Irwin Jalonack, Master of Whittier

20-20 foresight misses no tricks

By both training and temperament Irwin Jalonack is well prepared to handle a development of 4,000 houses.

In the spring of '55 he wound up 14 years as chief engineer, technical and purchasing director for big builder Bill Levitt and set out on his own.

Trouble is his business

Ex-Long Islander Jalonack is a frank and smiling man who delights in making light of crises that would floor many other builders.

In his years with Levitt, Jalonack tried dozens of new ideas under all kinds of conditions. Whittier represents his best ideas all put together for the first time in one project. It's also his first experience as undisputed top man of a big project and it tests the full range of his talents as planner, builder and businessman.

Born in Syracuse, N. Y., in 1906, Jalonack graduated in 1932 from Carnegie Tech., in Pittsburgh.

First job was as supplier

His first post-graduate step was to take his mechanical engineering background to a large heating-ventilating distributorship on Long Island. For nine years he worked there as chief engineer and became thoroughly familiar with the supplier's end of the building business.

Aside from his 14 years with Levitt, he has served as a consulting engineer for both large and small builders on Long Island.

At home he serves as straight man for punch lines his 8-year old son and 12-year old daughter throw at him with surprising ease.

His latest project fills him with anything but awe. Says he: "if it buys the meat and potatoes, we'll let the baked alaska take care of itself."�

Assembly line building, volume buying, subcontracts will help Jalonack keep Whittier costs down

A three-point formula complete subcontracting, central purchasing and a limited number of model-�is the crux of Jalonack's plan for actual operations at Whittier.

A limit of five models for buyers to choose from is intended to hold crew slow-downs to a minimum. The crews won't have to stop for changes on every house. The only option Jalonack offers is paint.

Subsidiary will do alterations

A subsidiary corporation has been set up to handle alterations and changes. Jalonack thinks this setup will give his buyers the lowest possible price for such changes as they want to make.

He counts on volume buying

By buying all materials himself, instead of spreading his purchases through subcontractors, Jalonack is

sure he can get lower unit costs. He points out, "to do this, it doesn't pay to handle anything less than 500 houses per job."�

The only thing he won't buy is electrical supplies.

He'll work with old subs

Jalonack will let contracts for everything. He expects to confine most of his subcontracts to firms he's worked with before on Long Island. Although he may use some local firms, he feels that the local contractors are unaccustomed to his production line methods, more used to doing a whole house at a time, using the same crew for all the work.

A Long Island type of job is one where a crew does just one thing and goes through the project like a whirlwind. From his past experience, Jalonack knows that this way of working is cheaper, faster and more efficient for any big operation.

Whittier owes much to IBM's golf club policy

There might never Jiave been a Whittier at least Jalonack's Whittier,  if it were not for ibm's practice of building golf courses for employees.

Plans for the country club even influenced the styling of Jalonack's houses, ibm's golf course architect. Robert T. Jones, Jalonack's original contact in Kingston, told him that a California type of house, coupled with an attractive land plan, would pay big dividends.

Club draws buyers

It was the country club, too (and the fact that Whittier surrounds it)

that led Jalonack to aim directly at iBM'ers as his market.

With almost the first 500 houses sold, some 80% of Whittier's buyers are ibm people who wanted, among other advantages, to live near their club. For these buyers, Jalonack saw to it that Whittier will fully reflect the park-like character of ibm's new recreational center.

Like IBM country clubs at Sands Point, Poughkeepsie and Endicott, N.Y. (photo, above), the Kingston club will have a golf course, gymnasium, stage, ball diamond, restaurant, bowling alleys, club rooms and perhaps swimming and tennis in the future.