Trepte Construction Company.

Biographical / Historical Notes

Trepte Construction is San Diego’s oldest construction company. Moritz Trepte, an immigrant from Germany, founded the Trepte Construction Company in 1895. Trepte originally migrated to San Francisco in 1890, and then came to San Diego to join his brother-in-law, Herman Stroele, in starting a carpentry and cabinet making business, Trepte & Stroele. It lasted a year before Stroele moved to Los Angeles for what he viewed as greater opportunity. Trepte remained in San Diego where his place of business was a small cabinet shop.

In those first years, Trepte’s business activities consisted mostly of cabinet making, store fittings, remodels and repairs. The firm began to take on larger projects primarily through government contracts to build military facilities, and then went into the construction of buildings for well-known companies or individuals. Moritz Trepte’s son, Walter Trepte, entered the business in 1913, and eventually became president in 1928. Walter also created the Ocean Vista Corporation in order to facilitate management of construction projects on a subdivided yet vacant tract of land between the following streets: to the North, Boston Avenue, to the East, 43rd Street or Highland Avenue, to the South, Gama Street and to the West, 40th Street. Since Walter’s involvement, the Trepte Construction Company has played an active role in every era of San Diego’s development, completing nearly 5,000 construction projects including more than 40 in the historic Gaslamp Quarter.

From the guide to the Trepte Construction Company Building Project Records, 1921-1965, (San Diego History Center Document Collection)