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Jacob F. Long

General Partner

John F. Long 

Founder

Jacob F. Long 

Jacob F. "Jake" Long began working in the family home-building business as an apprentice carpenter when he was just 18. He then continued learning the business from the ground up.  After learning many trade skills, he was mentored by the company's construction superintendent, and upon the superintendent's retirement, Jake became Superintendent of Construction. Jake continued learning all facets of the business by moving into the office in 1988 where his management skills were honed under his father's tutelage.  Jake's business acumen, along with his understanding of the construction field, have allowed him to advance as the Chief Operating Officer of John F. Long Properties LLLP and General Partner of Algodón Center LLLP.  His responsibilities include:

·         Overseeing all administrative functions

·         Managing company investments

·         Managing all real estate operations

Jake is also head of the John F. Long Foundation Board, and is closely involved in a number of community and civic activities:

·         Banner Health Foundation Board Member

·         Luke Air Force Base Honorary Squadron Commander

·         Friends of the West Valley Recreation Corridor Board Member

·         Fighter Country Partnership Board Member

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Founder - John F. Long

            1920 - 2008

John F. Long was an unassuming, yet supremely confident man whose character was forged by the tough times of the Depression.  While others may saw him as a visionary perfectionist whose innovative building techniques spread from his native Arizona around the world, and a humanitarian whose philanthropy was equally far reaching, Long described himself as a bit of a ‘lone wolf’, an ordinary, hard-working man who, when he saw something that needed to be done, did it.

Like so many Americans of his generation, John F. Long’s success was the product of hard work, ingenuity, and a little luck.  He was the first child of German immigrant parents who came to the Valley in the 1910s, met, and married.  “We wouldn’t have dreamed of asking for money,” Long recalled.  “We learned to work for what we got.  I had my first job at age 8 selling the Phoenix Gazette in front of the old Lightning Delivery building at Central and Jefferson, where Patriot’s Park is now.”

The death of his father and the subsequent loss of the family store only accelerated this learning process.  A boyhood spent on a farm taught him how to work with his hands and reinforced the value of such work.  Many years later Long said, “Those early years conditioned me for the “real” world.  The better conditioned a person is for the real world, the better they can adjust to it.  Sure it can be real brutal – that’s life.  We didn’t have much, and so I never expected much.  I think this was beneficial, though it sure didn’t seem like it at the time.”  After graduating from Glendale High School, and with the effects of the Great Depression still lingering, he road the rails, "grabbing a handful of boxcars," searching for work.  Pearl Harbor ended all of that.  Uncle Sam soon found him a job as an engine mechanic on B-17s and B-24s, eventually seeing duty in Italy.

Mustered out of the service after WWII, Long returned home, unsure of the future.  He married his sweetheart, Mary Tolmachoff, whom he’d met at age 17 while watching her play softball for the Webster’s Dairy girls'  team.  Mary was also a first generation Arizonan whose parents were part of a group of Russian émigrés who came to farm the land around Glendale in the years before World War I.

With a G.I. loan, his own hammer, and other tools he borrowed from his stepfather, John and Mary set to work building a home for themselves.  “We did it the hard way,” remembered Long, “learning as we went along.  It took us 6 months and cost $4,000 to build, and before it was finished we were offered $8,400 for it.”  With profits like that to be made, the Longs decided to stick with homebuilding a little longer.

Mary was promised the next house.  And then, the one after that.  But the post-war housing boom was on, and it was not until three years and numerous houses later that Mary finally got her own home.  Soon enough, there were three children to look after.  Manya, Shirley, and Jake didn’t leave much time for hammering nails, and Mary’s hands-on  building days were done.

"I didn’t have any intention of getting into homebuilding in a big way and I didn’t do any market research,” says Long.  “We tried with each house to build it better and easier.  Soon it just seemed the thing to do.”

It is with this history of integrity and great character that Long led the company now known as John F. Long Properties LLLP.

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Legacy

In 1954 John F. Long began the most ambitious project of his career.  His idea was to not only build  a tract of houses in a specific area, but to include provisions for schools, churches, hospitals, shopping centers, and parks.  Working with Gruen and Associates, an internationally recognized architectural, engineering and planning firm, Long created the state’s first Master Planned Community. Named after his wife, Maryvale was an instant hit. 

Applying the same mass production techniques to homebuilding that Henry Ford had used in the automobile industry, Long was able to offer a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house, with swimming pool, for less than $10,000.  Soon houses were selling at the rate of 100 a week,  an average of six months before completion. And so began the company which is now known as John F. Long Properties LLLP.

