Herb Weitzman
Herb Weitzman was born in Dallas in 1939, the middle of three children with older sister Susie and younger sister Maxine. His early years were spent in an inner-city house on Hall Street, where his mother and father lived with his maternal grandparents, and his grandmother raised chickens in the backyard. His grandparents on both sides had emigrated from Poland, with roots traced back to Warsaw. His maternal grandfather Marcus Rosen ran a store, while his paternal grandfather Max Weitzman came to America as a baker, later moving from Kansas City to Wichita Falls and Borger, Texas. Both grandfathers died in 1942. His father operated a dry goods store selling popular-price work clothes for 44 years, keeping it open every Saturday night to serve laundry workers who got paid across the street.
The family moved from the inner city when Herb was five, settling in East Dallas, and later bought a home in University Park when he was eleven. He attended local schools including Hyer Elementary and Highland Park schools, and grew up playing sports while his parents worked. After graduating high school as a midterm student, he entered military service under a 1957 reserve plan, serving six months of active duty at Fort Bliss and Fort Chaffee before attending the University of Texas at Austin, where he graduated in 1961. Even in college he pursued real estate, taking courses at SMU and landing a position with a broker where he quickly sold his first properties, including a building he had known as a child.
Herb built his career with the Henry Miller Company, where he was mentored by Henry Miller Jr., who became his business partner for many years. He rose to lead the company's commercial retail operation and later built the Weitzman Group. He helped bring numerous national franchises to Dallas, including Kentucky Fried Chicken, Jack in the Box, and others, and worked on major projects such as the Dallas Galleria, the West End, and Union Station. In 1964 he met his first wife through the Lavaliers singles group; they were married 44 years and had two daughters before she passed away from cancer. He later married Donna. Herb reflected warmly on family as life's most important value and remembered vividly the day of President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.
Full Transcript
hurt 1939 Dallas Texas let's go back tell me about life when you were just a little boy well what I remember is our house that where we were living in the inner city at Santa Santa and Hall Street my grandparents had rented the house and my mother dad were living with my grandparents everybody was very poor my grandmother raised chickens in the backyard and house was across the street from the old Santa Paul hospital and Brian place Suzie had already been born four years ahead of me and you know i came across the street from the hospital da house and i had early memories of
my grandmother in the backyard of the chickens and me at about three or four on the sidewalk riding a bicycle and playing with my next-door neighbors because it was an African african-american neighborhood I when I was born my grandfather had to score block away at corner of Boston hall and my dad I believe worked with my grandfather and in the store and then my dad opens store down the street from a grandfather on that same block and it was a dry good store just popular price clothing work work clothes for you know men women you know who was leaving hit with one it was called
the family store was the one that I mad ended up with I don't remember what the name of my grandfather scroll was because he died when I was three years old the store was closed up and my dad moved his store close to the corner and I believed might have taken my grandfather's location now is that what your death when I'm to stay in that business my dad's like that business for 44 years and my mother and my dad worked together in the school where he'd be at work it at you know eight o'clock opened up and close up every day like a clock at
six thirty and and what's amazing in today's world they had the store open every saturday night and i mean every saturday night all our lives you know till nine o'clock at night and the reason for that was because the big fish from laundry was across the street and so they didn't do business on saturday they didn't do business and so that's when everybody got paid at the laundry they came over and they set money orders and they might close and they did certain things so that was what my parents did all alive they were very family-oriented wait dinner every night together when they got home
from work and on Sundays we went to Sunday school and then we spent the sunday with our cousins now tell me about your grandparents a little bit more grandfather had that storm and you don't remember the name of it what type of store was it was a general you know clothing store topper very popular price they each had the two stores going where they competing ah you know my grandfather passed when I was three years old so I can't assume they work their own the same block but that's okay because you know in in retail you have hu stores and six jewelry stores and the
more clothing stores you have the better cross traffic you have so I'm sure they both were competing when they had the stores together I don't know how long before my grandfather passed away that my dad open the store tell me about your grandparents from the other side okay the Rosen side both of my grandfather's I don't know three years old they out Gordon 1939 they died in 1942 so Marsh Rosen was my mother's father and Max weitzman was my dad's father and it was such a question that of them died in 1942 and so I don't remember my grandfather's but just just vaguely just you
