Fred Trammell Crow (June 10, 1914 – January 14, 2009) was an American

real estate developer Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of developed land or parcels to others. R ...

from

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

, Texas. He is credited with the creation of several major real estate projects, including the

Dallas Market Center Dallas Market Center is a 5 million square foot (460,000 m2) wholesale trade center in Dallas, Texas, the United States, located at 2200 Stemmons Freeway, housing showrooms which sells consumer products including gifts, lighting, home décor, ap ...

Peachtree Center Peachtree Center is a district located in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Most of the structures that make up the district were designed by Atlanta architect John C. Portman, Jr. A defining feature of the Peachtree Center is a network of enclosed ped ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, Georgia, and the

Embarcadero Center Embarcadero Center is a commercial complex of five office towers, two hotels, a shopping center with more than 125 stores, bars, and restaurants, and a fitness center on three levels located in San Francisco, California. There is an outdoor ice sk ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California.William Bragg Ewald, Jr
"How Trammell Crow hit the real estate jackpot"
''Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce'', December 15, 2005

Biography

A native of Dallas, Crow as a child and later as an adolescent earned money through a series of odd jobs, including plucking chickens, cleaning bricks, and unloading

boxcar A boxcar is the North American ( AAR) term for a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is considered one of the most versatile since it can carry most ...

s, from the age of ten until his father forbade it. He was the fifth of eight children reared in East Dallas. His father, Jefferson Crow, worked as a bookkeeper for Collett Munger – one of Dallas' early real estate developers and the builder of the Munger Place subdivision. After completing Woodrow Wilson High School in 1932 Crow was unable to attend college at the time because of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, Crow then worked after high school at some odd jobs. then In 1933, Crow landed a job for about $13 a week as a runner for Mercantile National Bank in Dallas while attending night school in

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "languag ...

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , prov ...

. Upon graduation in 1938, he was at the age of twenty-four the youngest CPA in Texas. He then worked for three years as a

Certified Public Accountant Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. It is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. In the United Sta ...

before joining the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

in 1940. He used his background in accounting and was offered a commission auditing the books of defense contractors. After World War II, he remained with the Navy for another year to handle final settlements with its contractors. He left the Navy after achieving the rank of commander and then returned to Dallas and saw opportunities for the growth of the city. He became an agent for

North American Van Lines North American Van Lines, or NAVL, is a large American trucking company originally formed in Cleveland, Ohio and later based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which specializes in home and office relocations. History North American Van Lines was establis ...

, a moving company. Shortly thereafter, he worked as a wholesale grain merchandiser, tripled the sizes of the warehouses, and erected new loading facilities. Once the grain business faded, he switched at the age of thirty-three to the burgeoning field of warehouse

real estate development Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw Real Estate, land and the sale of developed land or parcels ...

. Crow built his first warehouse in 1948 and leased it to

Ray-O-Vac Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. is an American diversified company. Headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin, it was established in 2005 as the successor company to Rayovac Corporation. It is one of the Fortune 500 companies, and among the largest of ...

Battery Company. The warehouse was larger than what Ray-O-Vac needed, and Crow was able to seek additional tenants. He convinced

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American ...

to sign for the leftover space, and began a career as a "speculative builder." This field was a new concept in property development, one in which builders typically designed construction to meet the expressed needs of one specific company, then leased the entire space to that company after the building was in place. He continued from his start with a single-story warehouse on the banks of the Trinity River in the late 1940s. In partnerships with

John M. Stemmons John Millard Stemmons (July 10, 1909 - July 20, 2001) was a real estate developer and civic leader in Dallas, Texas. He is best known for his efforts to develop the former flood plain of the Trinity River and his lucrative donation of land for ...

, he became one of the largest developers in the Trinity River Industrial Park. By the middle 1950s, Crow was Dallas' largest warehouse builder. His company's skyscrapers – including Dallas' 50-story Trammell Crow Center and the 53-story Chase Tower – reshaped skylines in the 1980s in cities stretching from

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, California.

Trammell Crow Company

By 1970, Crow had developed the Trammell Crow Company into a nationwide organization, another innovation in a field that was, at the time, dominated strictly by local builders. ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' in 1971 and ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' in 1986 called Crow the largest landlord in the US. ''The Journal'' said the company he founded was then the largest developer in the nation. Crow once had interests in nearly of developed real estate, comprising eight thousand properties in more than one hundred cities. Crow's holdings were said to be much larger than those of the better-known

William Zeckendorf William Zeckendorf Sr. (June 30, 1905 – September 30, 1976) was a prominent American real estate developer. Through his development company Webb and Knapp — for which he began working in 1938 and which he purchased in 1949 — he developed a ...

