A Lifetime, A Legacy: Bill Tozour
Bill Tozour, 1971.
Sometimes the destiny of a person and a place are so intertwined, it’s hard to separate them. So it is with Bill Tozour and Avalon. In a lifetime that spanned from the 1920s to the 2020s, Bill Tozour grew up in Avalon … and helped Avalon grow up.
An entrepreneur, visionary, and community leader, Tozour moved to Avalon in the 1930s at the age of 8. At that time, Avalon more resembled the wild, wild west than a polished coastal resort town. He grew up hunting, fishing, and attending school in the town’s two-room schoolhouse. He was a volunteer fireman by the time he was 15 and started building houses at the age of 18.
As a builder, Tozour constructed nearly 1,000 homes in Avalon and the surrounding area with his business partner, Dave Kerr. Together, they founded Tozour Kerr Custom Builders and the Avalon Real Estate agency. With an additional partner, Tito Macchia, they also developed the Avalon Lagoons, known today as the “Fingers” section of Avalon.
“He was larger than life,” Lynn Schwartz says of her father, who died in April at 91. “He was a real go-getter. He was just a big fan of Avalon and enjoyed all the improvements to it. I think his legacy is not just the houses that he built here, but his example of community service that was very important to him.”
Bill Tozour’s list of community contributions is both lengthy and impressive. He helped bring the first doctor and the first ambulance to the island. He was president of the Avalon School Board from 1960-76, a member of the Cape May Technical High School Board of Education from 1971-96, and a 70-year member of the Avalon Volunteer Fire Department, including serving as its chief in 1960-61. He also served as a director of several banks, and had a hand in many other business ventures and community projects.
Beyond all of this, Tozour proudly raised a family of six children in Avalon with his wife of 71 years, Dorothy Tozour.
All of these achievements would have been hard to fathom when Tozour’s family arrived in Avalon in the 1930s. It certainly seemed an unlikely place to find great personal and professional success.
Young Bill spent his days at the two-room schoolhouse, where one teacher taught kindergarten to fourth grade and another taught fifth to eighth grades. After school, Tozour spent his spare time on the island hunting for wild game, which he would give to those who needed it for food, or use to barter for valuable and hard-to-find items such as rubber boots. During World War II, his family moved offshore to a farm for a while so they could grow their own food.
“Times were so tough,” Schwartz says. “He could never have imagined the life that he would end up having, the life that Avalon gave him.”
But, as it turned out, Tozour was in the right place at the right time. After graduating from high school, he started working for local builder George Gilbert and built his first house when he was 18. By the time he was 19, Tozour was a construction superintendent.
He started his own construction company in 1955, and then partnered with Dave Kerr in 1962 to create Tozour Kerr Custom Builders.
“Dave Kerr came from the Main Line and he knew people that were coming down here. Dad was from here and knew the locals,” Schwartz says. “They were opposites in almost every way, but they were a perfect partnership. It wasn’t only about building homes for people who came down here in the summer, but really making Avalon so it was a better place to live year-round.”
The hallmark of Tozour/Kerr homes was quality, according to Schwartz: “They built a good, solid, house that was made to last.” They constructed several home styles including Cape Cods, ranchers, and the popular coastal upside-down house, where the bedrooms were on the first floor and the living space on the second. You can still see plenty of Tozour Kerr homes dotting the island today.
While hard work and quality craftsmanship were essential ingredients in Tozour’s success, he also had canny business instincts to make the right moves at the right time. For example, Schwartz says, “Avalon Real Estate used to have their office on the corner of 21st Street and Second Avenue. Then when people decided to bring the bridge in at 30th Street, instead of 21st, my dad and Dave bought and built right there between 29th and 30th Street, so the office would be right there when you come in 30th Street. Because, of course, in those days it was walk-in traffic. So, they got that spot right there – and that’s where Long & Foster is today.” (Long & Foster currently owns Avalon Real Estate.)
Tozour’s timing and vision also impacted education in and around Avalon.
“Because he had so many kids, he got involved in the school board,” says Schwartz. “He knew they were going to need to build a new school. There were people in town who didn’t think it was necessary, but because he was building, he knew Avalon was going to keep growing. And he was right. As soon as they got done the first building, they had to add on another wing because they didn’t have enough room.”
Involvement with the Avalon School Board paved the way for Tozour to work with the Cape May Technical High School, where he was once again at the forefront of transformation. As part of the leadership team that shifted the school from a part-time option to a full-time high school, Tozour deeply connected to the purpose and mission of the school.
