Frank Wesley Sharp (March 18, 1906 – April 2, 1993) was a land developer in Houston, Texas, United States who was responsible for creating several large post-World War II housing developments.
Sharp's largest projects included Oak Forest in 1946 and Sharpstown in 1955. Sharp also created Royden Oaks in the early 1970s. Sharp later was a central figure in the Sharpstown scandal, and as a result he was convicted of violating federal banking and securities laws and was sentenced to three years' probation and a $5,000 fine.
Early life
Frank W. Sharp, usually known as simply Frank Sharp, was born on March 18, 1906, on an east Texas farm the near the small town of Crockett in Houston County, Texas, where he lived until he finished high school. Determined to improve his lot in life, he left home at the age of 19 and headed to Houston, where he then settled. He soon got a job as a carpenter's helper during the day, while he began attending a business college at night. These actions started him on the path to becoming a major real estate developer in southeast Texas.
During the 1930s, the Houston area was reasonably well insulated from the grim economic realities of the Great Depression by the completion of the Houston Ship Channel and the rise of the petroleum industry. Sharp reportedly borrowed $150 and began building one house at a time in subdivisions that were beginning to surround the city. Soon, he advanced to building multiple homes in subdivisions like Jacinto City and Texas City during World War II.
Oak Forest development
Toward the end of World War II, Sharp shrewdly guessed that Houston would continue growing to the northwest, beyond the Garden Oaks subdivision, which architect E. L. Crain had opened in 1937. In 1946, Sharp hired the architectural firm, Wilson, Morris and Crain, and bought of land adjacent to Garden Oaks, where he began constructing prefabricated and preassembled homes on 4780 lots by mid-1947. He named his new subdivision Oak Forest. He was so highly regarded by the pope and other members of the Church hierarchy that he was honored in Rome.