Frank Sharp (land developer)

Frank Sharp
Born	Frank Wesley Sharp 18 March 1906
Died	2 April 1993 Houston, Texas
Nationality	U.S.A.
Occupation(s)	Real estate developer; banker
Years active	1925-1971
Known for	Major real estate developments; major Texas financial scandal
Notable work	Sharpstown, Oak Forest

Frank Wesley Sharp (18 March 1906 – 2 April 1993) was a land developer in Houston, Texas, United States who was responsible for creating several large post-World War II housing developments.

Early life

Frank W. Sharp, usually known as simply Frank Sharp, was born on March 18, 1906, on an East Texas farm the near the small town of Crockett in Houston County, Texas, where he lived until he finished a high school education. Determined to improve his lot in life, he left home at the age of 19 and headed to the booming city of Houston, where he then settled. He soon got a job as a carpenter's helper during the day, while he began attending a business college at night. These actions started him on the path to becoming a major real estate developer in Southeast Texas.

During the 1930s, the Houston area was reasonably well insulated from the grim economic realities of the Great Depression by the completion of the Houston Ship Channel and the rise of the petroleum industry. Sharp reportedly borrowed $150 and began building one house at a time in subdivisions that were beginning to surround the city. Soon, he advanced to building multiple homes in subdivisions like Jacinto City and Texas City during World War II.

Oak Forest development

Toward the end of World War II, Sharp shrewdly guessed that Houston would continue growing to the northwest, beyond the Garden Oaks subdivision, which architect E. L. Crain had opened in 1937. In 1946, Sharp hired the architectural firm, Wilson, Morris and Crain, and bought 113 acres (46 ha) of land adjacent to Garden Oaks, where he began constructing prefabricated and preassembled homes on 4780 lots by mid-1947. He named his new subdivision Oak Forest.

Intending to remain involved in all phases of the development, Sharp reorganized his business empire to accomplish that goal. His Frank W. Sharp Enterprises, became an umbrella company that ran four smaller entities: (a) a firm doing concrete and street work; (b) the Douglas Fir Lumber Company, whose two mills in the Northwest prevented Sharp from suffering widespread shortages of lumber; (c) the Oak Forest Corporation to handle development and merchandising; and (d) the Frank W. Sharp Construction Company to handle the building. A separate, but closely connected, company took care of the millwork.

In July 1948, the popular and well-respected magazine Better Homes and Gardens (BH&G) featured several Oak Forest homes in an article, and said that the proposed investment of $32 million and projected population of 25,000 made Oak Forest,"...one of the largest privately financed, single-family home developments in United States or world history.” By then, many potential customers had come to think of prefabricated, prebuilt, and planned housing developments as monotonous, and lacking individuality. Sharp adopted a marketing slogan of, “No two houses are alike.” The BH&G article noted that, "... among the first 400 homes built in Oak Forest, only two were alike in planning and only two were white in color.”

By September 1948 rising costs for materials and overheads were cutting deeply into Sharp's profit margin. He responded by contracting out the actual construction. Sharp's organization could still offer cheaper prices for lumber and office support.

Sharp's projects included Oak Forest in 1946 and Sharpstown in 1955. Sharp also created Royden Oaks in the late 1940s. Sharp later was a central figure in the Sharpstown scandal, and as a result he was convicted of violating federal banking and securities laws and was sentenced to three years' probation and a $5,000 fine. Though a Methodist, he became a benefactor of Strake Jesuit College Preparatory and became the only Protestant to be named as a "founder" within the benefactors of the Society of Jesus. Sharp advised Strake Jesuit to buy shares of National Bankers Life at $20–26 per share [1]. The school lost $6,000,000 from his advice.

See also

• Oak Forest
• Sharpstown scandal