But I did not want to become a smaller version of my father, a person defined by an empire held for its own sake.

So Julian and I restructured the whole thing.

We took my controlling stake and placed it, and the bulk of what it controlled, into a clean, transparent trust — one whose purpose was written into it in ink that could not be amended later, the way my father amended everything.

The trust funds housing initiatives for low-income families across the state.

The company that my father had run as a private engine of his own vanity and comparison now builds homes for people who need them.