“Cape May Technical High School was dad’s pride and joy,” Schwartz recalls. “They not only made it full-time, but added engineering and computer science and all kinds of opportunities. It was the high school he would’ve loved to go to. I used to take him for drives and every time we drove by the technical high school, he was always happy and would always remark that the parking lot was full. He believed in alternatives and he wanted to provide that for kids who maybe weren’t so traditional in schooling and needed to demonstrate their talents and intelligence in other ways.”
Undoubtedly, Tozour would have been thrilled to see his oldest great-grandson graduate from Cape May Technical High School this year.
In fact, Schwartz says, “Dad had many accomplishments in his life – but the greatest joys came from his family. He would drop everything to do anything for us. And he just adored the grandchildren. In our family for a long time, if one of his children were pregnant, it would be announced at turkey dinner at the house and Dad always liked to be the one that would announce it. And he loved to share the news and tell everybody when he drove around to his different coffee stops.”
These “coffee stops” were a Bill Tozour habit that was practically a tradition.
“He liked to find out the news and he had all these people where he would stop in for coffee,” says Schwartz. “But he never overstayed his welcome, he’d be in and out in 10 minutes. He would have his cup of coffee, find out whatever news and move on to the next place so he could tell everybody what was going on.”
While Tozour had a large personality, he could be reserved in some ways, too. “You’d never see him at a cocktail party or anything like that. That’s where Dave came in, that was his forte,” Schwartz says. “But meeting someone on the street and talking to people … he was really good at that. He and my mother were the type of people that if somebody was sick, they were right there in the hospital. They went to the nursing homes to visit. If any of their friends had a problem, they would be there.”
It was just this kind of warmth that Tozour brought to and appreciated about Avalon.
“He loved the small town,” Schwartz says. “He loved knowing pretty much everybody. Avalon gave him a life he couldn’t have dreamt of, but at the same time he felt he should give back. He really cared about Avalon. He probably was more proud of how Avalon built up and the things he had a hand in bringing to Avalon, being part of the school, the church, the sport fishing center, the fire department … than the houses he built.”
Ultimately, Avalon defined Bill Tozour as much as his contributions defined Avalon. From this small town, he raised a big family, made a huge impact, and left a legacy to be enjoyed for generations to come.
IN HIS OWN WORDS
A few years ago, Bill Tozour provided an oral history for the Avalon History Center. Here are a few excerpts from his fascinating recollections of the early days in Avalon.
Hunting
“I was 8 or 9 when I got my gunning license. It was a big deal. We’d hunt rabbits and ducks every day after school. In those days, you could gun right in town here, it was loaded with rabbits. During the war, I used to give them to people because food was rationed, and they thought it was wonderful.”
Small Town
“It was a different town then – you knew everybody. There was only a hundred or so of us in the wintertime.”
During the War
“When you turned in off of Route 9 into Avalon, you had to turn your lights off and have only your parking lights, and those were painted half-black. So, they didn’t have any lights shining towards the ocean. My father was on the civil defense and every night he rode along 1st Avenue and Avalon Avenue to look back in and see if anybody’s shades were up. If your shades were up, he’d knock on your door and tell you to put your shades down. ’Cause the ships would get the light lined up to see if they could see a ship and sink them. [If they] hit a freighter or tanker, the next morning you’d see oil on the beach. They had dogs, and horses, and guards patrolling.”
Developing the Island
“I’m one who says it changed for the better. We didn’t have anything here and just think what we have here today – wonderful fire company, rescue squad. We didn’t have an ambulance or anything up until 1950. We didn’t have a hospital ’til 1950. We didn’t have a doctor until my partner and I said we need to have a doctor in Avalon, so through the Chamber of Commerce, we went up and interviewed Dr. Garcia. We guaranteed him $25,000 the first year he was here. It was great to have a doctor in town.”
Fire Department
“First time I drove the truck I was 15 – there was a fire offshore and they needed a fire truck and they needed water. Nobody showed up. So, the chief said, ‘Billy, you take the truck, you know how to run it.’ I had a lot of experience because during the war my dad used to burn every lot from 6th to 40th so there’d be no place to burn if we got hit. I was over 70 years with the fire company. Now I’ve got two grandsons in the fire company.”
To hear these oral histories, go to avalonhistorycenter.org or soundcloud.com/avalon-history-center/sets
