environment, more people and kids off the streets, more education. Like the Dishman Hills Conservancy is a great thing to get people out there. The educational aspect is wonderful. The conservation aspect is wonderful, and so is the chance for families to get their kids away from television; get them outdoors. 

Beyond the Dishman Hills Natural Area Association, you’re on quite a few philanthropic boards: the Nature Conservancy in Washington State, SpokAnimal, World Outside My Shoes, and you were formerly on the board of directors for Ronald McDonald House Charities. How do you decide what organizations to give your time to?

SD: That’s a good question, because I get asked to be on a lot of things, and I always want to do them all. In fact, I just turned down one the other day that someday I’d like to do, but right now I’ve got to focus on the ones I’m doing. You do have to make sure that you’re doing a good job. 

Do you see your philanthropy as an extension of your business role, or as a personal mission?

SD: I think it’s a personal mission, absolutely. I don’t look at land the same as I did before. I’ve evolved to look at every piece of land as how can we protect it, conserve it, and how can we develop it, but still take care of the land. My focus is that direction entirely. I spent the morning with Guy Gifford (from the Washington state Department of Natural Resources), and we went to several properties, some that I own and some that my clients own. I encouraged them to do fire prevention and do thinning of the trees, for fire prevention and for the good of the timber and wildlife. I asked him how many Realtors ever have gone out with him to look at this, and he said, ‘You’re the first.’ And I said, ‘There’s so much of this that I can help with.’ So even though I’m a Realtor, if we do it correctly and we do it with conservation in mind and the health of the forest and the health of the wildlife, then I’m doing a good job. 

Tell me about the Cobra Classic Polo event.

SD: Well 10 years ago, Mike Forness came to me from the Ronald McDonald House and said, ‘We would like to put on a polo event. Do you have any ideas for how to do that?’ And I said, ‘I’ve got a great idea,’ because I’d just been playing polo in the Ambassador’s Cup, where they invite people my age, 50 and over, to play. It’s a friendship-type thing. And Prince Harry was playing at the same place we were playing! So they had a fundraiser there going along with it, and they sold tents along the side of the field to different businesses who invited their friends. So I said, there’s an idea. 

They took it a step further, and we came up with a plan where we actually put the whole party on. A major sponsor gets a tent. By a major sponsor I mean, like Cobra Corp. is the named sponsor, and they pay $30,000 a year for that. And with that they get a tent for 40 and invite their friends and businesspeople. Washington Trust Bank and Itron are the team sponsors at $25,000 each; they get a tent. 

As the sponsorship levels go down, we have the parade of horses. We have the silent auction. Last year, we brought in $390,000, and every year we bring in more. 

What do you do to keep the event fresh in people’s minds after a decade?

SD: Well we meet two days after the event and we talk about what went well and what didn’t go well. I’m in charge of the swag bags now, and I’m already working on the players coming in for this year. 

So this year, for instance, I think is our third year with the whiskey and cigar tent, because for a while it became a little bit of a woman’s event. We were having all these young women come in dressed up and looking fabulous, and the guys were like, this is a girl thing. So with the advent of the whiskey and cigar tent, it came back to being a guy thing, and the guys could have fun. 

How old were you when you first started playing polo?

SD: I didn’t start playing polo until I was 47, because my dad didn’t think that women should play polo. He built the polo fields here, but polo started in Spokane in 1908. He came in and started playing polo in his 40s, and he loved the game and built the fields and formed a corporation, so it’s owned by a lot of people. 

Most of it is owned by the Dix family now, but it’s also owned by several people who are now dead. So, my main focus was three-day eventing (an equestrian competition involving ground and jumping challenges). I also galloped racehorses at the track one year, much to my father’s chagrin. One day, I was eventing and my daughter was eventing, but the whole family was playing polo, and I said hey, maybe we should just play polo. And we switched. 

Somebody said, ‘Well, I thought your dad didn’t want you to play,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, well, he died.’ He died on the polo field actually. Got off his horse and collapsed, had a heart attack. Well, died, we don’t know what he died from. But he died happy. 

So you saw Prince Harry play polo; which one of you is the better player?

SD: Oh no, Prince Harry is much better than me. The royal family are very good horsemen. The Queen Mother of England was my hero because she raised thoroughbreds and raced them. My favorite horse is named Lillabeth after the Queen Mum of England. 

What’s your favorite memory of playing polo?

SD: I would have to say one moment that was pretty outstanding was when I was on a women’s team playing in Australia. 

We were invited because we were representing the U.S. as a friendship/ambassadorship kind of thing. The Australian team was much stronger than us. They got a little cocky at the end; we were behind six to one in the third chukka, and we beat them in the last thirty seconds, and it was because I saved a goal, which was just kind of pure luck. 

That was a really fun moment because, you know, there was champagne and there’s press and the whole thing, and we were the American team, we had the American jerseys. It was really fun to do that, being the real underdogs. 

But I’ll tell you, my focus in polo is the horses. If I never played in a polo game again, I’d be fine. If I didn’t get to look out my window every day and look at my horses and touch them and breed them, and bring them along and care for them, that would be the end of me.