W.P. Visser; Florist and Canny Investor

William P. Visser, founder of the Anaheim-based Visser’s Florist and Greenhouses and an Orange County real estate investor, has died at the age of 76.

Visser died Tuesday in Grants Pass, Ore., where he had lived in retirement.

Born in Holland, Visser came to the United States in the early 1950s, penniless, with little education and unable to speak English.

What he did have, his family said, was a keen business sense and a fierce determination to succeed. He started out selling flowers on street corners, and in 1957, he established Visser’s Florist and Greenhouses.

He also began investing small amounts of money in property in Orange County. Through real estate holdings and the florist business, Visser in true rags-to-riches fashion built a multimillion-dollar fortune.

In 1990, Visser realized another dream when he and his wife, Anne, bought the 1,500-acre Shadow Valley Ranch in Siskiyou County, including a 6,600-square-foot main house and several other buildings with views of Mt. Shasta.

The ranch was developed in 1949 by George Vanderbilt, descendant of railroad and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, to entertain celebrities. Visitors to the six-bedroom, eight-bath, five-fireplace home had included President Harry S. Truman and film stars John Wayne, Clark Gable, Alan Ladd, Audrey Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Ginger Rogers.

“The ranch has gone from a man who inherited great wealth to a man who came from nothing,” Anne Visser once said.

Visser bought the ranch--with its own trout stream, reflecting pools, tennis court and riding trails--for $900,000 and sold it at auction last year for $2.5 million.

In addition to his wife, Visser is survived by two daughters, Lynda Nath and Lori Margulieux; four grandchildren; and several siblings.

A memorial service is scheduled Wednesday at 4 p.m. at the Hilgenfeld Mortuary Chapel in Anaheim.