Ben Weingart was an American real estate investor and developer, influential in the development of various areas of southern California, including Lakewood, California.
11 Facts About Ben Weingart
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Ben Weingart was born Benjamin Weingarten, on September 26,1888, in Louisville, Kentucky.
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At age four, Ben Weingart's German-born father died from tuberculosis, and his Russian mother passed shortly afterwards, leaving him and his two brothers orphans.
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Ben Weingart converted to Christian Science as a child, although he supported many Jewish causes later in his life.
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Ben Weingart came to own the Winchester Hotel in Los Angeles, California and a portfolio of more than 200 other hotels.
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Ben Weingart built a robot that could respond to piano chords, and developed a high-speed computing counter, and registered patents for various other inventions, including a vacuum cleaner that could reach under furniture, and a novel design for a toilet paper holder.
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Ben Weingart met Stella Shobe in Boyle Heights and they were married in Santa Ana on Monday, April 23,1917, when Ben was 28, and Stella was 35.
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Stella Ben Weingart died of acute congestive heart failure on December 29,1957.
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Ben Weingart's health began to decline in the 1970s, and beginning in the late 1970s, his companion, Laura Winston, attracted headlines for challenging the court-ordered conservatorship that placed him under the control of three of his business associates.
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Winston argued that Ben Weingart was capable of handling his own affairs.
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Ben Weingart died at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Downtown Los Angeles on December 22,1980, aged 92.