know nothing specific but both grandmothers lived longer my mother's mother great Katie Rosen wonderful lady and she was just the sweetest thing and you know I had grown up you know with her in the house there at Sandy Senate Hall Street and moved from there when I was five and we moved at that bar duplex out any stylists on Goodwin street between greenville and skillman and so we moved out there and I'm with Robyn Edie school starting in the first grade but my my grandma Rosen had diabetes she came six she had to have her leg amputated and she was in a nursing home on
grass on gaston and I think maybe peak and and my mother would go every day to see her because it wasn't too far from the store and I would go with my mother all the time to see my grandmother until she passed away and she just was a wonderful lady your grandfather on your mind your mom's side do you know what he did for a living my grandfather on my mom's side he had this he had the dragon store my grandfather of a dad side he came to this country emigrated in from Poland and he ended up it was a baker and so he had
a family here when he came over thinking with the kansas city he ends up down in Texas I think doing doing baking he goes to Wichita Falls when they had the oil boom and and not the bakery and then i'm in i'm in the shopping center business so people go in and and sometimes they don't make it my grandfather didn't make it because they all boom subsided and he you know i went broke and he goes up to Barger texts in the Pantanal don't know why he went up to Barger then and my grandmother devorah went with him in max matsumoto state you know and
operate a hotel up there and and I think maybe why they went there was because my dad had two sisters Ida was a younger woman rose with the older one and Andros and married Harry arguments and and I think they had gone up to Barger early and had set up a small hard wish Dora mochel Harry arguments was very adept at hardware and great great retailer and so I think they might have been up there and already settled down so that's when he left wished off falls and he he came to our Texas we're all your grandparents coming from Europe yes and you know any
of the stories about what it took for them to get here my dad had brothers and they split up in Europe and and we let later in life we connected with some of the cousins second cousins and third cousins so the history oh my dad's I was just not spoken about a lot in my parent a dad didn't didn't remember in November of this past year 14 we went over to visit some Weitzman cousins that it moved here from South Africa and also one of one of the cousins words were from London England and so we talked about the history of our family in Europe
yeah Monty green a cousin from London said well I'll put it down on paper and let you see whoo-hoo the cousins are well he gave us pictures of our great-great-grandfather which was my grandfather's mother and dad and they were from Poland and then through these their name were David Hirsch weitzman and Makka his wife and my grandparents were Max and devorah which were hit with their children my grandfather max weitzman had several other sisters and they were babka Esther tari and Pincus and they were all as far as I know living in in Europe there were weitzman cousins one of them went over and and
went to johannesburg south africa and we met those cousins later my dad ended up making contact through connections in the family with these relatives in Europe and then we found this relative in South Africa and the ones in South Africa moved to Boca Raton they've got four generations of Weitzman's over there now they've got my dad's cousin and his daughter who's married to Clive share Loretta and their children which were to a boy into two daughters and then their grandchildren and so it's amazing that you know we have found some of our family and we also have some family in in London that we know
of on the roads inside grandma rose Allah grant and if I was Mars and Katie Rosen camp Ron's Hebrew name was Moshe for Moses which he went you know mr. Rosen and he was born in 1870 in Warsaw Poland and we found ancestry back to the 18 to add back to the sixteen hundreds on the road inside 18 years old he married Katie my grandmother she was 15 years old in nineteen eighteen eighty eight they were it was a match up and Marcis father was my rosin he was born in Warsaw Poland and Martha's mother was Anna Rosen she was more than Warsaw Poland Katie's father my grandmother his name was aria Tom Bach so my grandmother was her maiden name was Tom Bach and Katie's Eddie's mother was mincha Tom Bach and she was born
in more than 18 April fifteenth 1873 gram gram oh you know Katie Rosen was an orphan her family died of influenza her aunt and uncle raised her she met grandpa of the day that they were married in eighteen eighty eight and nine months later as she had a baby now did they ever talk to the family at all what it was like to meet the day they got married it was arranged marriage never talked about that at all never talked to me about it I didn't my mother you know it was like there wasn't if they won't talk about it or they didn't have a
good recollection today with accessories calm everything you know you can get a lot about you know historical information and my parents only had a high school education they were stroll street smart you know but that logically they it wouldn't it technology when their to go do this and so they were so busy with raising their families here and working and making living they didn't go search for relatives you know back in Europe did your folks who ever tell you about how the depression affected them depression and being poor early on in life had had a bad fact of our parents they were usually frugal to
