Dave Telep, a lifelong Maple Ridge resident, developer and realtor, passed away Thursday following a sudden bout of cancer, less than six weeks after being diagnosed.
He was 80.
Telep was one half of Team Telep real estate of Maple Ridge. His daughter Lisa was the other half and he helped her along in the business.
She said while he loved real estate, he may have been just as happy to be a farmer, to drive a tractor and work on machinery in the outdoors.
Instead, he got his real estate licence and helped people buy and sell homes in Maple Ridge for more than four decades.
“He taught me everything, he really did. He taught me patience. He taught me negotiation,” Lisa said.
“He used to call me an old potato,” she recalled.
Her dad was referring to a potato that you dig out of the ground, wash off – and turn it into a shiny potato. It was his way of describing the training process, and, eventually, he stopped saying it, leading her to conclude she could stand on her own.
“We worked really well together. I’ll miss him dearly,” Lisa said.
Her dad was always someone she could bounce ideas off of, she added.
Dave encouraged her to get into the business and told her that real estate was one field where women could make as much as men.
Dave grew up in Hammond and used to joke of getting an old bicycle for Christmas, that simply had been repainted for Christmas time.
He even had a fruit stand on Lougheed Highway, back before the road was paved, and also sold furniture.
Her mom, Donna, actually got into the business first.
“He decided afterwards that he would get into it. Just sort of mushroomed,” Lisa said.
He had seen many changes in that time, particularly during the red-hot housing market from a few years ago, never thinking he’d see a house in central Maple Ridge sell for $800,000, Lisa said.
She added, though, that her dad could have been a farmer.
Dave’s younger brother Ralph Telep said they both grew up as proud Hammond boys.
There is a street bearing the family name in west Maple Ridge, named after his uncle Steve, who ran a mink farm.
Ralph said Dave developed subdivisions in the Telep Avenue area, on 123rd Avenue, along Kanaka Way, and 207th Street and Thorne Avenue. Just recently, he developed a 10-lot subdivision.
Dave encouraged his younger brother to get into real estate as well, which he did in 1974. After reading a book about the potential for Maple Ridge in 1970s, the pair realized that it was a good time to get into the business.
“We’re Hammond people. Got successful … moved to Maple Ridge. But we’ll always be Hammond people,” Ralph said.
Former business partner Lawrence Shumyla said Dave “tried to do good things for the community.
“He was always community minded for his fellow man.”
Real estate was Dave’s thing, but his true calling was being a farmer and operating heavy equipment, Lisa said.
“He’d like nothing more than going out and digging holes.”
Whenever one of his land development projects were underway, he’d stay on site, helping out however he could.
Dave got into the real estate business in about 1970 and never stopped. Even when he was in hospital he was asking about a house deal Lisa had on the go.
“Right to the end, he was asking me about the deal. It was his life, it truly was.”
