Watt Elected to NAHB Housing Hall of Fame

Raymond A. Watt, a Los Angeles-based builder responsible for more than 80,000 houses in 22 states, has been elected to the Housing Hall of Fame of the National Assn. of Home Builders. He will be inducted on May 18 at the association’s headquarters in Washington.

Watt was undersecretary of the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1969 and is a past president of the National Corporation of Housing Partnerships.

The other 1985 honorees are the late William Widnall, a New Jersey congressman (1950-1975) who sponsored bills creating the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the federal flood insurance program and the Historic Preservation Act of 1966; Gustav S. Wand, Scottsdale, Ariz., formerly of Milwaukee, one of the original promoters of the “Parade of Homes” and Registered Builder Program ideas.

Also, Emil M. Keen, Alexandria, Va., a major developer in Long Island and Northern Virginia; Vondal Gravlee, Birmingham, Ala., the 1979 president of the association; and James H. Shimberg, Tampa, Fla., one of Florida’s larger developers, whose Town ‘N’ Country and Twelve Oaks communities “set an example of sensitive use of the environment.”