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Achievements and Generosity

As always, Long’s innovations had one ultimate goal:  to give the public the right product at a fair price.  Long acknowledged as much at his 1984 induction into the National Housing Hall of Fame.  He noticed that the other honorees were acting like they had just received Academy Awards.  "Everyone was getting up and thanking everyone from their grandmother on down.  I just got up and said, ‘I just want to thank 30,000 homebuyers, without whom none of this would be possible.’”

His achievements as Arizona’s most prolific, innovative, and visionary builder were recognized by being chosen as one of the inaugural inductees into the Arizona Business Hall of Fame.

Some of John F. Long’s most significant contributions to Arizona have stemmed from his sense of civic responsibility and concern for the quality of life in the Valley.  He has served on the Phoenix City Council, Maricopa County Board of Health, as a trustee for the Glendale Union High School District, and on numerous other boards and committees.  His community philanthropy dates from the early 1950s.  He was named Citizen of the Year in 1957 for donating land, money, and construction costs toward a variety of causes.  Over the years, his generosity has taken many forms.  When, due to downtown redevelopment, it became necessary to relocate the Alcoholism Rehabilitation Center, Long built new short-term and long-term facilities, at cost.  He donated the labor and material to fill potholes on 550 miles of West Phoenix streets.  He built and donated 21 townhouses to the city’s Affordable Housing Program.  Concerned by the strain that their work puts on the personal life of police officers, Long spent $200,000 remodeling a space at one of his shopping centers, which now serves as a police ministry.  Officers can be counseled by a Chaplain, unwind in a relaxed atmosphere, or just find a quiet place for lunch.  When Glendale didn’t have the money to build its airport, Long sold the city 160 acres of land at one-half its appraised value, and donated an additional 240 acres.  As a result, Glendale was able to get Federal funding and begin construction. 

Because of his history  of donating land for community parks and recreation, in 1980 Long received the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service Achievement Award from the U.S. Department of Interior.  In the same spirit, in 1999 he offered the City of Phoenix the grazing lease on 37,000 acres of state trust land toward a planned Sonoran Desert Preserve in the North Valley. 

When the Milwaukee Brewers were looking for a new Spring Training home, Long donated 60 acres of land for the Maryvale Baseball Park, one of the Cactus League’s nicest facilities.  The ballpark has also hosted High School Championships and the Fall Instructional League.

For his many community efforts, in December 1996, Arizona State University awarded John F. Long an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters – for 50 years of public service.  In the spring of that year he had been chosen to carry the Olympic Torch as it passed through Phoenix, en route to Atlanta.  In November 2000 he received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from WESTMARC, honoring him for exemplary service through his contributions to the lifestyle of Western Maricopa County.  In the spring of 2001, he was honored as a Historymaker by the Historical League, Inc., of the Arizona Historical Society.

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Innovations and Technology

John F. Long's attention to up-to-date methods, the newest materials, and water and energy efficiency, all added up to quality, affordable housing.  He was the first builder in the country to use plastic pipe in houses and the first in the state to use roof trusses instead of rafters.  Over the years, Long’s own fully-equipped research and testing lab produced a variety of innovations, such as the on-site component assembly of roof trusses, wall sections, modular bathrooms, and custom designed cabinetry, which have been adapted by builders and engineers all over the world.  In many cases, he designed and built his own equipment to facilitate improved construction methods, including the pouring of continuous curbs and sidewalks. 

It was Long’s devotion to new technologies and energy efficiency that led to his most unusual project.  In 1988, based on the company’s national reputation in design and construction, John F. Long Homes was chosen by the U.S. Department of Energy to develop, construct, and test a demonstration model home featuring roof-mounted photovoltaic solar cells.  From this experimental start, Long’s Solar One became the world’s first solar subdivision, where all electrical needs are provided by a ground-mounted array of photovoltaic cells.

In addition to more familiar modern energy saving concepts like dual-paned windows, solar water heaters, combination evaporative cooler/air-conditioning systems, water saving toilets, and radiant-heat barrier insulation, Solar One also incorporated an ancient construction method.  Rammed-earth construction was used by the Hohokam people over a thousand years ago.  “We didn’t invent this, we just re-discovered and updated it,” says Long.  To create an improved version of what the Hohokam built, his crews mixed desert earth with Portland cement, and wet it just enough so it could be “rammed” between forms.  When it hardened, its stone-like consistency retained heat in the winter and coolness in the summer.

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