Longtime real estate agent Cal Carpenter dies at 94

Coming on 60 years ago, a real estate broker named Cal Carpenter helped a fellow World War II vet, the untamed and larger-than-life Hugh Codding, buy up the property he needed for construction of Santa Rosa’s first regional shopping center.

Carpenter did his work well and in 1962 Codding welcomed the public into Coddingtown.

A son of Carpenter, Santa Rosa native David Carpenter, remembers well Codding telling him later, “Your dad is the most honest man I ever met - and he’s a Realtor!”

Cal Carpenter, who started out in Santa Rosa running a feed store and became known for his telephone-shaped “for sale” signs that implored “Call Cal,” died Jan. 20. He was 94.

Carpenter sold real estate in Sonoma County for nearly four decades, retiring in 1993. Throughout his career and afterward he gave back to the community by volunteering with Goodwill Industries, Reading is Fundamental, the Kiwanis Club, American Little League, the American Cancer Society, the Sonoma County Family YMCA and other organizations.

He and his wife of nearly 60 years, Louise, reared three children, who gave them a passel of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He once wrote that a wise man had declared, “When all is said and done, a man’s success in life is decided by whether or not he has the love and respect of his family. That’s been my philosophy in life.”

Named after President Calvin Coolidge, Calvin Loveless Carpenter was born on a simple farm in Lamesa, Texas, on Dec. 21, 1924. The 11th of his parents’ 12 children, he started school thinking his name was what his kin had always called him, Buster.

His son David remembers him telling of how the farmhouse burned and for a time his family lived in a one-car garage - “dirt floor, no heat, no water, no electricity.”

Eleven days before Cal Carpenter’s 17th birthday, the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked U.S. forces in and near Oahu and America entered World War II. Upon graduating from high school, he joined the Army.

He would recount going to California and liking what he saw, then sailing from Angel Island in San Francisco Bay to Australia on a ship that all aboard called a coffin. He was in the Philippines when the war ended.

Carpenter went home to Texas and used his G.I. Bill benefits to study the economics of agriculture at Texas Tech in Lubbock. Eager since the war to return to California, he was happy to transfer there after taking a job with Prudential Insurance.

He settled in Sonoma County. With a partner, he purchased a store on Santa Rosa’s Sebastopol Road and opened Hal and Cal’s Feed and Seed.

While operating the business, Carpenter became interested in real estate, specifically the buying and selling of ranch and farm properties. He left the feed-and-seed business in the mid-1950s and went to work at the former McCluskey Real Estate in Santa Rosa.

A few years later, he opened his own brokerage firm, Carpenter Realty, on Fourth Street.

“He kind of broke in with chicken farmers,” said his son in Santa Rosa, who’s also a real estate broker. “A lot of people in Petaluma knew him.”

When Carpenter met Louise “Lou” Meyer, she was a transplant from Illinois working for Santa Rosa City Schools as a speech therapist. Carpenter would always say that she was not only pretty and drove a convertible, but she owned a sewing machine.

Cal Carpenter became deeply involved in property sales and investments, and in community service. In his free time, he loved to play tennis and ping-pong, and to bowl and golf and travel.

Louise Carpenter died in 2012 at age 82.

Cal Carpenter had relied on living assistance for a couple of years when his family celebrated his 94th birthday a month ago.

“He was an amazing guy, great attitude,” David Carpenter said. “Never raised his voice in his life.”

In addition to his son in Santa Rosa, Cal Carpenter is survived by his daughter Kim Agrella of Santa Rosa, son Ken Carpenter of San Diego, sister Pat Manor of Amarillo, Texas, four granddaughters and two great-grandsons.

A celebration of Carpenter’s life will be held at 3 p.m. Friday at Legends restaurant at the Bennett Valley Golf Course.

Memorial donations are suggested to Reading is Fundamental at rif.org, or to the Santa Rosa United Soccer Club, P.O. Box 12154, Santa Rosa 95406.