Homer Toberman; Executive Headed Pioneer Family’s Development Firm

Homer Toberman, a property manager who developed homes in Hollywood, whose great-uncle was both Abraham Lincoln’s tax collector in Los Angeles and a seven-term mayor of this city, and whose father built the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and Grauman’s Chinese Theater, is dead.

Toberman, who took over his father’s C. E. Toberman & Co. after Charles Toberman’s death in 1982, was 85 when he died Monday in a West Los Angeles hospital.

Toberman’s great-uncle, James, came to Los Angeles in the 1860s to collect taxes for the Lincoln Administration. He stayed and served as mayor in 1872, 1873 and 1874 and then was elected again in 1878, 1879, 1880 and 1881 in an era when mayors served one-year terms.

Charles Toberman and Sid Grauman built the Chinese, Egyptian and El Capitan theaters in Hollywood and several other buildings, including the Roosevelt Hotel. Homer Toberman developed Outpost Estates, also in Hollywood.

Homer Toberman also was a founding director of the James Toberman Settlement House in San Pedro, a director of Provident Savings Bank and active in several clubs.

Survivors include his wife, Lucy, who at one time had founded about 30 philanthropic and cultural groups in the city; daughters Lucy Ann and Patricia; sons George, Erik and John, and 22 grandchildren.

The family asks donations to the Toberman Settlement House, 131 N. Grand Ave., San Pedro, 90731.