the time that they died they were sacred you know if they met a dollar they saved 15 20 cents and that was when they with it whatever making was very little right but they say and and you know it had a big effect on them they talked about the depression my dad my dad was as I said born and I can't wait so you know when the pressure came he was at 15 16 17 years old and maybe little older a mother you know was same they made my dad shockingly and so both I'm were affected by you know how your folks met my dad
had grown up in Barger and he'd had a few little businesses in Barger and he ended up going into as the young man he went in partnered with someone in a clothing store in Vernon Texas and nothing's nothing was in Vernon so he would come into Dallas because that's where the jewish population was so they would go to several restaurants there you know where everybody met and in my grandmother you know it's an Isetta and and halsted she she had not borders with people that came over and what would be P from out of town and she would have them for dinner and I think
they would probably pay her a little bit and had no work their house was always open to to strangers and visitors to the city and so she had at the restaurant somebody but I think story was he and Will are there some you know nice Jewish girls here to meet where are they said well the rosen clan over there they got five daughters you know four daughters but there was a fifth one there was really a first cousin but she was like a sister she was the same age as my mother exactly so she was like a sister to my mother all her life so
I think he went over there to have dinner and and met my mother and they got married where did you go to grammar school I went to for the first to fifth grade to rapidly in east dallas on good one right there between green ones Gilman and then when I fled years old dad and mom bought bought one of our cousins house houses that they were going to move and we bought and Aaron's house and and then literally be and and be levy were many errands leave with Vince ancestors so they were living together Ben never had been married and and so this was a
three-bedroom two-bath house on amherst right there between two lane and Preston one block north of lovers line and I thought that was the biggest house ever because I had my own room at that time and and I was 11 and so I started the sixth grade at higher elementary school in the university park and then went to help our junior high school and home and help our costco now you had mentioned the Susie using another sister though also Maxine and Maxine is four years younger than they and so you're the oldest tree Susie was the oldest says he's the oldest not what you do for
fun in high school well let's go paddle sports when I was you know living that you know and good one in east dallas you know from you know about six years old 11 years old we had a lot next to us so every day we were playing soccer out there or you know street hockey here we were playing you know baseball or football sup played every day cuz my parents were working every day and I was always it's not like today I mean we found her create our own fund and I was always playing sports that took a big part of my life is from
the standard the fun standpoint World War two broke out did that affect your family at all not that I can remember a few little things I remember was a dad had paddled around in real estate that's that's where I got exposed to it when I was 45 years old he had bought a few min houses behind his store and I would go with him he'll collect the rent on a weekly basis and and I asked questions I said why are you doing this you know why are you oh you know you know trying to understand why why dad what he was doing and then you
know I started getting the concepts of it very simple you know you make it investment just like anything there's no guarantees there's ray over time you pay it off and you have extra income it's just an investment so dad had bought a lot on Ross Avenue and he started building and and the war game and dad couldn't get materials of the building it's kind of had said half finished till he finally finished it nothing I can't think of any other thing that affected you know us in the war except I couldn't get I couldn't get my bubble gum yeah as a kid because they were
you notice a shortage of sugar all right let's move on and you and the servicer was it on the college I went straight into the service after high school yeah I was in the reserve forces act of nineteen fifty-seven and it worked out perfect for me because what I didn't want to do was go to college and then go for two years in the military and I want to go straight to work and I was able to enroll in this playing with some other people from high school by going in 1957 the plan was you go six months active duty which I did I spent
time at Fort Bliss and i'll pass someone for Chaffee in Arkansas Portsmouth Arkansas and then you know I was a midterm graduate so I graduate in January so i was able get my military behind me you know going right into the military and i got out in august and i had my military behind me and then ahead of me i had seven half years of reserved meetings which I made while I was at college it out of college so what I what I saw was an opportunity for me to get this behind me and go straight into work I got a deferment while I was
