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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1957-03 2,000,000 homes wanted by 1970’s (American Builder Magazine)..�•....v�siwae`.r•r+u4.."�+ei.�++Wwf+„-r.�M:{�j�a++, ,iOa.. What's happening to builders' profits? Ac)gs,5fl Y� THE BIG STORY 11 saw them turn an impossible land - planning problem into a booming building opportunity" ob and Dick Ross can well point with pride to the 3,500 new homesites they are opening up for builders in North Palm Beach, Florida: what they've accomplished is a model in land plan- ning. I think it's a model of national significance: the basic idea is adaptable anywhere where there's a land shortage and it can mean steady profits for small builders and big builders alike. But don't take my word for it. Take the word of one of the builders who is putting up his fifth house in North Palm Beach. He is a former Washington builderwho has moved there simply because the basic idea behind the new homesites was sound. He explains why he moved by opening a booklet of Protective Covenants and letting you read the opening paragraph: "A home is not a detached unit but a part of a neighborhood, which in turn is part of a town; and the good quality of the home usually depends at least as much on its surroundings as on its design and construction. Hence the vital importance of ground planning and control of the development of neighborhoods." That's a quote from Thomas Adams, the promi- 88 by Walter Reese Browder Editor nent British architect who died in 1940. Bob and Dick Ross have had it in mind ever since they bought the raw land for North Palm Beach back in September, 1955. They believed it so strongly that they actually created a town with all the features of a munici- pality -including a $1 million sewage and water plant, $70,000 city hall, a police and fire depart- ment, a city manager, and even a country club with an 18-hole golf course before they opened it up to builders like Maynard Duvall. I don't wonder that Duvall moved from Wash- ington and set up the H&D Construction Co. When you build well on well -planned sites, a new reputation is easy to earn. LAND PLANNERS Dick and Bob Ross, shown projecting their model town of North Palm Beach against raw Florida land, are developing 3,500 new homesites. They completed most municipal features of new town before selling lots. AMERICAN BUILDER Z WE Vt N Q-1 ho. tud car 77 WO mg s. ON 2 An- al S. PIW AR 494 N -W f 40 All X A W 4N 74PUY* VI- - A - 4117141 Nn w tw 4. r. It SO OR W-1 ALAr, 4L F Color photos by Gordon jVf. Potter MARCH 1957 cz 1 c- rA 1v a, i- i- t) e K • .._ Ne Jnl .. i"'Lb%': :.{..,:i2 �..KJnelrJ.:n%w,c^.•. .. �i+.". >. r {{�� it ,,u,,.- ` . •. ..: THE BIG STORY, continued wixermiNgswastommaxerraw ��y//,f'V:': `%• 1. n ..v h%/i<i}.Y<•' i.V =`t•`.,;xFa?th�^`' � iii>}`,;;ca>:, •'ii:� `•�t ,i '.i,';F � �•.,.:.�;... ,-'L)t: i;. :,Yw., �:. >ti.�' �.y. ... ig`{�'a' �'. ,; c?3 `"�J sa x% ;'j�"iPc :::-) .�...:. .... .... :. •. ,. :.?t'i . "here's how you dig hen the Home Builders Association of Palm Beach County staged its first Parade of Homes in 1956, they found themselves in a remarkable position. The town they had chosen for the Parade either had or was soon to have all a town could want (and a few things that most towns never dream of) except for just one thing: it didn't have any people. It was wide open for the business of selling houses. The story of how 1,350 acres of raw Florida land became a town in just one- year is the story of Bob and Dick Ross, builders -turned -land plan- ners. Here's a quick chronology of what happened between the time they bought the land and began to open up some 3,500 homesites to local builders: They paid $3,700,000 for the land which lies across -US. 1 about three miles north of Palm Beach and includes more than a mile of frontage of famous Lake Worth to John McArthur, a Chicago insuranceA.man who invests heavily in Florida real estate. They •.:ca l led in Seward H. Mott Associates of ,Washington. D.C., famous community planners. and asked them to make the land one of the most desirable places to live in the U.S.A. They went to the Florida Legislature and saw to it that, the land became —officially —the new Vil- lage of North Palm Beach, Inc. They began construction of a water and sewage treatment system and spent another $1,000,000. They donated 10 acres for a school that would be ready -in the Fall of 1957. All the while, they were in continuous consulta- tion with Seward H. Mott Associates to make the Land Plan (shown above) a booming reality. Its most remarkable feature: over half of the 3,500 homesites will be on the water; all the waterways will be connected and