Kenneth Irving Cleveland
1932 - 2019
Kenneth Irving Cleveland was born October 30, 1932, at the family farmhouse in Charlton, Massachusetts to Chauncey and Mamie Cleveland. Ken grew up in the farming community of Charlton and was the second of four children. The farmhouse had no electricity.
Ken’s entrepreneurial spirit started early in life when his father gave both him and his brother, part of the family farm to grow and sell produce. Ken grew large amounts of sweet corn. He worked his way through High School doing a variety of restaurant jobs and graduated from High School in 1950. Ken married his High School sweet heart, Annette Mongeon, and had son within a year’s time . Ken and his father built a small house on their farm and sold it. The experience of building a house gave Ken a total project prospective which would be helpful in later life.
Ken entered a commercial apprenticeship program which allowed him to work on large commercial projects. Ken completed his apprenticeship program in 1955
Demand for housing in the 1950’s was significant due to the post-war baby boom, economic prosperity, suburbanization, and government support. With this in mind, Ken shifted his focus from commercial construction to residential construction. His reputation as a builder grew quickly as the quality of his work and prices became known. He was willing to take a risk and started building speculative houses. In 1958 he formed “The Ken Cleveland Company” and the company became a land development and residential building company. As he spent more time building a successful business, his personal live deteriorated and he and Annette were divorced. In 2001, Ken married Patricia Falluski, whom he me at The Old Phoenix Bank.
His first large project was a 350 lot development in Brunswick, Ohio, named Eagle Oaks. The success of Eagle Oaks, allowed Ken to become a much larger and successful residential development company. In the 1970’s he was building more than 300 homes annually in Northeast Ohio and branched out and built over 800 condominiums in Florida.
Ken Cleveland was a philanthropist and established The Ken Cleveland Foundation to support the community which helped his business succeed. In 2013, The Ken Cleveland Foundation, donated $4 million dollars to help build the Cleveland Clinic emergency department in Brunswick, Ohio, which bears his name on the exterior of the building. Ken passed away December 16, 2019. Both Ken and Patricia Cleveland are buried at Hope Memorial Gardens, Hinckley, Ohio.