When people think of banking, one institution stands apart for its scale, private ownership, operating philosophy, and enduring commitment to the communities it serves. MidFirst Bank, the nation’s largest privately owned bank, brings a distinctive approach to relationship banking, supporting clients with a wide range of commercial and private banking services. Its trusted bankers help turn ambitious ideas into attainable realities, combining creativity, expertise, and personal access at the moments that shape how people live.
Across Southern California, something worth paying attention to is happening, one relationship at a time.
From Santa Barbara to San Diego, we visited homeowners and the bankers who helped bring their visions to life, often building on successful business relationships that grew to support clients’ personal dreams. The homes are strikingly different: hillside estates, contemporary coastal builds, thoughtful renovations and properties reimagined for a family’s next chapter. Yet each tells a remarkably similar story. Behind the architecture, blueprints and financing structures is a relationship built on trust, genuine understanding and someone who picked up the phone when it mattered.
What most people don’t tell you about building or buying a home is that it is never just a transaction. It is one of the most personal things a person will ever do, and it requires someone on the financial side who understands not only the numbers but the people behind them: their ambitions, their complications, what they are really trying to build and why it matters so much to get it right.
That philosophy has shaped MidFirst Bank’s presence in Southern California for more than two decades. Its bankers operate at the intersection of ambition and possibility, combining financial sophistication with the kind of personal access that is increasingly rare in banking. As the stories on the following pages make clear, the bank’s impact cannot be measured in business endeavors and homes financed alone. It lives in the confidence clients gain from having an accomplished advocate at the table, in relationships that outlast the closing documents and in communities elevated by what those partnerships make possible.
The people behind the dream are the kind of partners others wish they had.
VISIONS REALIZED
MidFirst Bank’s Southern California roots date to 2004, when 1st Century Bank opened its doors. Jason DiNapoli and Alan Rothenberg helped build and grow 1st Century, then continued to lead the business after it became part of MidFirst Bank in 2016. Over the past two decades, they have helped expand MidFirst’s presence and capabilities across the state. DiNapoli, California President of MidFirst Bank, is passionate about building strong relationships that help clients achieve their business and personal financial goals. “Every opportunity begins with a vision and a relationship,” he said. “Our role is to understand that vision and provide thoughtful financial solutions that help make it possible. The financing is important, but the relationship is what makes projects successful.”
That philosophy ties together the homes featured here. Each is different in style and story, but made possible by the same foundation: a banking relationship built on trust, patience and a genuine understanding of what a home means to the people who live in it.
DiNapoli believes every community has its own personality, but all share a deep pride of place. “People here don’t simply buy houses,” he said. “They create homes that reflect their families, their lifestyles and their aspirations.”
While each home is unique, he noted, all represent people investing in the communities they love. “Whether it’s a family renovating a forever home or someone building something entirely new, these projects contribute to the character of their neighborhoods,” he said. “We’re fortunate to work with clients who care deeply about where they live and want to leave something meaningful behind.”
Under DiNapoli’s leadership, relationship banking, which combines business and personal financial needs, has become a proven model. Many MidFirst client relationships span years, and some extend across generations. “We’ve helped clients start and expand businesses, purchase homes, finance renovations and preserve and grow their legacy,” he said. “Being part of those milestones creates trust, and that’s something you can’t build overnight.”
THE MANIFESTATION OF A DREAM: A PACIFIC PALISADES PORTAL
Matt Guirguis has spent 30 years navigating the mortgage world, and he will tell you that most of it felt impersonal: numbers pulled, boxes checked, deal closed, next. When he met the MidFirst banking team around 2010, something was different from the first conversation. They wanted to understand his business model, his vision, what he had built and where he intended to go. He had never had a bank ask him any of that before.
“It’s truly a personal relationship first that happens to fit into the business world, which is highly unusual these days.” Guirguis said.
That conversation introduced him to Greg Haddad, the MidFirst banker who would come to know Guirguis as well as anyone in his professional and personal life. They became friends almost immediately, forging a closeness that extends well beyond banking. Their longstanding trust laid the groundwork for Haddad to assist Guirguis across multiple properties.
Guirguis’ story does not begin in real estate. He immigrated to Santa Monica from the Middle East as a child, speaking three languages. He became a top Ford technician, worked in racing systems, taught aerobics, ballet and yoga, and created the largest Middle Eastern orchestra outside the Middle East, which performs at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills. Real estate was one more arena in which he decided to excel. Over time, Guirguis adopted a philosophy he later learned was called manifestation. He would drive through Santa Monica, spot a building he wanted to own and somehow it would find its way to him. He did not understand until his thirties that there was a technique behind what he had been doing all along. It became the foundation of everything he built.
The Positano property in Pacific Palisades sits near the iconic Getty Villa. Guirguis has lived there for 18 years; he got married and had his daughter there. Eventually, he decided the property deserved something extraordinary.
At its center is a pool that may be the only one of its kind anywhere, with unrestricted ocean views and a moving floor with an attached glass guardrail that rises and falls to allow two feet of water for children or full depth for swimming. “Putting a home like that on the hill,” Guirguis said, “took one miracle after another.”
Through construction financing, COVID, economic upheaval and fires, Haddad and the MidFirst team were present and engaged at every turn.
Guirguis’ hope for the finished property was simple: a space where his wife and daughter could open their own doors. None of it, he will tell you, would have been possible without the people who showed up every time it mattered.
A HEALTH ESTATE TAKES ROOT IN HOPE RANCH, SANTA BARBARA
George and Alexandra Berar never went looking for their property. They found it on a walk. Exploring a quiet stretch of Hope Ranch one afternoon, they stopped at a parcel where the land seemed to do the talking: the light, the slope, the ocean beyond it. They fell in love with the site before they had a single drawing of what would rise on it.
What they eventually built was a health estate designed around how well a family lives and ages. Hospital-grade filtration, humidity control, oxygenated water, grounded floors, low-EMF electronics and circadian lighting became part of the home’s foundation, alongside a chlorine-free lap pool, gym, recovery room and sauna.
Architect Kate Svensson translated farmhouse traditions, including gabled rooflines, stone and timber, into something contemporary, with walls of glass that dissolve the line between interior and garden. Interior designer Anne-Marie Barton brought an organic-modern sensibility that George said gave the home its soul: natural materials, warm neutrals and rooms shaped around daylight.
General contractor Gavin Moores and the Center Point Development Group team brought that vision to life with craftsmanship that matched its ambition.
