Fred Turner about 1918

F. B. Turner was born Fritz Bernhard Svensson in a small town near Malmo, Sweden on December 3, 1884. He immigrated to the US in March 1905 and filed for US Citizenship in October 1918, when he changed his name to Fred Bernard Turner. During this period after World War 1 and the conflict with Germany, it was not unusual for men to change their “German-sounding” names to something they perceived as more American. Professionally, he was known as “F.B. Turner,” but was Fred to his family and friends.

Turner brought his carpentry skills with him from Sweden and took up homebuilding in Portland, working at first for other builders. He went out on his own in the mid-19-teens, incorporating as the F.B. Turner Company. The first home documented as his work is the bungalow at 4036 East Burnside, built in the spring of 1915. A very busy period followed: Turner had up to a dozen jobs going at the same time and hired more carpenters as business boomed, with a focus on the Irvington and Laurelhurst neighborhoods. The good times of the late teens convinced him to settle in Portland and apply for citizenship.

In March 1917, Turner was 33 and living near NE 64^th and Fremont when he married Vivian Zeta Vincent, a 20-year old from Monmouth. Their first daughter, Ione Pearl Turner, was born that October. Second daughter Doris Louise was born in May 1921.

During the 1920s homebuilding boom, Turner continued to expand his business, speculating in real estate, managing rentals and building apartment buildings. The Frederick Turner Fourplex which he built at 1430 NE 22^nd is on the National Register of Historic Places, designed by his friend, business partner and office mate, the noted Portland architect Roscoe Hemenway. Nearby, he also built the Hemenway-designed apartments at 1509 NE 24^th. The motto Turner placed in many of his classified advertisements went like this: “Plans are A1 and best construction, materials and workmanship.”

Despite the good times of the mid-1920s, there was tragedy. Vivian died of appendicitis in February 1925 at the peak of Portland’s homebuilding wave. The market crash of 1929 and the economic depression that followed destroyed the Portland real estate market and many of the less established builders. But Turner persisted, working on renovations and repairs, managing his rentals and continuing a scaled back homebuilding practice.

By the mid-1930s, Turner’s focus had shifted entirely to Portland’s west side. He moved to North Burlingame where in 1937 he built a house for himself and his two daughters at 6415 SW Burlingame. In the late 1930s and 1940s his business was almost entirely in real estate development and home construction in that area. Turner died in a Portland convalescent home on July 2, 1978 at age 93.

A partial list of other homes built by Turner includes:

4036 East Burnside                 1915

5840 N. Commercial               August 1915

4104 SE Ash                            October 1915

4243 NE Laddington Court     December 1915 (plans by W.H. Herdman)

2835 NE 15th                          December 1915

3841 NE Flanders                    December 1915

1944 SE Mulberry                   May 1916

3015 NE 61^st                            December 1916

3008 SE 20^th                            November 1917

747 NE Royal Court                 May 1918

Many of his advertisements during these years make a point of his homes being within 100 feet of a streetcar line

747 NE Floral                          June 1918

3235 NE 15th                          October 1918

3334 NE 19^th                           July 1921

3434 NE 22^nd                           October 1921

2510 NE Thompson                September 1922

1509 NE 24^th (apartments)     October 1925

2232 NE 30^th                           February 1926

1430 NE 22^nd (apartments)    March 1928

2708 SE Market                      February 1931

2707 SE Market                       February 1931

2718 SE Market                      February 1931

2730 SE Market                      February 1931

7107 SE. 30^th                           February 1931

2649 SE Stephens                   March 1931

3015 US Grant                        August 1935

3120 NE Regents                     October 1935

3275 NE Stanton                     December 1935

3415 NE Shaver                      May 1936

3345 NE 23^rd                           June 1936

3724 NE 24^th                           September 1936

4060 NE 29^th                           November 1936

3345 NE Alameda                   March 1937

3125 NE 27^th                           March 1937

1717 SE 31^st                            June 1937

2514 NE 28^th                           June 1937