and

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

and include hotels, hospitals, residential developments, and – just as in the early days of the company – warehouses. The ''Austin Business Journal'' said in its profile of TCC, "When compared to Trammell Crow, other real estate companies are for the birds."Trammell Crow Co. profile
''Austin Business Journal'' (Austin, Texas). Retrieved June 9, 2007. Yahoo! Finance, also making a joke about the Crow name, said in its company profile: "It takes a tough bird to succeed in the real estate business, and Trammell Crow Company is one of the cocks of the walk." Calling the organization "one of the top diversified real estate management companies in the US," the profile estimates that the company manages nearly of warehouse, service center, and retail space in the United States and Canada.
Yahoo! Finance. Retrieved June 9, 2007. As of June 2007, the company was set to grow even further with the scheduled $60 million purchase of the

HealthSouth Encompass Health Corporation, based in Birmingham, Alabama, is one of the United States' largest providers of post-acute healthcare services, offering both facility-based and home-based post-acute services in 36 states and Puerto Rico through its ...

headquarters building in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

.Trammell Crow to buy HealthSouth headquarters

Dallas Business Journal American City Business Journals, Inc. (ACBJ) is an American newspaper publisher based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes The Business Journals, which contains local business news for 44 markets in the United States, Hemmings Motor News ...

, June 4, 2007 The Trammell Crow Company was privately held until 1997 when it went public on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

(

NYSE The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the List of stock exchanges, world's largest s ...

) under the symbol TCC. In 2006, the firm was sold to

CB Richard Ellis CBRE Group, Inc. is an American commercial real estate services and investment firm. The abbreviation CBRE stands for Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis. It is the world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2021 reven ...

group (

:CBRE) for approximately $2.2 billion.

Art collection

Trammell Crow was an enthusiastic collector of East Asian art. His son, Trammell S. Crow, went to

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

with Alex Kerr, and sometime later, after Kerr was more established, he became an art purchaser in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

for the Trammell Crow Company at the behest of his father. In 1998, 598 of the family's best pieces were donated to the people of Dallas with the founding of the

Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art The Crow Museum of Asian Art is a museum in downtown Dallas, Texas, dedicated to celebrating the arts and cultures of Asia including China, Japan, India, Korea, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines, from anci ...

. He also commissioned several pieces from artist

Bjørn Wiinblad Bjørn Wiinblad (20 September 1919 – 8 June 2006), was a Danish painter, designer and artist in ceramics, silver, bronze, textiles, and graphics. His work has been shown widely in Europe, in the United States of America first in 1954 and in J ...

, also sculptor David Cargill, incorporating them into his Dallas hotel and real estate projects.

Personal life

In 1981, Crow received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...

. In 1989, Crow was an original inductee of the Woodrow Wilson High School Hall of Fame, which was established in connection with the school's sixtieth anniversary. Crow was instrumental in bringing to Dallas the

1984 Republican National Convention The 1984 Republican National Convention convened on August 20 to August 23, 1984, at Dallas Convention Center in downtown Dallas, Texas. The convention nominated President Ronald W. Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush for reelection. I ...

, which renominated

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

Ronald W. Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

and

Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...

George Herbert Walker Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

. He and his wife, the former Margaret Doggett, were avid collectors of Asian art, for which they established a museum,

The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art The Crow Museum of Asian Art is a museum in downtown Dallas, Texas, dedicated to celebrating the arts and cultures of Asia including China, Japan, India, Korea, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines, from anci ...

. This private museum is open to the public without charge. It is located on Flora Street in the Arts District of

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Dallas. Crow married his wife Margaret in 1942 and at the time of his death, they had been married for sixty-six years.Margaret Crow, philanthropist and matriarch of prominent family, dies at age 94 , Obituaries , Dallas News
/ref> The couple has six surviving children: Lucy C. Billingsley, Robert Crow,

Harlan Crow Harlan Rogers Crow (born 1949) is an American real estate developer from Dallas, Texas. Early life Harlan Crow was born in Dallas, the third son of Margaret Doggett Crow and real estate developer Trammell Crow. He has four brothers and one siste ...

, Howard Crow, Stuart Crow, and Trammell S. Crow. The Crows have sixteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.Brown, Steve.
Legendary Dallas real estate developer Trammell Crow dies.
''

The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galvesto ...

''. Friday January 16, 2009. Retrieved on December 16, 2009. His eldest son, Robert, was a drug addict during the 1980s and often found himself in rehabilitation clinics. Late in life, Crow suffered from

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

and died at age 94 in his sleep at his ranch near

Tyler Tyler may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tyler (name), an English name; with lists of people with the surname or given name * Tyler, the Creator (born 1991), American rap artist and producer * John Tyler, 10th president of the United ...

on January 14, 2009.Renowned Texas developer Trammell Crow dies
" ''

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

'' at ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With it ...

.'' January 15, 2009. Retrieved on December 16, 2009. He is interred at the

Texas State Cemetery The Texas State Cemetery (TSC) is a cemetery located on about just east of downtown Austin, the capital of the U.S. state of Texas. Originally the burial place of Edward Burleson, Texas Revolutionary general and vice-president of the Republic of ...

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

, Texas. His widow Margaret died in 2014, five years later, also at the age of 94.

References

External links