Gooch Ware "G" Travelstead was an American property developer and entrepreneur, born in Kentucky in 1938; died in Norfolk, Virginia on October 19, 2021. While head of First Boston Real Estate, a subsidiary of

Credit Suisse First Boston Credit Suisse First Boston (also known as CSFB and CS First Boston) is the investment banking affiliate of Credit Suisse headquartered in New York. The company was created by the merger of First Boston, First Boston Corporation and Credit Suisse, ...

, Travelstead was the original designer and promoter of the

Canary Wharf Canary Wharf is an area of London, England, located near the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Canary Wharf is defined by the Greater London Authority as being part of London's central business district, alongside Central Lo ...

estate in

London Docklands London Docklands is the riverfront and former docks in London. It is located in inner east and southeast London, in the boroughs of London Borough of Southwark, Southwark, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Tower Hamlets, London Borough of ...

Family

Travelstead came from a Kentucky family. His grandmother Nelle Gooch Travelstead was the daughter of a prominent Democrat state politician and was a teacher. His father Will Gooch Travelstead was an engineer and businessman who owned Travelstead Construction Company in Baltimore, Maryland. He was involved in the construction of many projects such as the World Trade Center building, and also was the subcontractor for the construction of Cape Kennedy. He and his first wife were the parents of two children, G. Ware Travelstead and Malcolm Travelstead. After retiring in 1975, Will Travelstead returned to Bowling Green, Kentucky and lived in a vacation home until he could complete renovation of the old family home, Travelogs. Will Travelstead died in 1981.

Career

During the 1980s Credit Suisse First Boston made him the head of their real estate division, which provided US$37 million in financing for Travelstead's projects. Among these projects, Travelstead was the original promoter of the London Docklands project, convincing the Lower London Development Commission to start the project. Travelstead promoted the development of Barcelona's run-down port area in the run up to the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

of 1992, working with Bruce Graham of

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel A. Owings, Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer Jo ...

to create the scheme which later became Porto Olimpico. He was behind the design and development of the

Hotel Arts The Hotel Arts is a 44-storey, 483 room luxury hotel on the seafront of Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain. It is operated by Ritz-Carlton. History Contrary to popular belief, it was not built to service the 1992 Summer Olympics, though its constr ...

, a 45-storey, 600 room luxury hotel, together with Japanese company Sogo. However, later the hotel was acquired by

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

. In the early 1990s Travelstead proposed a 74-storey tower at 383 Madison Avenue. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, the building was to have an elegant crown of screens at the top and to be about the same height as the

Chrysler Building The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. At , it is the tallest brick building in the world with a steel fra ...

. Unfortunately he was unable to acquire sufficient "

air rights Air rights are the property interest in the "space" above the earth's surface. Generally speaking, owning, or renting, land or a building includes the right to use and build in the space above the land without interference by others. This legal ...

" to build the tower - and embarked on an innovative attempt to acquire such rights in a swap from Grand Central station. The City of New York opposed this development and changed the rules to prevent this from being attempted again. Without the air rights the building was unviable and his development partners pulled out in 1993. The new

Bear Stearns The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. was a New York-based global investment bank, securities trading and brokerage firm that failed in 2008 as part of the global financial crisis and recession, and was subsequently sold to JPMorgan Chase. The compa ...

HQ was built on the 383 Madison Avenue Site.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Travelstead, G. Ware 1938 births American real estate businesspeople Living people Harvard University people

Family

Career

See also

References