Builder-Upper

With a banker's natural curiosity, old A. P. Giannini wanted to meet the 32-year-old builder who had already borrowed $30 million from his Bank of America, and was now asking for $50 million more. So he made a special trip to Los Angeles, dropped in on Paul W. Trousdale, looked at his past projects and future plans. Banker Giannini's curiosity was apparently satisfied, for last week Trousdale announced that he was getting his $50 million loan.

Past Projects. The record which impressed Banker Giannini: during the war the Paul W. Trousdale Construction Co. had built 3,025 small houses, including seven big housing projects. Now it was hard at work on 2,000 houses for veterans and was turning them out at the rate of ten a day.

Paul Trousdale got into the Los Angeles building business by way of the University of Southern California and the ad department of Beech-Nut. After a year as an adman, Trousdale took a $125-a-month timekeeper's job with a local contractor, quit to form his own company with a $10,000 bank loan to finance it.

He built big houses for movie stars and executives at $25,000 to $100,000 each (Trousdale now lives in an English-Colonial house he built for Deanna Durbin, later bought back), switched to building small houses in large projects when war came. On each project, he and his stockholders put up the money to cover the cost of real estate, got Bank of America loans to cover all construction costs, had little trouble getting materials by his cash-on-the-line policy. Like most builders he formed a new corporation for each project, dissolved it when the project was finished. Thus his fat profits were taxable at only 25% as capital gains, gave him plenty of capital to expand. In all, he invested some $900,000 in his wartime projects, made another $900,000.

Future Plans. Well heeled at war's end, he decided the time had come to plunge. For this he picked one of the best pieces of undeveloped land in Southern California, a 625-acre tract at Baldwin Hills, a short run from downtown Los Angeles.

Now, with the Bank of America loan, Trousdale plans to build 8,000 rental units on 450 acres of it, along with a 26-acre super-shopping center. Eventually he hopes to build a hundred 13-story apartment houses on the rest of the land.

Trousdale's efficient organization has been kept intact by promoting hard workers, enabling them to become stockholders. Says Trousdale: "Anyone who works a little harder than the next guy will get somewhere." Hardest worker of all is Paul Trousdale, who was running things from his bed last week (see cut) after a tumble downstairs.

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