George Konheim, 84; Leading Developer, Philanthropist
George Konheim, founder of one of Los Angeles’ major real estate development firms and a leading philanthropist, died Saturday. He was 84.
Konheim, who at 77 in 1994 became one of the oldest people to receive a heart-lung transplant, died of complications of pneumonia and renal and heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Konheim launched his Beverly Hills-based construction company in 1947, the year he and his family moved to Los Angeles.
Buckeye Construction Co., named in honor of Konheim’s home state of Ohio, initially built homes throughout Beverlywood and Cheviot Hills. But after beginning a partnership with Bram Goldsmith, the current chairman of the board of City National Bank, in 1950, Konheim focused on commercial construction.
Until the company was sold in 1986, it built millions of square feet of office space throughout Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles area, including such landmarks as the City National Bank building in downtown Los Angeles, the Bank of America building in Beverly Hills and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard.
Born in Akron in 1917, Konheim never knew his father, who died in an explosion in his tailor shop shortly before his son’s birth. At age 8, to help support his mother--and a brother and two sisters--Konheim began selling newspapers in the morning before school and selling bagels in the evening.
He dropped out of high school in the 10th grade and bought the first of several vegetable pushcarts. But while continuing to earn money for his family, he studied engineering in night school, and during World War II he worked at Pratt & Whitney, which manufactured military airplane engines.
Supported Local and National Organizations
Before moving to Los Angeles, he owned and operated an Ohio gas station chain--George’s Super Service Gas Stations--and an auto-painting franchise called Deb.
As Konheim’s construction company flourished, the Beverly Hills resident devoted time and money to a long list of organizations, including the Boy Scouts of America, the Child Welfare League of America, City of Hope, the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Museum and the Music Center Foundation, of which he was a founder.
After the death of his son, Neil, in a 1982 plane crash in China, Konheim created the Neil Konheim Know Your Body Program. The program, which teaches children about healthy living, exercise and diet, now is known as the Health Champions Program and is taught in many school districts throughout California.
But his greatest legacy is Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services, which under his leadership became a nationally known social service agency for abused and emotionally disturbed children and adolescents.
Founded in 1908 as the Jewish Orphans Home of Southern California in East Los Angeles, the facility’s residential center, school and various outpatient programs are on 15 acres in Cheviot Hills.
Konheim discovered Vista Del Mar in the early 1950s, and until 1994 he spent 27 years as chairman of the board of directors. His dream was to have Vista Del Mar serve all the needs of the children under one roof.
“I think the importance of George is he truly was the father that took it from a basic orphanage to the leading child-serving organization in the country,” said Bruce Kates, the current board chairman.
Vista Del Mar President Jerry Zaslaw said Konheim “led the board of directors in a philosophy that no child would ever be turned away because of their inability to pay for their treatment or care.”
The inspiration for Konheim’s involvement in Vista Del Mar dates to his childhood.
Zaslaw said Konheim often talked about working to support his family while growing up and “having to go to various welfare places to get things like food and clothing and shoes, and he said to himself that if he could when he grew up, he was going to repay that. He was going to see that he helped other children and families like he was helped by various organizations.”
Konheim took great joy in what he accomplished at Vista Del Mar.
“The children resembled me when I was a kid,” he recalled in an interview with The Times in 1993. “What impressed me originally and what still impresses me is this is a place where the care of children and the reunification of families are No. 1.”
And the things he wasn’t giving up when he stepped down as board chairman, he said, “are the surprise meetings with people who just walk up to me and say, ‘Do you remember me? You helped me 10 years ago’ or ‘You gave me my diploma 20 years ago.’ How can you measure that in any equation? I feel blessed.”
Konheim is survived by his wife of 61 years, Eva; sons, Bruce and Lyn, and daughter, Terri Cooper, all of Beverly Hills; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at Temple Beth Am, 1039 S. La Cienega Blvd.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the George Konheim Fund at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services, 3200 Motor Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90034.
