Asia Realty Building - Shanghai - 1922
Szechuen Rd, Shanghai.
This office building was designed by architects Messrs Lester, Johnson, Morriss & Co for the real estate magnate Frank Jay Raven's Asia Realty Company. Arriving in Shanghai from California in 1904, Raven made his fortune in real estate, financing (American-Oriental Finance Corporation), insurance (American Asiatic Underwriters Federal) and banking (American-Oriental Banking Corporation - established in 1917). The corporate logo was unsurprisingly patriotic; an American eagle.
A Fortune magazine profile on Shanghai in 1935 gave a pen-portrait of the self-disciplined and rather austere Raven who was by then one of Shanghai's wealthiest men:-
"Usually elected as one of the two American members of the Shanghai Municipal Council, Mr. Raven is a pillar of the American community. Having married Elsie Sites, daughter of a missionary and a fervent dry, no liquor is served at his estate on Hungjao Road. Though extensive, his entertaining is austere; and he is one of the few Shanghailanders whom the Reverend Emory W. Luccock sees regularly in a front pew of the American Community Church on Sunday mornings. Mr. Raven's principal diversion is tennis, which he plays on his own estate or at the Columbia Country Club or at the French Club. A fervid Rotarian, he too is a bull on Shanghai; but, though President of the Board of the American School, his three daughters are being educated in Heidelberg."
Later that year, Raven's empire spectacularly crashed and he ended up doing time back in the US.
Asia Realty Building - Shanghai - 1922
Szechuen Rd, Shanghai.
This office building was designed by architects Messrs Lester, Johnson, Morriss & Co for the real estate magnate Frank Jay Raven's Asia Realty Company. Arriving in Shanghai from California in 1904, Raven made his fortune in real estate, financing (American-Oriental Finance Corporation), insurance (American Asiatic Underwriters Federal) and banking (American-Oriental Banking Corporation - established in 1917). The corporate logo was unsurprisingly patriotic; an American eagle.
A Fortune magazine profile on Shanghai in 1935 gave a pen-portrait of the self-disciplined and rather austere Raven who was by then one of Shanghai's wealthiest men:-
"Usually elected as one of the two American members of the Shanghai Municipal Council, Mr. Raven is a pillar of the American community. Having married Elsie Sites, daughter of a missionary and a fervent dry, no liquor is served at his estate on Hungjao Road. Though extensive, his entertaining is austere; and he is one of the few Shanghailanders whom the Reverend Emory W. Luccock sees regularly in a front pew of the American Community Church on Sunday mornings. Mr. Raven's principal diversion is tennis, which he plays on his own estate or at the Columbia Country Club or at the French Club. A fervid Rotarian, he too is a bull on Shanghai; but, though President of the Board of the American School, his three daughters are being educated in Heidelberg."
Later that year, Raven's empire spectacularly crashed and he ended up doing time back in the US.