J. Leon Altemose, controversial contractor, dies at 68

J. Leon Altemose, 68, a contractor who gained national attention for his stand against building-trade unions, died in his Malvern home Friday after a decades-long battle with multiple sclerosis.

To his fellow "open-shop" builders, Mr. Altemose was a hero, paving the way for nonunion contractors in a heavily unionized area. He won their admiration by standing fast against unions in the face of vandalism, firebombings, and destroyed machinery and equipment at his sites. Mr. Altemose himself was beaten up at one point.

His stand represented "a bellwether where the physical violence associated with union construction activity disappeared to a significant extent," said Geoffrey Zeh, president and chief executive officer of the Southeast Pennsylvania chapter of Associated Building Contractors, an open-shop organization.

But to those in the building trades, Mr. Altemose represented a threat to union power and organized labor's efforts to ensure higher pay, benefits and safety protections.

Patrick Gillespie, business manager of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, said Mr. Altemose deserved no praise.

"He was about destroying the standard of wages and driving them down," Gillespie said. "That was his brand of economics."

Tension between Mr. Altemose, whose firm is now known as Altemose Constructors Inc., of Hatfield, and the unions erupted in 1972 at a construction site for a hotel and theaters complex in Valley Forge. The twin theaters later became the Valley Forge Convention Center and a second hotel.

On June 5, about 1,000 men, many wearing hard hats, swarmed over the site and firebombed it, causing an estimated $300,000 to $400,000 in damage. Sixteen were convicted and 11 jailed.

Two weeks later, nearly 20,000 in hard hats marched through the streets of Norristown in the rain in protest against Mr. Altemose. Gov. Milton Shapp ordered taprooms in the area closed, even while some residents served coffee and lemonade to jovial marchers.

Mr. Altemose and those who worked with him had started carrying weapons. They feared they would be attacked directly at their headquarters, James Bickel Sr., Mr. Altemose's chief estimator at the time, recalled.

"The Montgomery County sheriff said if they come through the door, shoot," said Bickel, now of Adams-Bickel Associates, a contracting firm in Collegeville.

Two months later, Mr. Altemose was outside his bank at 15th and Chestnut Streets in Philadelphia when union members attacked him. The attacks made national news and were the subject of a segment on CBS's 60 Minutes.

Three were charged in the attack, but the case against them was dismissed because it was not clear who was guilty, a judge later ruled.

Despite the confrontations, the Valley Forge project was completed in 1973.

Roger Altemose, a cousin and vice president of Altemose Constructors, then known as Altemose Construction Co., said the company had no problem finding employees.

Workers admired Mr. Altemose's ability to take risks, Roger Altemose said. "They were soldiers willing to follow their lieutenant up the hill in battle."

Mr. Altemose, a big, burly man with a distinctive beard, always insisted he was not against unions. He said he tried to strike a deal with the building trades that 50 percent of his projects would be done by union contractors, but the unions did not agree.

"The issue is not over union vs. nonunion," Mr. Altemose told the King of Prussia Rotary Club six weeks after the highly publicized incident June 5, 1972.

"It is a problem with law and order," Mr. Altemose said. Unions "do not operate any different from the Mafia. They lie, use crime to acquire their goal."

But builders like Mr. Altemose were using the court of public opinion to acquire their goals, said Tom Magrann, who was then the business manager of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council.

Mr. Altemose "just wants to make his profit as big as possible, and if that means paying lousy wages and working me 60 hours a week, that's OK with him," Magrann said in an interview in September 1972.

Mr. Altemose, who grew up in East Norriton and attended Norristown High School, where his father was a teacher, learned the construction business by framing houses in the summer. He studied mechanical engineering at Pennsylvania State University. He was a veteran of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

In 1963, he married Carol Clemson, and that year he and his wife and his cousin established Guaranteed Homes. "We built a sample two-bedroom rancher in Centre Square and offered it to home buyers for $9,990," Roger Altemose said.

In 1967, his firm built its first commercial structure when a Florida businessman inquired if the company could construct a warehouse in Oreland. "Leon's motto was, 'We Never Say No,' " Roger Altemose said. "We did everything over the phone and by mail, and to this day we haven't met the guy in Florida."

Mr. Altemose was not afraid of challenges, or of finding novel ways to meet them. In 1975, when the concept of condominiums began, bankers, unfamiliar with the idea, refused to lend money for construction. So Mr. Altemose had his lawyers offer seminars.

He favored distinctive architecture and built a round office building in Centre Square in the 1970s and later an octagonal Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Upper Merion - one of many churches the firm built.

In 1977, the firm was involved in the cleanup of the Johnstown Flood and, in the same year, a flood in southern Virginia, where it rebuilt more than 40 bridges.

In the 1980s, Mr. Altemose developed entertainment venues including Pulsations, a dinner theater and nightclub in Concord, and the Riverside Speakeasy, in Graterford.

He transformed a bank of rooms in his hotel in Valley Forge into "fantasy suites" to entice weekend visitors. He decorated his office with renderings of the suites and even appeared himself in some of the illustrations.

In 1988, Mr. Altemose faced his biggest challenge - a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Even as the disease progressed and he could no longer come into the office every day, he called in frequently, his cousin said.

Mr. Altemose stayed involved with favorite projects, including a major assisted-living complex near his home in Charlestown Township, Chester County. Construction had been delayed for more than a decade.

"The township had crafted zoning laws to keep out all but the rich and educated," Mr. Altemose told a reporter in 1998 while sitting on his porch in a wheelchair. "The law is to provide a mix of housing for all people. Some things are worth fighting for."

In the 1970s, Mr. Altemose competed in local stock-car races with his cousin. He was a sports-car expert and owned customized Corvettes, Ford Panteras and vintage Rolls-Royces. .

Mr. Altemose was the recipient of the man of the year award in 1973 from the Engineering News Record and received the Montgomery County Humanitarian Award for Mentally Challenged Citizens in 1988.

Besides his wife, Mr. Altemose is survived by a daughter, Lynn Jarrett; son, Lance; a sister; and two grandchildren.

Memorial services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Cornerstone Church on Skippack Pike and Stump Hall Road in Skippack. Friends may call at 9 a.m.

Donations may be made to the Leon Altemose Memorial Fund, 1 Reed St., Suite 200, Philadelphia 19103.