Jon Bell - REALTOR ®
Hi, I am Jon Bell of Railey Realty and I would like to personally welcome you to Deep Creek Lake! Below is my "Deep Creek Life Story,” and as with most life stories, it involves a great home. I love that I’m able to share this beautiful area and sell a lot of real estate here, and I welcome the opportunity to be a part of your story. Please feel free to email me at Jbell@Railey.com or call me on my cell phone (301) 501-0735 with Real Estate questions anytime. Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
My Deep Creek Life Story
I originally visited the Deep Creek Lake area while on a Boy Scout trip in the early 1990’s…I don’t remember exactly how old I was (I was in middle school) but we stayed in the Fantasy Valley Village (it’s gone now but was next to the Wisp Resort) and had a great trip. The following year, I convinced my parents that we needed to skip our annual family beach vacation to Ocean City and check out the lake. My mom pushed back on the idea, since she loves the beach, but my dad and I were excited to camp and fish.
In the spring of the following year, my dad hooked up our Wellcraft to his F150 and we trailered it out to experience Western Maryland together for the very first time. The lake was beautiful, the weather was great, and we were all very happy we skipped our beach trip to vacation at Deep Creek. On that trip, we ended up camping on our boat while tied up to the docks at Johnny’s Bait Shop. It was a great trip...but, even with Johnny’s advice, my dad and I didn’t catch any fish. Apparently, there are a lot of fish in Deep Creek. They just don’t like the Bell family.
During my senior year of high school, my mom accepted a job to become the principle of Southern Garrett High School in Oakland, MD. We were all excited – we were moving to the lake! After renting a house in Oakland for a year, she and my father purchased a home from Railey Realty on Penn Cove Road, where they still live today. The house they purchased came with a boat slip on Deep Creek Lake and was very close to the Wisp Resort. Needless to say, I came to visit them a lot during college and spent the summers living on the lake. I got my first real taste of living the Lake Life in 1996 and have been hooked ever since.
While in college, I spent the summer days on the lake and working in the restaurants in the evenings. I waited on tables and bartended at the Red Run Lodge on Mayhew Inn Road and the Harbor Bar on Glendale Road. I drove a Sea Doo Jet Ski to work some days - how cool is that?! After graduating from Towson University in January of 2000, I moved to Deep Creek full time. Finding a job at the lake wasn’t easy back then, so I started working as a bartender at Deep Creek Brewing Co. and while there, I began to meet a lot of great people and community leaders. By 2005, I gave up my side jobs and began selling Real Estate full time.
After being in the business for a few years and becoming friends with Jimmy Railey, I joined the Railey Realty sales team in 2007. With their support, I quickly became the #1 Selling Realtor in the Deep Creek Lake area. In 2010, I invested in another local business and my friend Craig Maple and I purchased ServiceMaster, a local cleaning and fire/disaster restoration company. In 2011, several realtor friends and I started Deep Creek Title Group. In 2012, I purchased shares of Railey Realty becoming the youngest partner in the firm, and founded Deep Creek Lodging Company - Railey Realty’s Official Vacation Home Rental Agency. More recently, in 2014, I purchased the PMS Long Term Home Rental and Property Management business with my friend Libby Anderson.
I met my wife while she was bartending at the Harbor Bar during Graduate School at Frostburg State University. We now live in a lakefront house in the Blakeslee Community with our two wonderful daughters. Sometimes I catch myself telling them that they don’t know how lucky they are to get to grow up on the lake, but the truth is that I don’t realize how lucky I am to be able to raise them in such a great town. I get to raise my daughters on the lake!
Last summer, we traded in our pontoon boat for a ski/wakeboard boat. The girls and I are on the lake a lot in the summer and we all ski and snowboard during the winter. At seven years old, my daughter joined the Deep Creek Winter Sports Team and did several races down Squirrel Cage at the Wisp Resort. My seven year old can not only ski down a black diamond slope… but she raced down it! This is something I couldn’t do until my late teens. We are blessed to live in and be part of such a great community. I may not have been born here… but Deep Creek will always be my home.