When Louis F. Eppich*, MAI, CPM, started in the real estate business in 1897, Denver was just beginning to spread out from where the South Platte River, bordered by a thin line of cherry and cottonwood trees, cut through the buffalo grass and sage. As a member of the Denver Planning Commission since 1926 and its president since 1937, Mr. Eppich was instrumental in achieving for Denver a great realization of its early dreams. His efforts helped turn Denver into a city set among mountain parks linked by a hundred miles of boulevard mountain highways. Mr. Eppich was chairman of the commission which prepared the zone maps and ordinance for the city and county of Denver, adopted in 1925. Until 1940 he served as chairman of the board of adjustment-zoning, which administered the ordinance. He was a director of the American Civic and Planning Association and of the Denver Chamber of Commerce.
Head of L. F. Eppich, Inc., he was an appraiser for banks, insurance companies, public utilities and governmental projects. He was one of the organizers and presidents of the Colorado Association of Real Estate Boards and also served as president of the Denver Real Estate Exchange and of Denver Rotary. He served on the building service committee of the National Association of Building Owners and Managers. In 1921 Mr. Eppich helped to organize Denver's School of Real Estate, and he directed it during the first year.
During his term as president of the National Association of Real Estate Boards, the Association called its first conference on real estate education, organized its first department of research and education, initiated its semi-annual survey of the real estate market, and wrote and offered the first correspondence courses ever developed for real estate education.
During his presidency, the National Association of Real Estate Boards began a joint study with the National City Planning Conference which resulted in recommendations for community control of subdivision development, particularly for areas outside a city's corporate limits. Authors were secured for a series of text books on real estate practice, the first literature of real estate. Rent control measures were successfully opposed. A study of second mortgage liens was made which had profound effect on the whole national outlook on home financing.
Source: Presidents of the National Association of REALTORS®, (Chicago: NAR, 1980).
*Deceased