Developer’s Family Donates $50,000 to University

Descendants of William Paul Whitsett, a pioneering real estate developer in the San Fernando Valley, and family friends have donated $50,000 to the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Cal State Northridge, school officials announced.

The donation from the Whitsett Family Foundation will be added to the W.P. Whitsett Endowment, which supports several California history programs at the university and local museums.

Whitsett’s three granddaughters, Myrtle Harris, Eleanore Robinson and Sarah Ann Siegel, and family friends Mary Jane Petit and Sara Baur made the donation to the endowment last month, school officials said.

“We are excited by the new gift,” Dean William V. Flores said. “It will allow the university and our college to continue its leadership role in California studies.”

The $1-million Whitsett Endowment supports the W.P. Whitsett Endowed Chair in California History, the Whitsett Lecture Series, the Valley Pioneer lecture series and the Whitsett Fellowship, officials said.

The fund also supports the Whitsett Reading Room on California History at the university, the Los Angeles History Conference for Teachers and the Historical Society of Southern California at the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, officials said.

An early developer in the Valley, Whitsett bought a half interest in the town of Van Nuys. He threw a big barbecue to kick off lot sales in 1911 and everyone who had a telephone in Los Angeles was called and invited.