G Ware Travelstead
Gooch Ware "G" Travelstead is an American property developer and entrepreneur, born in Kentucky in 1938.
While head of First Boston Real Estate, a subsidiary of Credit Suisse First Boston, Travelstead was the original designer and promoter of the Canary Wharf estate in London Docklands.
Travelstead came from a Kentucky family. His grandmother Nelle Gooch Travelstead was the daughter of a prominent Democrat state politician and was a teacher.
His father Will Gooch Travelstead was an engineer and businessman who owned Travelstead Construction Company in Baltimore, Maryland. He was involved in the construction of many projects such as the World Trade Center building, and also was the subcontractor for the construction of Cape Kennedy. He and his first wife were the parents of two children, G. Ware Travelstead and Malcolm Travelstead.
After retiring in 1975, Will Travelstead returned to Bowling Green, Kentucky and lived in a vacation home until he could complete renovation of the old family home, Travelogs. Will Travelstead died in 1981.
In 1984 the restaurateurs, the Roux Brothers, were looking for several thousand square feet of space to prepare pre-cooked meals. Michael von Clemm, chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) and also chairman of Roux Restaurants, was invited for lunch by the LDDC on the Thames barge moored alongside Shed 31 at Canary Wharf, to promote the idea of this food packaging factory being based on the Isle of Dogs.
Von Clemm came from Boston and when he looked through the porthole at Shed 31, a simple brick-concrete infill, he commented that it reminded him of the warehouses in Boston harbour which had been converted into back up offices and small business premises. Reg Ward, at the time LDDC Chief Executive, remembers him suddenly leaning back and saying: "I do not know why we do not go for a shed like 31 as a 200,000 sq ft (19,000 m2) back up office."
This led on to discussions at CSFB's offices, during which their American property adviser Travelstead, raised his hand and said: "We're asking ourselves the wrong question. Of course we can take Shed 31 and convert it into a backup office, but we have spent the last five years courting at the Court of the City of London for a new site for a new configuration of building without success. The question is: 'Can we move our front office to the Isle of Dogs?"' There was immediate dissent. Reg Ward, however, agreed with Travelstead and pointed out that Citibank had successfully moved into mid-town New York and had also moved from the central business district in Hong Kong, drawing other users with it. (Eventually it would do the same in Docklands, constructing its own building at Canary Wharf)
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