KING OF WASHINGTON.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16458, 17 June 1924, Page 7

KING OF WASHINGTON.

MILLIONAIRE WHO STARTED AS A DRAPER. HOW HE SOLVED THE HOUSE SHORTAGE. NEW YORK.—Mr. Harry Wardman, once a poor Yorkshire draper, has become Hie millionaire king of Washington house-builders. He came to America, thirty-live years ago from Bradford, and now owns more real estate and more buildings in Washington, D.C., than anybody else except the United States Government. He owns the Wardman Park Hotel —a luxurious place —other hotels, miles of real estate, vast apartment houses, whole suburbs, and business blocks. He is the most amazing genius America has seen for many yea i s. He lalks in millions, and every day astonishes the whole region with some new and daring project which always turns out a money-maker. PENURY. He has risen to this eminence from penury solely by helping other people. He has kept so quiet about it in Ibis great land of publicity-seekers that there is scarcely anybody outside Washington who knows who Harry Wardman is. When the Washington Rent Commission was at ils wit’s end a few weeks ago trying to devise ways to

relieve Wasington’s housing shortage Air. Wiirilman appeared before the committee and offered to build 1400 houses immediately, and sell them to small investors at an average price not exceeding £1400,. an extremely low figure for Washington. A congressman, member of the commission, incredulously exclaimed: “I’ll bet von a thousand dollars it can’t be done.’ CHALLENG ED. Mr. Wardman replied: “I’ll give you a thousand to one odds it can be done, i’ll put up a thousand dollars against your one.” In less than a week the land was broken, and work is now under way. When this new lot is completed the Wardman houses in Washington will number 5400, all i within tramear rides of the centre of the city. He sells his houses on the part payment plan, allowing the purchasers to take their time by small payments every three months. When Mr. Wardman catne to New York from Yorkshire in ISS9 he took a position with a draper’s linn, and later went to Philadelphia in a similar capacity. 'There lie met a building contractor from Washington, who persuaded liimto move to that city. He worked for a time with nothing but a saw and a hammer on day wages, and in eleven months he had studied the building business from carpentry up. He then decided that, although lie would never make a good carpenter, he might make a contractor. His chance came during the world war, when Washington was suddenly overrun with a host of new high officials and their families having no place to live. Wardman went four miles from the business district and built a six-storev hotel anil apartment house, called the Wardman Park Hotel. It did not have to lie a skyscraper, because land was cheap in that part of suburban Washington. Air. Wardman, with his eye on the future, built his hotel in the centre of a large, free acreage. He called his place an “inn,” English fashion, but he was too modest. The fame of an hotel that moved outwards to the four points of the compass, instead of skyward, spread. It was old-fashioned enough to be startlingly new. The demand for rooms at the Wardman Park Hotel grew and grew. Air. Wardman’s foresight in leaving enough ground for expansion was now justified. Wing after wing has been added to the hotel since its war-time construction, and it not only is now the largest hotel in the world, but it has not stopped growing. Mr. Wardman himself lives' near his hotel in a beautiful mansion amid his little city of privately-owned homes. He is the Yorkshire king of Washington home-making. And so busy is he benefiting others that he has not had time to wri,tc his autobiography or to tell anything about himself.