Tag Archives: Early Portland homebuilders

In praise of Swedish homebuilders

December 23, 2023 By in Builders, Research Tags: , , , 2 Comments

Two new profiles to add to The Builders collection, both Swedish immigrants, one who had a brother in the business that we have already profiled, though they chose to spell their last names differently.

Stockholm Harbor, summer 2023

Herman Nelson, who immigrated through Canada in his early 20s a few years ahead of his younger brother builder Emil Nilson; and August Malmquist, or as he is more frequently referred to on building permits as A.C. Malmquist. Learning more about the third Nelson/Nilson brother, Oscar, is still on our to-do list.

Included in all of these profiles is a list of homes built by these builders, so by all means check to see if your address is here.

These three Swedish carpenters built hundreds of houses in Northeast Portland neighborhoods, and operated mostly as Mom-and-Pop businesses, with spouses’ names occasionally showing up on real estate transactions. Their business was building houses, but they were family people too, and were active members in the Swedish community in Oregon.

We are reminded about the contributions made by so many immigrants to the shaping of these neighborhoods, and about the racial restrictions and systems that have kept others away.

New Builder Biography: Sam Olimansky, 1882-1974

June 25, 2019 By in Builders, Research Tags: , , 5 Comments

We’ve been researching an Alameda home built by Russian-immigrant homebuilder Solomon “Sam” Olimansky who built dozens of homes, apartments and duplexes across Portland between 1919 and the 1950s, several of them notable for their whimsical use of clinker brick and storybook cottage house design.

Olimansky was a cagey, talented builder and charismatic businessman who spoke fast in his native Yiddish, loved to laugh, and was known to present building inspectors with house plans sketched on scraps of paper pulled from his pocket.

From a September 5, 1971 story about Sam in The Oregonian.

Sam began his building career in his native Poland as an apprentice violin maker. Later in Portland, he built everything from cabinets and display cases to homes, duplexes and apartment complexes. Sam was a natural builder, and a character.

We’ve added a biography of Sam Olimansky to our growing collection of homebuilder biographies you can find in The Builders section.

With thanks to the current homeowners for commissioning the history study that led to insights about Sam, and to his grandson Gil Olman for sharing memories about his grandfather.