Ernest S. Gregory: Homebuilder/Developer

The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.

Ernest Gregory was born in 1881 in Chesterfield County, Virginia and raised on a  farm. At age 19 he moved to Fullerton, where he learned carpentry with contractor C.H. Smith. He also studied at Throop Polytechnic Institute at Pasadena, and took a course in the International Correspondence School in Scranton, PA., in mathematics and drafting, for which he received a diploma.

After two years in Fullerton he moved to Los Angeles and became foreman of one of the largest building companies in that city. During these years he used to make short visits to Fullerton, where he built three or four houses a year. In 1919 he moved back to Fullerton, where he continued to build homes.

“Mr. Gregory caters to the middle class of people who want to own their own homes,” biographer Samuel Armor wrote in 1921. “He purchases lots, draws his own plans, endeavors to make each one a little different from the others, builds bungalows and sells them on the installment plan. 

In 1919 he built 30 bungalows, and in 1920 he averaged one home a week.

“Among the artistic work he has done may be mentioned some of the homes at Ramona, and homes in the Home Builders and Victoria Square tracts,” Armor writes. “A prominent banker at Fullerton recently said that E.S. Gregory had done more to upbuild the city of Fullerton the past two years than any other man in the place. The conception of Mr. Gregory’s bungalows are especially artistic, and they sell readily, many of them having added charm by reason of their situation among the orange and walnut orchards.

Gregory married Laura E. Gage, a native of Kansas, and they had two children, Esther and Ellsworth.

Source:

History of Orange County, California: with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present by Samuel Armor. Los Angeles Historic Record Co, 1921.