"In this blockbuster biography, Abrahamson brings the business history of Southern California--and the national postwar housing boom!--to new levels of scholarly presentation. Building Home offers readers the opportunity to examine the federally managed housing economy, now in disarray, at its highpoint of efficiency, as seen through the flamboyant figure of one of its most successful Mad Men practitioners!"--Kevin Starr, University of Southern California "Eric John Abrahamson has accomplished a great feat: Using interviews and detective work in the archives, he chronicles the personality and vision of Howard Ahmanson, a man as elusive in the written records as he was imposing in the memory of those who knew him. Abrahamson tells an impressive history of Ahmanson's innovations in the savings-and-loan business, revealing how the man and his company left a long-lasting influence on the cultural as well as business landscape of southern California."--Adam Arenson, author of The Great Heart of the Republic: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War "Eric Abrahamson takes us back to an earlier era for America and Southern California when dreams were realized not only for a few but literally for millions. The optimism and nerve of howard ahmanson's times are displayed with balance and critical insight. But it's clear that we have lost much of our focus on home and family. The question for us is can we somehow restore the American dream before it devolves into the mists of history?"--Joel Kotkin, the author of The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, The City: A Global History "Howard Ahmanson's gifts to culture in Los Angeles were enormous.

As the sole owner of Home Savings, the nation's largest savings and loan, Ahmanson became one of the richest men in California by catering to middle-class dreams of home ownership. During his lifetime, he played a key role in funding the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Music Center, the Otis Art Institute and other civic organizations. With his endowment of the Ahmanson Foundation, he created an institution that provides $40 million a year in grants to benefit education, social services, healthcare and the arts in Los Angeles. Yet to most Angelenos, Ahmanson was and remains a mystery. Eric John Abrahamson's biography reveals the man and places him within the broader economic, political and cultural streams of mid-century America and Southern California."--Stephen D. Rountree, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Music Center.