A Tribute to Maurice Rollins

Maurice Houston Rollins was born on a wooden kitchen table in Tweed on May 25, 1927. His parents, Harry and Maude Houston Rollins, kept a baby book tied together with string, all purchased from Mrs. FM Meagher, Fancy Goods and Children’s Wear at 209 Front Street in Belleville which was located right across the street from the building currently home to Rollins Investments.

Maude and Harry along with Maurice and his baby brother, John, moved to Belleville in 1928 where Maurice attended Queen Alexandra School and BCIVS.

During the depression it was hard to make a buck, but that didn’t stop Maurice from trying. At the age of 11 this young entrepreneur was selling lemonade to circus performers and the rest of the crowd swarming around when Clyde Beatty brought the Ringling Bros. Circus to town at the Alemite Park on Pine Street. He lived on Charles Street and set up a stand along the parade route, put out a pitcher of lemonade, added some cups, and had a front row view of the Bearded Lady and the circus acts.

When he was about 12-13, he and his good friend Johnny Miller trapped muskrats in the bay and sold the skins to a furrier on Campbell Street for 50 cents each. Once, after a wicked storm, they discovered logs washed up on the shore and sold them to Maurice’s uncle at Houston Lumber. They also hauled junk from a friend’s parent’s garage to Ben Safe’s Junkyard on Station Street near Trudeau Motors. They got 25¢ a load. They even rented the Orange Lodge above Lattimer’s Drugs on Front St. to host a big News Year’s Eve dance for their high school friends, threw in a rented nickelodeon, food their moms made, and sold tickets for $5 a couple. Miller remembers, “The dance was great but our overhead almost exceeded our income.”

Maurice got his first construction gig with his friend, Roddy Lyall, when he was 13 years old. Their job, from 5pm until 8pm, was to flag cars on Hwy. 28 north of Port Hope, keeping them off the freshly sealed road. The rest of his teenage years was spent painting railway cars CNR red.

When he graduated from high school at the top of his class, and began studying to be a pharmacist, he took the money he had saved from these part-time jobs and bought a chinchilla farm for $1,200. He built cages in his parent’s basement using lumber from Houston’s Lumber where his dad worked and the chinchilla business was off and running. Misfortune fell on the venture when it was discovered that Maurice had been sold a bill of goods; the chinchillas were an inferior breed and had a yellowish tinge to their fur instead of the beautiful silver-grey colour he thought he had bought. The vet who sold him the business got in trouble with the law, his operation was shut down and Maurice lost $2,500 of his hard-earned money.

His studies in pharmacy at the University of Toronto lasted one day. He did not like big city life and his life-long bouts of depression had started. Back home, he found a job as a labourer, wheeling cement at a housing project; the foreman hired him to assist with survey work and eventually he became a sewer and water inspector. He began working for McFarland’s Construction and got the job in the building department of laying out building construction projects.

The 1950s was a great time to build houses—and he did—starting with his own in 1951. He built three more in 1953 and three more in 1954, all on his own time after putting in 50-hour-a-week shifts at McFarland’s. In May of 1955, at the age of 28, he quit and went out on his own.

He launched Rollins Construction, later renamed Maurice H. Rollins Construction Ltd., and when he was unable to buy lumber and other materials fast enough to keep pace with demand, he opened a self-help home division called Rollins Lumber. In 1957 he partnered up with Charlie Lambert and together as Lambert- Rollins they built 360 housed in three years. Their partnership ended in 1960.

By 1980, Maurice built more than 8,500 housing units. Rollins Real Estate sold the lots, Rollins Construction built and sold the homes, Rollins Mobile Sales sold mobile homes, Rollins Mobile Sales Park leased the land to put the mobile homes on. Rollins Water Tank Sales and Rentals provided water tanks for Rollins Homes, Rollins Lumber Ltd. supplied material to the Rollins Lumber Factory in Foxboro which produced ready-made doors, windows and trusses. Last but not least, Rollicare Property Management managed the properties built by Rollins Construction.

In 1976 he bought an old coal dock on the wharf in an industrial area of the Belleville harbour with a dream of building a luxury high-rise condo, shaped in a curved design where every unit would have a panoramic view of the bay. It took many years and a lot of hard work but his beautiful dream became a reality and The Anchorage stands tall and proud on the beautiful Bay of Quinte!

Maurice had been considering building a no-frills and low-cost motel that would attract travelling business people coming off the highway. He made it happen and, in 1978, the first Journey’s End opened on North Park Street in Belleville, followed by a second one in Kingston and a third one Peterborough.  He had originally planned to call it Day’s Inn after a hotel chain in the US but quickly changed his mind under the threat of a lawsuit. Journey’s End grew from one motel in Belleville, Ontario to over one hundred and, in ten years, became the largest chain of motels in Canada.

In later years he shifted his interest to building retirement homes and, in true Maurice Rollins fashion, he visited the properties regularly. He even participated in the birthday parties. Whenever someone had a birthday at one of Maurice’s two retirement homes, they got a phone call from the boss himself.

He explained to a CTV reporter:

This is their birthday and I’m the owner of the place, and I think somebody should congratulate them.

This self-made millionaire owned, in whole or in part, over 80 businesses, built over 75 subdivisions, 2,271 apartments and 1,839 townhome units for a total of over 4,000 living units, not including single family homes. Underneath the tailored suit and steely exterior was a man who started it all with a lemonade stand and a dream, a man who overcame every obstacle.

A quote from the book by Orland French titled “The Remarkable Journey of Maurice Rollins” sums it up:

It was only when I was part way through the book that I realized the story really wasn’t about Maurice Rollins’s success as a builder and entrepreneur, but his success in spite of his spells of depression. The book production was financed by Maurice, and all revenues from its sales have been donated to mental health organizations dealing with depression.

He was well-known for his generosity and support of local charities, including the United Way of Hastings-Prince Edward, the Belleville General Hospital Foundation, the Salvation Army and the Enrichment Centre, which responded to his death with sadness and gratitude:

The man who inspired the name is gone, but his legacy of hope based on the resilience of recovery from mental illness remains. We are grieving for a community champion who demonstrated grace every day. Thank you, Mr. Rollins.

In addition, Maurice made many contributions to athletics in the community, according to his family:

Dad was quite an athlete, playing many sports, including baseball, hockey, racket sports and was especially adept at hustling pool at Lafferty’s Pool Hall. He sponsored many sports teams in the Quinte area.

Throughout his lifetime Maurice received awards from Good Citizenship (Ontario), Canada Award for Business Excellence, the Ontario Business Achievement Award, Quinte Home Builder’s (Founder), Lifetime Achievement Award from the Belleville Chamber of Commerce. He was also a lifetime member of the Wharf Street Debating Club and most recently received the Certificate of Achievement for his life-long dedication and commitment to the City of Belleville.

When this writer began a brand-new career in real estate, Maurice was the first professional I called for advice on how to kickstart my career. He invited me to join him for lunch at the Cozy Grill and I remember his words that day. “If you think selling houses is tough, try building a sub-division!”

When I started to scribble down his ideas about how to start my business, he put a hand over mine and said, “Stop writing and just listen. You’re getting some good advice here, young lady, so pay attention.”

Indeed, I was. I learned so much from him about real estate and business practices but, most significantly, how important it is to give back to our community.

MAURICE HOUSTON ROLLINS: 1927-2021

A life well-lived.

Rest in peace, my friend.