How Living on Less Grew Over Time Into So Much More
Betty Gardner, her husband and their partner own close to 1,000 apartments and townhouses in the region.
(Photo By Frank Murphy)
TOOLBOX   Resize
 Save/Share +
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
|
Staff writer Thomas Heath's Value Added column appears Tuesdays on the WashBiz Blog. Most weeks, it profiles local entrepreneurs, discussing how they make money and what they do with it.
One of the books I frequently pull off the shelf is a biography of Charlie Munger, the co-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett's sidekick. (Berkshire is part-owner of The Washington Post Co.)
The book, "Damn Right," has a couple of inspiring nuggets. My favorite: Live beneath your means so you have some money to invest and make that first million. It made Munger a billionaire.
The same strategy made Betty S. Gardner and her husband, Joe, rich as well. They may be the least-known real estate moguls in the Washington region.
"We live very modestly," said Betty Gardner, who celebrated her 78th birthday last week. "We don't publicize our wealth. We are charitable people, and we give anonymously to most things."
Betty, Joe and their partner Norris E. Mitchell own close to 1,000 apartments and townhouses throughout the mid-Atlantic under Gardner Homes Realtors. The partners also own a profitable Comfort Inn on Glebe Road in Arlington County, about 600 acres in Fauquier County, half of a 10,000-square-foot warehouse in New Carrollton and 800 acres close to a golf course project near Roanoke.
The Gardners personally own a 500-acre farm in Orange County, Va., a 10-bedroom house on the Outer Banks and a condo in Myrtle Beach, S.C. But they still live in the same McLean house they bought for $88,000 four decades ago.
I estimate the Gardners are worth between $50 million and $100 million. They have grown from a single rental house in McLean into a sprawling real estate empire -- all by living on less than what they earn and investing the savings in real estate.
It's a wise policy.
It started almost by accident. Betty took a real estate course with a friend back in the 1960s, when Joe was working as an engineer for McDonnell Douglas. Two friends approached her and asked her to join their start-up company in Northern Virginia.
"I was a homemaker and proud of it, and almost ashamed I was getting into the business world," Betty said. "I was very interested in money. I kept getting pulled into it. I got pregnant and tried to drop out."