in the military you know in in college I was I was uh deferred yet under this plan so i knew i was going to get my college education and which is what i wanted to do and so i was able to get my college education and the war Vietnam War was going on was college what college were you have at the University of Texas in Austin now you you you know you talk about a very young age you are introduced to real estate and everything so is that always your plan was it going to real estate you know everybody has a lot of things that
they are supposed to they say I want to do this I'm going to do that well you know I worked for AP off at golf hamburgers you know a lover's lane and it was a natural charcoal hamburger and it was it was a great sauces and I loved it and and so I worked there during high school you know every you know working on Saturdays in the summer I would worked in the summer during my three years in high school and I said well i'm gonna copy what mr. golf and then i'm going to open to change a hamburger restaurants well that you know went out the window when I couldn't figure out how he made the number one and number two sauces which were special you know they were secret so then a you know the experience I had with that and understanding real estate always stayed with me and I was gone I knew that that was the bitterest you know the investing side and so forth but then I Susie married Fred a blonde and and as a kid there before use my old remains right he's a great athlete and so you know he
was the one I always looked up to fun guy and they had a big business it's called a blonde poltroon egg I thought oh if I could just go to work for them because I don't know what's going to do and go to not have a job with a blonde well I I got a college you know Alvin when what I want to do I wouldn't want to be in the poultry and egg business and I decided to get into the real estate brokerage business and I did that when i graduated in nineteen sixty one I had an interesting exposure to real estate my junior
year the summer I was going to try to work for Henry Miller company that summer and I thought I had a job because I'd interviewed during the year and he said well let me know you know when you're coming back he says we have to wait and see if Charlie Jackson who's an intern that we have now at our company stays with us for the summer if we have if we have em state and we don't have but if he charged accent who was the star halfback for us in you if he stays then we're not gonna have a position and so I didn't know
till the day school's out in 1960 if I had a job for middle of that summer so I come in and Miller went in town he'd gone to you know a convention his father had gone to Europe no one to talk to and they'd left me no method so I didn't know if I had a job so I I go that what am I going to do and so I said well I'm gonna go and I've been taking business courses at Texas but I hadn't had any any real estate courses some ago the summer started taking all set courses so I went up sm you
signed up for morning classes over at eleven o'clock every day and I was able to you know get some of these courses start my my real estate studies there it is it new but after i registered the next day i'm driving back from missing you go through snider plaza on my way home comprises a little shopping area by smu the north end of SMU and I look up and there's a ralphs a porter real estate I said I go around turn around come I can park I don't know see if they can use me for this summer you know what I'm taking this is that
see new course for six weeks so I ended up going in and there was a woman by the name of overlying room I still remember she's 80 years old she was the salesperson and and i said i'd like to see mr. Porter and she's a white just second so he goes back and she could they said well he'll see you right now I saw you know I'm not dressed i'm in shorts and t-shirts nervous so I go back and I tell him that I thought had job with Henry Miller company and of course what was interesting is that the father Ralph Ralph a porter was a contemporary of Henry Miller senior buddy Porter who ran the company now was a contemporary of henry miller jr and so he said look how are you here while you're going to school i'll give you 75 awesome month i'll help you
get your own site license and so to make a long story short in that six weeks i sold two properties yeah and and I it was the interesting social commercial building and I sell the house and and and in four weeks I had two props under contract ready to close I was gonna make six thousand dollars in four weeks work in about three or four hours a day and and I get a call and his head remember junior on the phone and he talked very slow and he said herb I'm really sorry you know we weren't here when you got back from school but I
want you to know Charlie Jackson didn't didn't work with that summer we got a job for you I says mr. Miller you won't believe what's happened I said III went and signed up for school and I started work at buddy porters and I've already got two properties under contract I don't like six thousand dollars and you know what in two weeks they'll all be closed and I'm going to New York with my buddy suspended he said he said well you know it was kind of shell-shocked he said you know I think when you get out of college next year we'll have a place for you you still that commercial yesterday you're a kid uh-huh in a tshirt insurance and did a light bulb go off in
your head like my gosh look what I just did I mean who was it that said yes to you for that first time well it's amazing how it happened because you know after i get it get into work everybody porters every day when I get through with my class at eleven o'clock I go in and I'd really quickly get through the postings I would when he hired me for they collect a lot of rentals on duplexes that you know rail solder plaza so the rent checks would come in I post them and then I started doing research on houses going through all the listings there
