Copy for Real Estate Guide Column for 5-7-10

REAL ESTATE PATTERNS
By Ken DuVall

DE JA VU ALL OVER AGAIN!

I read the “Landmarks Transplanted” article in the recent ‘American Profile’ insert in the E-R and boy, did it bring back memories. My first foray into real estate was in 1963 when a land development called Lake Havasu City on the Colorado River in Arizona started sales. That’s when I got my real estate license.

The sales force generated leads in L.A. and we would all fly down to Lake Havasu every weekend for the buyers to select lots to buy. We used ancient turboprop Lockheed Electras that rattled and rolled their way over to AZ. On take-offs, I remember stuff came rolling down the aisles under the seats from who knows what source! It was a thrill every time!

We were selling lots in the middle of the desert. The price was around $1500 a lot then. There was absolutely nothing there then, besides desert critters, but a big clubhouse to feed us and do transactions in. I found it amazing there are now some 50,000 people living there. I sold a lot I won in a sales contest several years later for $25,000! Plus a mini-TV too with a 3” screen that I have to this day. You really needed two of them so you could strap one to each eye!

Then the famous old London Bridge highlighted in the Profile article was purchased for $2.8 mil and moved to the site by the project owner of chain saw fame, Robert McCulloch. Sales and prices skyrocketed. Who would have ever imagined you could move that humungous bridge? Ten thousand tons of granite blocks were sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Panama Canal and trucked from Long Beach to Havasu where it was totally rebuilt spanning the Colorado River! An amazing feat. It took 3 years to complete.

For the next 10 years I was involved in numerous other recreational developments: Tahoe Donner, a gated community at Truckee; Alta Sierra, also gated, out of Grass Valley; Klamath River Estates above Yreka; Mt. Shasta Forest 2½ acre parcels near McCloud at the very foot of Mt. Shasta. Another was the gated Bear Valley Springs project near Tehachapi which became a hit with the Hollywood elite. Acreage and extravagant homes became the place to hang out with the big guys. Nearly all the projects had golf courses.

In 1973 I ended up the So. Calif. Regional Mgr. on another project, our very own Paradise Pines, consisting of 16,000 lots which cost $3000 each then, a $48 million deal. Some of you may remember Sam Fortino, the original developer who sold out to Larwin, the big builder I was employed by. We did exactly the same thing except the airplanes were now 100 passenger charter jets. There was the obligatory clubhouse there then too. But at least there were trees! We flew a flight in every Saturday and Sunday.

After spending 3 years of weekends in beautiful Chico, Paradise Pines was sold out. My wife and I decided to move here from Hollywood with our then 12-year old son in 1977. You know the rest of the story. We’ve lived happily ever after. It’s been nothing but the good life since.

Ken owns Ken DuVall & Associates, REALTORS at 3rd Ave. & Mangrove in Chico. Ken was the 2001 President of the Chico Assn. of Realtors and the 1995 Chico Realtor of the Year. See Chico MLS listings at www.KenDuVall.com and call Ken at 345-3700 for all your real estate needs. Free consulting.