all will have ready access to Lake Worth and the Intracoastal Waterway. This wonderful feature of North Palm Beach didn't "just happen." It was the happy by-product of Seward H. Mott's solution to the two big prob- lems that plagued the raw land: (1) There were several low areas that had to be filled to make them suitable for home building; (2) the absolute neces- sity —in this region of moderately heavy rainfall for economical storm water drainage. Continued on p. 94 How can 1 use this? American Builder suggests that if no builder in your area is big enough to start a town and sell sites. get together with other builders to buy land corporately. That's what happened in Austin, Texas. Results: excellent. '92 AMERICAN BUILDER ._'r�r-�..«.-.�-..w+•..�.r.✓"- • xe: '.:u<v.:;5"�' ..,..,ii:W,,w4:'�?:c ti' �'; •`tea DEVELOP A SOUND LAND PLAN 1 Bob and Dick Ross relied on famed community planners, Seward H. Mott Associates, to turn raw Florida land into a tropical paradise .. , for home -owners as well as builders. • 2 GET THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT Toughest problems (some low areas required fill: storm water drainage was essential) are being solved by good plan plus reliance on latest advances in '`earth -moving." up a buiIdingopportunity" • . 'LSDi: ;Ml..., j.•,i�:' ... •` +icy . '^'(4 .CK� ..": �:�,�:''.: /�. ,�Jvgo f..,. �ry,. .. •t>irS,K`.a. �..vY 40vcyi^l -- AM .-a].. .+ . _. " .f.. V ` ,--- « „ ,,... B;,. ,.TK" ^ems, ... F Mom•• �n � •• `' �n 4'� kKu�.: �N:t•»• 3 BE CAREFUL HO YOU SELL IT Developers sold first section to builders in HBA of Palm Beach County who staged first Parade of Homes there. New town was nearly complete on "community facilities." 93 3+� MARCH 1957 AA /95T/) can buy these lots for about $3,000 I fill sites in North Palm. Beach required the digging, pushing and i hauling of about 330,000 yards of earth. This represents an aver- a�'e of slightly more than 600 yards per house high, but not Clnreasonable; and the Rubin Construction Co. of West Palm Beach, earth -moving contractors who are doing the job for the Rosses, are holding costs to ap- proximately 30 cents a yard. There are some builders who would get the shivers at the thought of paying $200 per house for grading in a level, sandy area, but in this case, the fiL7ure includes the creation of numer- re arin the first 500 building g ous canals which, in effect, turn about half the sites into water- front property. This alone would he cheap at twice the price. In addition, the canals serve as storm sewers, and permit the use of relatively short runs of drain pipe. The canals were dug with a "41 Northwest" combination crane and dragline, and presented little difficulty beyond the need for mats in some of the muckier areas. North Palm Beach is built on an ancient dune formation with rounded soil particles. This pro- vides excellent bearing when it is confined, but when the cover is removed it makes very loose footing. This was a problem, fi- nally solved by equipping the "D Tournapulls," which do most of the hauling, with special 65- inch, low pressure sand tires. The individual builders are re- sponsible for putting in the con- crete driveways and five-foot concrete sidewalks that go with each house; before that, of course, the Rosses had put in roads, and Rubin handles this job too. It involves some 60,000 square yards of paving, at a cost of about $2.20 a yard. Specifica- tions call for 28-foot major streets, on 8-inch local shell marl bases and 8-foot stabilized shoul- ders, and 11/2 inches of asphalt; neighborhood roads are built to the same specifications, but are 20 feet wide. Michigan front-end loader Westingbouse-LeTourneau "D Tournapull" Bucyrus -Erie scraper M a D r u 'etc, If I :1_ �- -_•u _t h (Continued from in previous page) What you see on the Land Plan as the "North Palm Beacb Waterway"_ (and the "finger canals" off it) was the solution: it would come into existence when a shallow stream that con- nected the Intracoastal Waterway and the Earman River was dredged. The new Waterway would provide not only storm water drainage and fill but home - sites with water frontage as well. Nearly half the residents would be able to dock boats in their backyards! Other features of the Seward H. Mott Plan: a town hall (com- pleted January 15); a country club with an 18-hole golf course (the only structure on the land when it was bought and now completely refurbished): two lakes, a shopping plaza. a ma- rina, an office and medical cen- ter, two schools, boat storage facilities (these to be built). The whole thing amounts to a $20 million investment and the Ross brothers, who had originally planned it as a five-year project, now hope to see it