was only one commercial belly and there was a friend of this woman erlang gurram mother passed away had given her my language the listing and you're not gonna believe what property was where i lived on Goodwin at the corner Goodwin in Greenville does little strip and it had greenville avenue drugs in it in a head groom I'm supermarket it had little Greenville Avenue garage and had another little you know establishment and i would spend between six years old and and when i moved i was in that drugstore kind of huddled in the corner reading comic books at that particular property and and so I had
a date a couple days later you know the weekend and her father was there because you know I was young and in and father would see you know who she was going out with and but it was with Sarna shallot and Sam shallot head she lets had mari auto sales on green on on Ross Avenue down the street from my dad's store and so he he said to me Harvey says what are you doing this summer I said I'm working in real estate he said you have any commercial buildings I said yeah I do and so he said he said which one what do you
have i said well i got this building on on Goodwin and Greenville and I told him all about it and he said well once you give me some information and I did he bought it wow it has changed everything for you oh yeah so then he go to work for Andrea Smith yes how long was it before you decide you want to be on your own well I thought I want to be on my own you know the day I walked in there door yeah I said I'm gonna get three years of training I'm her own company what what happened he was a special man
I was fortunate to have him you know in my young age he was you know generation ahead of me so he mentored me and so 23 years go by you know I was getting all this opportunity and I was getting I was getting mentored and he became a partner with me so you know because i had a leaning toward ownership and development and so I started buying properties in Henry with my partner I came to him and I said look I said there's properties out here that I think are good investments I said you know you go up his go in with me you know
of course he had a better financial said I had a nun with zero and so he sat in the notes with me we got that we got loans and that's where I you knowed off this tremendous loyalty to the Miller company and he was my partner for the next 14 15 years tell me about the business that you my career has been in the Golden Age of Dallas in particular gold major real estate and so I was able Henry gave me the opportunity to grow never said no to him he never had an argument with him and so this it breaks down the segment's the
company played a big part and i started off set up their land division and did that for about three or four years and then you know I'd be in with investors and they'd say I don't want to have a passive investment give me something that produces income and then I run into somebody you know who has retail and I think you know help me with retail and so I started diversifying after about three years the land focused for three or four years was very very very important to me and in understanding values because it runs from French land to you know nearer your cut near
town to growth for subdivisions and all the other uses that happen office apartments retail you know all these you know these things all are part of a timing issue in density and so I grew the commercial retail operation of the company which operated about fifty-five sixty percent of the of Hitler Miller company I went ahead to other cities and open up our officers in Houston sent Onan and Austin and we had in that we gained a national reputation we we start off to the small things we were at the cutting edge of the franchise business when it started I was at the cutting edge of
the c-store business with 7 11 you know I I bought new Kentucky Fried Chicken to the market he was a leading the father of franchising John why Brown who came the government Kentucky you know and did hundred twenty store for them and then as being the leader in that area in white came to town came to me you know get Norman breakers initial second nails I brought in doughnut to the city and and jack in the box too the city crystal hamburgers to the city and so that was a great platform where it was dealing with small small sites so we did a lot of
c-stores then we also did the retail in first city center a downtown which is where the in bank was located and then when the Crescent was done we leased the Crescent about his danica shock and Holt's doors for that project when Ray Hunt did the West End and as part of that in Union Station got taken in incorporated into the redeveloped therapy in arena we converted the union station to the two retailers put the railhead restaurant there and so forth Gerald Hines was the vote of the gallery in Houston and when he did that project we were leasing competing project next to it was called
the Saxon or fashion it was owned by the British Airways pension fund and so we ended up a lot of tenants that he wanted in our project and so when he came to Dallas to do the galleria he hired us to lease it and so we leased it and we bought we felt it up to about ninety three percent till he took it over we brought the famous cups store out of San Francisco that never had expanded out of San Francisco and we brought them to Texas and they took a store in houston galleria and dallas galleria i was in the brokerage myth I was
