A strange career, told in chapters — film, real estate, studios, stages, and the things I’m building next.
Five chapters · Click any world to enter
Where it begins · Orlando · First time away from home
Before the companies, the deal, the tours — there was a dark room, a glowing screen, and the sound that made it feel real.
Film was the first thing I ever fell in love with. So I left home for Full Sail University in Orlando and learned audio engineering from the ground up — not as a hobby, but as a way in: I was going to become a re-recording engineer, the person who gives a film its final breath.
What that training actually installed was a discipline: signal flow, critical listening, and respect for the invisible decisions an audience feels but never notices. Every chapter after this one runs on it.
The detour that taught business · DC · Maryland · Virginia
At twenty-three, I wasn’t assisting on someone else’s closings. I was running the company.
The title industry found me first — and then I built on it, founding TreeHome Realty, a title & investment agency working alongside top real estate leaders across the DMV. Closings are unforgiving: documents, deadlines, and money moving between strangers who have to trust the process. I was the process.
That network opened a second door. The contacts I made across the region ushered me into investing, where I wholesaled single-family properties — and learned, young, what it costs to be responsible for an outcome.
Then I walked away from it — for Los Angeles, for film — because I could feel my dreams splintering in pursuit of money.
The return to sound · Bias Studios · Springfield, Virginia
Sfumato: Leonardo’s word for blending like smoke, with no hard edges. I named a company after it — and got back to work.
As COVID took its toll on California, I left — and started my second company. Sfumato was an audio production company operating out of Bias Studios in Springfield, Virginia, producing for clients including Sony and businesses across the DC metro area.
For the first time since Full Sail, the work and the dream were in the same room. The engineer’s training and the founder’s instincts, finally pointed at the same thing — and the client list was starting to rhyme with the chapter that comes next.
The surreal chapter · America · Europe · Los Angeles
I joined alternative R&B band CRUZA. We signed to Universal Music Group — and ended up back in Los Angeles.
Surreal is the only honest word for it. In this chapter I executive produced two studio albums, starting with the debut, Cruzafied, and did production and design work for Sony, YZY, Def Jam, Atlantic, and others — as the band’s lead producer, engineer, and guitarist.
We toured America and Europe. I music-directed live shows. I scored commercials. The list goes on.
And somewhere in it, the strange career stopped looking strange. It started to read as a through-line: sound, stages, systems, and storytelling — at scale.
Peel the torn corner ↗ — drag, tap, or press Enter
Now · Sfumato revived · Los Angeles
Sfumato was never just a studio name. Now it’s the company building the instruments I always wanted to reach for.
I’ve revived Sfumato as an audio plug-in company, and designed its first product, HELIOS, from the ground up — with more projects already in the works. The ethos is sound as matter: the analog instinct of tape, console, and room, rebuilt as software.
Every earlier chapter is in this one — the engineer, the founder, the producer — all at the same desk. I’m expanding my palette now, and looking for the work that inspires me. Push the heat field — that’s the idea, in miniature.
Five tracks: a film room, a closing table, a studio, two continents of stages — and the work being built now. Flip the record over for the short version, the credits, and how to reach me.
The short version
Creative producer — based in Los Angeles.
Film was the first thing I ever fell in love with. I left home for Full Sail University in Orlando and learned audio engineering from the ground up, aiming at the re-recording stage — and that training in sound, signal, and story has run underneath everything since. It just didn’t stay in the studio: at twenty-three I founded TreeHome Realty, a title & investment agency in the DC–Maryland–Virginia area, running closings and wholesaling properties alongside the region’s top operators. Then I walked away from it — for Los Angeles, for film — because I could feel the dream splintering in pursuit of money.
The way back ran through sound. I started Sfumato, an audio production company operating out of Bias Studios in Springfield, Virginia, working for clients including Sony. Then came the surreal chapter: I joined alternative R&B band CRUZA as lead producer, engineer, and guitarist. We signed to Universal Music Group and ended up back in Los Angeles. I executive produced two studio albums — starting with the debut, Cruzafied — did production and design work for Sony, YZY, Def Jam, and Atlantic, toured America and Europe, music-directed live shows, and scored commercials.
Now I’m reviving Sfumato as an audio plug-in company. Its first product, HELIOS — designed and built from the ground up — treats sound as matter: tape, console, and room, rebuilt as software. I’m expanding my palette, and I’m available for the creative production work that inspires me — records, scores, sound design, and the tools themselves.