completed in three years. Reason: a $42 mil- Iion Pratt & Whitney jet plant is being built just 12 miles away; about 2,000 personnel will thus become potential customers for houses in North Palm Beach. This year, the Rosses expect to see 300 houses go up in their town; next year, they expect an- other 500. At present, in addition to the Parade Homes (17 houses), another 25 have been completed. These run in the $16 to $38,000 price bracket which the Rosses feel is both too low and too high; they hope builders will concen- trate on a range between $18,000 and $22,000. When you ask the Rosses how they accomplished their project in just one year, they bow in the direction of each other, Seward H. Mott Associates (community planning) and Brockway, Weber & Brockway (West Palm Beach engineers who engineered the streets and storm drainage as well as the sewage and water -treat- ment plant ).Then they tell you that if any one attempted to pro- ceed without the others. chaos Aa ° 1g5��35sY ... 4 ... and watch your costs : builders Caterpillar bulldozer Caterpillar grader eg\� ;�,vi��<S f Sii�:��.: 15'4. �Q. '•jV�' 1 .1-.1., Barber -Greene asphalt spreader • • :,. I�f THE BIG STORY, continued S af:ti" a teF ARCHITECTS Plockelman & Powell. AIA. specified re- claimed old brick and a smooth stucco finish to warm up the concrete hlock construction of this Florida house. How a good land plan sets up a good house plan rip he builders who built this house moved all the way from Washington, D.C., to North Palm Beach, Fla., to do it. That's because their idea of custom building agreed perfectly with the idea that went into the planning of that town: ``. . . the good quality of the home usually depends at least as much on its surroundings as on its design and construction" (see page 88). The builders therefore matched their own imagina- tion to that of the land planners, and this house (for $29,750) is the result. It was built by H&D Construction Co., Inc., which is also currently building a similar model for about one-third less. ti 96 AMERICAN BUILDER ning means community facilities like these" "Good land values are maintained by good codes" “ the vital importance of ground plan- ning and control of the development of neighborhoods" is played up in the introduction to a booklet of Protective Covenants that has been issued by the Village of North Palm Beach. These covenants, backed by zoning regulations, protect the area from haphazard develop- ment. For example: all shops are con- fined to a Shopping Plaza. � c����,;,t..-sr\•> tea.'.-;x::-: ::.x.., .-.-.: x "They put up a city hall before people moved in" he $70,000 city hall at the left was completed January 15 and houses the municipal functions of the Village of North Palm Beach. Also on hand: a city manager, a fire engine, a police depart- ment of three men to provide 24-hour police protection. Until tax revenues (which will be first collected in Novem- ber 1957) can support the city govern- ment, operating funds were loaned by a local bank. "The best facility of all: there's more land" The officers and directors of the HBA of Palm Beach County chose the new Village of North Palm Beach for their first Parade of Homes not only because there was a site big enough (including parking space) but because there was plenty of additional improved land on which speculative or custom building could be done. "When they say `country - club living,' they mean it" An existing Country Club was on .the land when the Rosses bought it; the club is now completely refurbished and it's 18-hole golf course is being re- designed —all of it for the exclusive use of N.. Palm Beach residents. A modern marina and yacht club is also planned. It will provide deep water dockage and will be built on the lake front adjacent to the country club. (Land plan on page 92 shows exact locations). Acc*19�7�358' . • end of THE BIG STORY: "Good land plan "They put in utilities before selling sites" Builders Bob and Dick Ross spent 1 million on this sewage and water plant in N. Palm Beach; it can serve 10,- 000 persons and can easily be expanded to serve over 22,000. Storm drainage sys- tem, gas lines, street paving were also completed before houses were built. Flo- rida's director of Sanitary Engineering and Board of Health called it all "just wonderful." "They donated ten acres for schools" ne of the first moves the Rosses made, after incorporating their land aas the Village of North Palm Beach, was to set aside acreage for schools to serve their 3,500 homesites. At left is the pro- posed model. The School Board is budget- ing the necessary funds so that it will be completed in Fall-1957. At present, town is served by school just one mile away.