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Charles E. Smith arrived in New York from Russia at the age of 10 and wanted nothing more than to follow his father into the building business. Despite his father's dream that he become "a professional man," young Smith began building small projects in New York with his cousins. Then in 1929, he lost everything when the Stock Market crashed.
For the next decade Smith struggled to support his family. Then, early in World War II, he learned that the federal government was willing to put up the money to build houses for the defense workers flocking to Washington.
Smith arrived in Washington in 1942 with the deeds to 100 lots in District Heights. He built 56 houses, selling for $4,500. But delays in getting sewer, water, and power hookups created problems. The houses sold, but Smith wound up broke again.
In 1943 he was back in Washington tying up loose ends on the project when he answered an ad for a construction superintendent with the Waverly Taylor Company. He got the job and moved his family to Washington.
A year later Smith had a visit from local liquor-store owner Sol Hurwitz. "Why don't you build for yourself?" Hurwitz asked. Over the next few years Hurwitz and his brothers provided financing for Charlie Smith to build aparttment houses in suburban Maryland. By 1950 Smith's company was building more than 500 apartments a year.
All told, Charles E. Smith Companies have developed more than 50 office buildings with over 15 million square feet of office space, more than one million square feet of retail space, 17,000 apartment units and more than 1,100 hotel rooms.
Charles E. Smith retired in 1967 to devote his full energies to philanthropy.
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