The Preservationist – Herman Silverman
By Sharon A. Shaw
Silverman may be a bit of a misnomer, for nearly everything this 91-year-old year old business man has been involved with has turned to gold. Herman Silverman is the founder of Sylvan Pools, once the country’s largest pool builder; Silverman Family Partnership; the Art Mobile; the Doylestown Hospital Heart Club (now the Heart Institute); The James A. Michener Art Museum; past president of his alma mater Delaware Valley College and board member of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency. Hard work and creative thinking have helped Silverman overcome obstacles he faced in both life and business. “Einstein,” he notes, “said that imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Herman Silverman was born in the Strawberry Mansion section of Philadelphia. After his father passed away, he and his two brothers were raised by their mother, who sold coal door-to-door to support the family, and assisted by the generosity of local relief organizations. One such benefactor was a businessman who gave him a book of Horatio Alger stories while Silverman was at summer camp. From that book he learned the three pillars of success; be good to your mother, be honest and work hard. “Do these,” he says, “and you will succeed.”
After graduating high school in 1937, Silverman attended Farm School at what is now Delaware Valley College and farmed for six years before serving in the United States Army. There he taught classes and ran the shows, providing entertainment at Camp Croft. “We wanted to put on a musical written by composer Oscar Hammerstein,” said Silverman. “So I wrote to him to ask for the score and told him that we had been neighbors in Bucks County. He sent back a booklet [two inches thick] with the music, set and costume design.”
When the war ended and he returned to civilian life, Silverman turned his ambition towards business. “At that time you could buy any surplus Army vehicle if you had $500 and your discharge papers,” Silverman says. He chose a two ton pick-up and began Sylvan Landscape Services. ‘Sylvan’ is a Latin word referring to idyllic rural locations and wooded forest areas, an apt description for Bucks County, a retreat for many famous artist and actors of the day. Oscar Hammerstein soon became one of Sylvan’s clients. When Hammerstein asked Herman to build him a pool, Sylvan Swimming Pool Company was formed. Hammerstein’s referral introduced Herman to a number of wealthy clients but it was his own quick-thinking helped his business grow and survive.
Sylvan pools ultimately had offices located in 12 states and in several countries. In the days before advanced market research and analysis Silverman says he had a simple formula, “When I flew, I watched out the window to see where homes were being built.” Wherever it looked promising, Herman established his business. He was not selfish with his talents either. Silverman says one of the keys to his business relationships was to “Do something without asking for anything.” This mantra helped gain him a position as a board member on the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, a program of the Governor’s office which raised funds for low-income housing projects.
When drought restrictions one year threatened his ability to install pools, Silverman contacted the Pennsylvania State Governor with a proposition. He suggested that the Governor waive the ban on filling swimming pools if the owners would sign a contract agreeing to allow firefighters access to the water if needed. “I told the Governor that the pool industry was in danger of collapse if we couldn’t fill pools, but I also knew that emergency services were having difficulty with the hydrants.” It was a win-win solution.
His talent for creative problem solving again benefitted the community when Silverman established the Doylestown Hospital Heart Club in 1977. After his accountant suffered a heart attack, Silverman asked his doctor what the newly built Doylestown Hospital would need to establish a cardiac unit. Based on those needs, he and three friends began holding an annual $100 lunch to raise funds. “It would have been difficult to ask for $10,000, but not one hundred,” he says. Ultimately they helped to create the Heart Institute at Doylestown Hospital.
Silverman also recalls an incident when that creative thinking helped his business survive; a bad year had made it difficult to pay his company’s bills. “I called all the [suppliers] I owed money to and invited them to lunch,” he says. At this lunch he presented an eight-page advertising supplement that he hoped to run in the newspapers. “I told them that I didn’t have the money to do it, so I was asking them to loan me a percentage of what I already owed them.” This bold move paid off, on March 15th five-million copies of the supplement ran in newspapers from Washington, DC to the suburbs of New York City and customers began to call. Silverman was able to pay his debts and the additional loans that year.
One of Silverman’s most enduring legacies in the region though does not bear his name. In the early 1980s Silverman was working with officials to promote the arts in Bucks County through the creation of an Arts Council, the appointment of a poet laureate and with a traveling Art Mobile that taught children about painting, sculpture and other mediums, but his ultimate goal was to create an art museum to showcase the style popularized in Bucks County during the first half of the century.
Opportunity finally presented itself in the form of a new jail. The relocation left the county in charge of the former jail building which stood in the heart of Doylestown, the county seat. With the same creativity that helped propel his business forward, Silverman set out to turn it into a museum. Among the first decisions made was the one to use the name of his well-known friend and famous Bucks County native, author James A. Michener. This selection enabled the organization to raise more funds than it could have otherwise.
Silverman and Michener had grown up in similar circumstances and agreed on the importance of public art. Herman and his friends enjoyed visits to the nearby Philadelphia Art Museum while young, a free form of entertainment. “I got to see all of this wonderful art,” he says, “and realize there was so much more to it.”
A prominent name alone was not enough build a museum though, so Silverman and his fellow board members sold signed limited-edition prints and Key Club memberships to raise the funds needed for their goal. Of course, they also approached friends, neighbors and government officials with the same sort of audacious requests that Silverman employed to grow his business. In 1988 the James A. Michener Art Museum opened its doors to the public featuring many pieces of artwork on loan from friends and locals.
In 2011 Herman Silverman brought his support of the arts directly to the artists. “The Michener celebrates old artists, but young talented ones were having a hard time selling their work. I asked ‘What do you need?’” he says. “And they told me; ‘Wall space and publicity.’” Being the owner of several commercial spaces, with a keen eye for business and many connections in the community, Silverman knew he could change the public’s perception of the new artists’ value and opened The Silverman Gallery in Buckingham. The gallery offers “investment affordable art” showcased in an upscale gallery with a museum-like setting - professionally decorated and properly lit. “Good art is an investment, something you can pass on to your children,” he says. “It becomes more precious each year.”
Silverman has built quite a legacy to share with his four children, seven grandchildren and two great grandchildren. “I have been able to do all these things because of the encouragement and support of my first wife, Ann (to whom he was married for 65 years before her death,) my current wife Elizabeth Serkin and my family.” As for how he continues to accomplish so much; The secret, he says, is that he enjoys his life. Each day Silverman drives his BMW convertible to his office at Silverman Family Partnership. “There is always time to do something else,” he says.
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