The Fantasied Beginnings of a Secret Real Estate Tech Society (Transmission #324)

[Editor’s note: This Camino-inspired transmission blends both humans and machines (ChatGPT) to imagine how GEM might have begun had this “secret real estate tech society” (as some call it) been hatched hundreds of years ago, rather than in 2017. This is fiction.]

Audio file: Want to listen to this, instead of read it? AI generated audio version (via Eleven Labs): The Fantasied Beginnings of a Secret Real Estate Tech Society.mp3

Way back in the 1600s, real estate in the American colonies was born not through community but conquest. Royal charters empowered companies like the Virginia Company to parcel out Indigenous land to settlers and speculators. The system displaced Native Americans and prioritized expansion over stewardship.

By the late 1700s, the federal government had inherited this structure—organizing frontier land into grids and auctioning it to the highest bidder. The Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Homestead Act of 1862 were, on the surface, about opportunity. But they primarily benefited the elite with access, connections, and capital.

Yet behind the public record of land sales and westward expansion, another story quietly unfolded.

A small, idealistic group of surveyors, misfits, builders, title agents, and thinkers began to see land not just as a commodity—but as place. They believed that ownership, when rooted in dignity and design, could uplift individuals, families, and communities. They saw the built environment as a canvas for possibility and well-being. Their aspiration: To create a system where every American—regardless of wealth or background—could shape and claim the place they call home.

In the late 19th century, as trains cut through wilderness and cities stretched toward the sky, this quiet movement took form. Beneath the vaulted stone ceilings of a Manhattan title office, they gathered to found a guild: Domus Gemmarum—The House of Jewels. Made up of designers, cartographers, policy strategists, thinkers, connectors, and real estate pioneers, their aim was not secrecy for secrecy’s sake—but intention. They sought to protect ideas not yet ready for the spotlight. To incubate innovations that served people, not just profit.

Inspired by the rituals of the Knights Templar, and influenced by several early members who were also Freemasons, they infused their gatherings with meaning. Their charter—etched in limestone and hidden in an upstate quarry—spoke of land as legacy, community as infrastructure, and equity as both a financial and moral imperative.

Meetings were held in the basements of decommissioned courthouses and bell towers of forgotten land offices, lit by lantern light and sealed with signets bearing the symbol of an open lock. Within those walls, members taught one another how to map land by stars, trace family claims long lost to bureaucracy, and decode obscure zoning to help underserved communities protect what was theirs. Camaraderie ran deep; conversations were raw, honest, and objective.

Some say they held onto deeds from before the Revolution—quietly returning property to families cut out of the system. Others claim their members designed the floorplans of landmark buildings with public gathering spaces intentionally embedded—commons for civic life hidden in the language of luxury. Others say many of the nation’s iconic office buildings, Class-A apartments, and cultural landmarks contain secret spaces—underground rooms, hidden wall compartments in boardrooms, corner offices unlocked only by skeleton key—storing hundreds of millions worth of gemstones dating back generations earmarked for philanthropy generations down the road [okay, okay, there are limits on the far fetchness of this fiction].

Always looking forward, Edison’s invention of the lightbulb in 1879 sparked a movement to extend the usable day, as homes across the country began installing electric light. When the Multiple Listing Service emerged in 1908, they advocated for it not as a walled garden, but as a platform to expand access and fairness. When urban zoning rose in the 20th century with the 1916 Zoning Resolution, Edward Bassett, the "father of American zoning," lobbied from behind the scenes for mixed-use walkability, equitable density, and parks near schools—not just parcels for profit.

By the 1930s, their ethos had subtly influenced everything from cooperative housing models to progressive land trusts. They recruited lawyers, planners, housing advocates, government officials, and technologists. Membership offered no fame or fortune—just purpose, and the chance to reimagine the American landscape as a tool for inclusion and innovation.

During the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s—decades shaped by suburban sprawl, urban renewal, and the civil rights movement—GEM worked quietly to steer development toward equity and human dignity. While others codified redlining and exclusionary zoning, GEM-backed architects and attorneys advanced integrated housing models and tenant protection. Some members contributed to early drafts of the Fair Housing Act in 1968. Others collaborated with civil engineers to pilot walkable infrastructure, public transit corridors, and green space over car-centric sprawl. In disinvested cities, they incubated neighborhood reinvestment models that would later inform federal policy. 

Their impact was rarely visible, but always foundational. They laid the groundwork for a more just and human-centered urban future. Jack and Laura Dangermond, founders of ESRI, and Robert Swann, co-author of The Community Land Trust: A New Model for Land Tenure in America (1972), were among those shaping the agenda of lodge meetings.

In the digital age, Domus Gemmarum—by then simply known as GEM—turned its focus to a new frontier: technology. They seeded early PropTech startups with capital, connections, and code. Some nurtured civic data standards. Others built open-source tools to value land fairly, map vacancy, and surface—not obscure patterns of exclusion. They believed machine learning and AI could serve the public interest, if built with care and access to the right data. 

Behind the scenes, GEM brokered access to  hard-to-find data including valuation models, rent rolls, MLS data, and public records. The earliest innovators to plot listings on digital maps were guided by the GEM charter. One GEM engineer—known in the group as the GEMineer—negotiated the original Zillow contract for millions of sales transactions to be displayed freely to the public.

They called their encrypted data commons Cadastre Lux—a ledger of light. Not for control, but for clarity.

To the public, GEM remains a whisper—a legend passed between real estate practitioners, urbanists, technologists, and reformers. But traces remain: pilot programs reshaping eviction policy, zoning experiments unlocking affordable housing, and venture-backed tools committed to transparency over capture. Even software enabling fully remote notarization and e-singing was nurtured in its ranks.

Innovators building tools to help families save for homeownership, rent rooms to blue collar workers, unlock home equity in days, negotiate offers openly, 3D print homes, or deploy disaster shelters in days—all have shared a meal at a GEM table.

And for those who know where to look, symbols still surface: a broken chain, an open compass, a housewarming gift from years past. Not signs of surveillance, but of vision.

The House of Jewels, it turns out, was never about hoarding power. It was about planting seeds. Quietly. Patiently. With radical hope. Always believing in a better built world future—for all.

...want to belong to such a community? Apply today to GEM Diamond.

[Thank you to Eddie Berenbaum and Michael Barnes for the inspiration to write this, and thanks to Jeff Turner, Bryan Copley, and Pierre Calzadilla for feedback on the article.]