ABOUT US
MIKEL + JILL
MIKEL HUBBARD
Co-Owner
Building off 10 years experience as a producer on HGTV shows, I purchased my first vacation home in 2013 in Lake Tahoe with an interior designer friend, followed by a vacation home in Joshua Tree in 2015. By 2017, I had quit television all together and built an interior design, property management and real estate investment firm with that friend called x8 Property and Design www.x8propertyanddesign.com
We took on high end projects in the San Francisco Bay Area and real estate flips in Joshua Tree. In the high desert, we would turn neglected homes with potential into stunning turnkey Airbnbs for creatives looking outside of the LA real estate market. We added a third vacation rental for ourselves in Death Valley, California in 2019 and began property managing the turnkey Airbnbs we had built for others since we knew the homes and our formula for successful rentals better than anyone.
Having done over 20 flips that made the pages of the New York Times, Dwell.com, Apartment Therapy, California Home and Design and more, we decided to focus solely on rehabbing properties. During that time, I created a tech startup with another Bay Area friend called The Host Company www.thehost.co allowing short term rental hosts anywhere in the world to sell whatever they want in their home. That means everything from late checkouts to ear plugs to firewood to services like massages, private chefs and pantry stocking. Now with nearly 10,000 digital storefronts worldwide, The Host Co has become a staple in the vacation rental software ecosystem.
Wanting to get back into the home space and never really having left property or project management, I have partnered with experienced fellow project manager Jill Johnson. Growing the property management business not only helps me better understand the needs of property managers as it relates to The Host Company, but it allows me to get back into the business of building and managing gorgeous high desert properties. I truly love the process of giving people an incredible desert experience and turning a home into a well-oiled machine and hope to do that for you.
JILL JOHNSON
Co-Owner
In 2001, after finishing my interior architecture and design program at Art Academy San Francisco, I started designing custom furniture and interiors with a small company in Santa Cruz. Knowing that I wanted to move into bigger spaces and construction, I jumped ship to managing properties and remodeling. These larger projects and real estate development opened my eyes to transforming spaces for both the owners and the guests who stay.
I successfully operated several vacation rentals and an oceanfront bed and breakfast before moving to London. I traveled for a year to Cuba, Dominican Republic, Panama, Spain, Morocco, Kenya, Tanzania and finally trekked to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. This global travel influenced my design and understanding of how humans dwell in all sorts of structures, how we share the land and navigate community.
In 2017, I purchased my 1952 Homestead Cabin home in Joshua Tree and remodeled it myself… (Well with some good friends willing to brave the desert weather). This process of working on my house with my own hands and then running it as a successful vacation rental for several years before moving to the desert full-time in 2020 has provided me with all the understanding I needed to help others do the same.
Starting in 2018, I became a project manager on remodels in Southern California working on residential remodels, commercial projects and custom homes in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, eventually moving to Aspen in 2022 to tackle million dollar new builds. Ultimately, I loved the desert and wanted to return to my home to focus on property and project management in the high desert.