Thief 3

Roger Scommegna

Roger Scommegna was born in 1961 in Chicago, Illinois to an American mother and an immigrant Italian father. Childhood lessons about hard work and creativity shaped a successful entrepreneur who is still very grounded in family and friends.

While most Chicago boys in the 1970’s were playing baseball and riding bikes, Roger decided at age 11 to form a company with his friends and make money shoveling snow and mowing neighborhood lawns—locking up all of the homes in the neighborhood. In high school, he saw the sport of skateboarding growing in popularity and put together a group that opened the Chicago area’s first skate shop.

After college in 1983, looking to buy his first home, Roger had trouble finding information about available houses, which led him to launch a real estate marketing company to give realtors tools that would make home shopping easier, eventually becoming a principal founder of Realtor.com, the world’s most trafficked real estate website and the vehicle that brought home shopping to the Internet.

In 2001, Roger's passion for wine provided the impetus to explore life as a winemaker and hotelier. He became a partner in a hotel and began building a vineyard in Mendocino County's Anderson Valley, and in 2002, he joined forces with Joel Gott and Charles Bieler in the upstart Three Thieves, a venture founded on the belief that great wine should be enjoyed by everyone.