Catherine Holbrook, a highly ranked Chicago real estate broker and founding member of The Laricy Team, died at the age of 40 on Tuesday. As the news made its way through the real estate industry, fellow brokers and friends remembered Holbrook as an ambitious agent and a loving person.
After a decade with The Laricy Team, Holbrook married her husband, Patrick Healy, in May of 2023. Holbrook gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Olivia, earlier this week. Holbrook died shortly after giving birth to her daughter.
“She was our beacon of light. She was always there to make everybody just smile,” said her longtime business partner Matt Laricy. He said he still remembers the day he interviewed Holbrook to work with Americorp’s The Laricy Team in 2013.
Holbrook was Laricy’s first hire in starting the team, and he was nervous that he wouldn’t have enough business to make it all work as he walked into a Starbucks on Orleans Street to meet her.
“Within the first two seconds, I sat down and I literally said, ‘We’re gonna be best friends.’ We started laughing, and I hired her on the spot,” Laricy said.
Holbrook was an integral part of The Laricy Team’s rise to the top of Chicago broker teams over the last 12 years and, last year, she alone brought in $35 million in deals, Laricy said. The team’s transaction coordinator, Jamie Daly, said Holbrook had the most repeat clients out of anyone on the team because of her natural ability to put those around her at ease.
“She’s one of those people that you go into a room and you just start talking, and she can instantly make you feel comfortable,” Daly said. “Clients loved her – everybody loved her.”
Multiple brokers referred to Holbrook as ‘the glue’ that brought many people in the industry together, whether it be through casual conversations and happy hour events or her work with the Chicago Association of Realtors Young Professionals Network. She was the one ready to greet you with open arms and take you around, introducing you to everyone in the room, Daly said.
“Catherine was a symbol of strength and balance and tenacity and perseverance and relentless commitment to excellence in her career and her family,” said @properties’ Erin Mandel, who passed the torch to Holbrook when she joined the Young Professionals Network. “She was always the one to show up and to be positive no matter what the circumstance.”
It was Holbrook’s ambition that pushed The Laricy Team to open its newest office in the western suburb of Hinsdale, as she had been wanting to expand her business in the suburbs, Laricy said.
“We’re going to go even harder now,” Laricy said of the plans for the new office. “She loved being the best at what we did. So, I’m not taking my foot off the gas now. It just makes my heart even more focused.”
After posting the news of Holbrook’s death on LinkedIn, Laricy was flooded with messages from brokers and others in the industry, many of them from women who said Holbrook had inspired them throughout their careers.
The same was true for Holbrook’s best friend of 20 years, Katy Anastos, who said she never would have started her home staging business if it weren’t for Holbrook’s influence and support.
“She’s literally the reason I am where I am today,” Anastos said. Anastos and Holbrook spent “their entire adult lives together,” bartending through college, figuring out their careers, and navigating life’s challenges. Holbrook was Anastos’ maid of honor in her wedding and supported her as she started a family.
And then Holbrook’s turn came when she fell in love with her husband, Healy, who works for Citywide Title Corporation.
“I knew she really liked him, because they were going everywhere together,” Daly of The Laricy Team said. “(Holbrook) was an independent person. So, once they started talking, you kind of just knew that they were going to get married and start a family.”
A ‘GoFundMe’ page has been set up to assist the family with the cost of funeral services and care for Holbrook’s newborn daughter. As of Friday, the fundraiser has already raised nearly $290,000 in an outpouring of support that included donations from many in the real estate industry.
Anastos said she plans to honor the memory of her friend by helping to care for her daughter and telling her stories about Holbrook, so she always knows how wonderful her mother was.
“She lived every day — and this is no joke — to the fullest,” Anastos said. “I would meet up with her for dinner and by the end of the night, we had booked tickets to go to Cuba. She was always ready to move on to the next adventure and she didn’t waste a moment.”
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