always developing and the development arm became bigger and bigger and I and after 15 years Henry Miller decided you know he was getting older there won't be a partner he says rep you just take and run with it and and I built the HTW Property Group floor up from Henry Miller company all the time we were we were building Henry Miller cuz I was on the board and I was the president of commercial operations we were able to grow our development operation and we would be built probably 250 shopping centers / up to the curtain on it I built recently is shots at southlake you
know at southlake very wealthy area during thousand feet and it's it's gotten Central Market nordstroms in it but you know I've got a lot of senators you know that are six hundred fifty thousand foot centers really i bought the golden triangle mall and it was failing you know it's six seven hundred and sixty-five thousand feet and totally remodeled it and it's it's it's got norstrom it's got to us give me Macy's pennies the sears and dell lures in it and then you know we do a lot of grocery stores and so those the you know the development program is is very big for us today
you know we're building 17 centers around the country around the state a model was to gain market share and have market share in each city of texas the bigger cities so we're in houston central in austin del capote work and we don't go to the middle markets because we focus tell me about when you mucci met her in 1964 i guess and i had been down to austin for a football weekend and came back because I was president of lavaliers live layers was the single social group that bunch I was formed with the support of short Dillon temple to kind of have a social group
that matched up with the non-jewish social groups like the Dervish club outerwall club and so for us to meet and it grew to be about 4 250 the singles and I came back and coincidentally some of my friends had told me to meet her because she had come she had moved here she went to college at Austin at UT and she got there the year I left she'd gone to a junior college two years before so I missed her so when she graduated two years later she came to Dallas and and I called her a couple times I never could get a date with her
so that night I came back from the Texas football weekend we had a book review of Rabbi Levi Olin over the temple and I was so tired after that weekend I had to be there to reduce but I was walking out that's our name on a name tag and I went out and got drinkable water came I can't introduce myself and she sized her for coffee next night when she owes get married no got married about six months I got guy to six weeks you're married 44 years she passed away from cancer two daughters yep then you married again to Donna how did you meet
that met Donna I didn't know her craighall is a house setting developer great friend of mine here in Dallas and he lived it's possible you know which is not connected to the mansion and he walked on the Teddy trailer bike talk came over on Sunday to meet him and we're going to go walk and I've actually biked over and he was coming out and and so here comes this lady out at the door you know after him and and not a new him not well but she was president of company called realty capital partners and she had been mayor three times over t turns over
in colleyville what very wealthy community on the west side of dfw airport and she had got divorced and she had moved out of Kali build and moved and taken an apartment over at the plaza and so she walked over to say hello to Craig and and then Craig introduced me to her because she lived in the building and and that's where I'm at her then and then it was Gaz burned with January 22nd 2012 in your lifetime there's been so many advancements can come along that you went wow how do we ever get along without that I take technology for what technology is you know
when you grow up with Piper you know it you know it's some of it you know it's the security blanket so you know you find a way to mix it so there's some things that technology helps us with and some things that it doesn't and so I like to do you know you know you I like use technology on something in our business is nothing takes the place of relationships nothing takes the place of talking face-to-face and that's what I think you know it might be lost with technology today right now that's a good point in your life time you've lived through so many momentous
occasions obviously when your little world war two you look through the Vietnam era President Kennedy assassination the moon landing in 69 something good for the first time Martin Luther King assassination tragedy of 911 was there something on the national scene verb that came along that you went wow I know exactly where I was the moment it happened absolutely you know the sassenachs president kenneth President Kennedy like yesterday and Henry Miller had been invited to the lunch and I you know we talked about it so I said well I'm gonna get a glimpse of him so I go with my car and speaking at the carol
mart and i go and park and I go right at the very corner I'm standing at the very corner of stems freeway and industrial where you turn in and you go up to the apparel mart and and what happened all the sirens were going off and it was a guy standing next to me and and they were coming down stems free why they made the turn in front of me on industrial started turning into the pail mark they sped up and there were maybe 20 30 police motorcycles with life's blaring and he with the car turned 10 feet in front of me and and I
said what's going on for this guy next door do you know he says well president's been shot you can genie I have the two daughters and four grand sex yes what advice do you have for the next generation you know I think back think up in my life and I really think that it's all that fam