Donald Hale Leavitt

Donald H. Leavitt, known as one of the premier land developers in the Pacific Northwest for over four decades passed away peacefully on July 8, 2012. He is survived by his loving wife Gail, his sons Brian (Suzanne), Paul (Cheri), and Joseph, five grandsons, his brother LeRoy, sister in laws Nancy Leavitt and Nancy Martin (Steve), and many nieces and nephews.

Born in Chicago on July 15, 1927 and raised in several different cities, but mostly Oklahoma City, Donald was the youngest of the four Leavitt brothers, leaders in the Seattle community for many years; Donald joined his brothers Robert, Harvard and LeRoy in business in Seattle following World War II. After first liquidating inventory of sundry companies and reselling it in their retail outlet, and even selling Regal cookware door-to-door the brothers Leavitt happened on a niche of buying the previous season’s apparel from women’s boutiques and offering it to consumers at deep discounts. Up and down the West Coast they travelled, buying in bulk, warehousing the goods in a Seattle location, and then offering them to the public the following season in their five retail stores around the greater metropolitan market which they called Leavitt Brothers Women’s Apparel. With the slogan “Every Day is Sale Day at Leavitt Brothers”, the discount retailers operated until the mid-70’s.

But, Donald, who was always splendidly dressed in cowboy boots and hat, and renowned for his charm and wit, was not a fan of that business and led the effort to transition his brothers into the land development business. Leavitt Brothers Land Company did not build homes, and as Donald was quick to explain, they created communities. Purchasing undeveloped tracts of land, the company would work with the local municipality to gain the proper permits; subdivide the property in phases; put in all of the roads, utilities, services and amenities; and, then sell the finished lots to local homebuilders for construction of homes for consumers. Donald loved the notion of supporting the small, local, high quality home builders.

Leavitt Brothers sold the land company to a savings and loan in 1975, and shortly thereafter all the brothers except Donald retired. He loved the business and continued, first as a part of the acquiring company and then on his own. He created communities all over the area until a combination of his increasingly poor health and the failure of the housing market caused him to close the business just a couple of years ago.

Donald has been recognized for pioneering many of today’s well regarded methods of phasing development of communities and insisting that high quality standards be maintained from the first lot to the very last in every development he created. Even in his waning days, as he struggled with his declining health, Donald was planning on how he would pull together the home builders he had worked with for so many years to begin creating more communities again. He took the housing bust that began in 2008 very hard and suffered for the many people he had worked with in the industry for so many decades.

An avid outdoorsman, Donald carried a very low golf handicap for many years as a member of Glendale Country Club, where he could be found every Wednesday, year after year. His long-time friend, and brother-in-law, the late Leonard Drebin described Donald’s well recognized and superb short-game as having “the softest hands in golf”. He also loved hosting his sons, grandchildren, nieces and nephews on remote Pacific Northwest fishing adventures, often piloting his own plane.

Donald was proud of the Leavitt Brother’s attention to family and would boast that the four brothers could meet and argue about business, but when the meeting ended they would all walk out arm-in-arm to have lunch together and with friends. He was never too busy for any of the Leavitt children who would come to him for advice; from business advice to the best places to buy clothes. With a desire to preserve the family story, in 2006, Donald penned, published and distributed a book of his recollection of family history, which he entitled The Book of Leavitt’s.

A funeral service will be held at Sunset Hills Funeral Home in Bellevue, Thursday, July 12th at 1:30 pm .The family requests remembrances be sent to: The Kline Galland Home: Leavitt Family Garden or a charity of your choice. For further information and to share remembrances, visit www.sunsethillsfuneralhome.com.