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Update: Jay DeHaven, Colorful Maumelle Developer, Dies at 79

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John W. “Jay” DeHaven, the colorful wheeler-dealer who made his biggest mark on the local business scene through The Maumelle Co., died at his west Little Rock home on Sunday. He was 79.

DeHaven’s long legacy of commercial real estate deals was built on hundreds of land sales totaling tens of millions of dollars intertwined with financial adversity, public controversy and lawsuits, both civil and criminal.

The biggest was DeHaven getting hit with a 32-count indictment in 1993 only to emerge from Little Rock’s U.S. District Court a free man on Aug. 24, 1994. The jury acquitted DeHaven of all charges of alleged conspiracy, bank fraud and illegal monetary transactions in connection with Maumelle’s Dogwood development.

“We won all our lawsuits including the big momma,” DeHaven told Arkansas Business in a 2008 interview. “If you read the press coverage before the trial, I was [going to get] 150 years in the pen.”

By 1999, he had developed and sold more than 3,500 lots in Maumelle, according to his obituary.

DeHaven sold real estate with the flair of a bond daddy. He took exception to appearing at No. 14 in Arkansas Business’ 25th Anniversary list of “Outlaws, Scoundrels & Posers” in 2009. 

After the list was published, he told an editor that he thought his body of work was worthy of a higher ranking. DeHaven presented points to bolster his position until it was explained that the list wasn’t a ranking, but merely a chronology of characters who had appeared in the newspaper.

DeHaven was born in Ponca City, Oklahoma, but raised in Hoisington, Kansas.

After high school, he moved to the Bay area with his young family and became a journeyman butcher for a short time. He also worked as a Fuller Brush man. 

Then he moved the family to southern California and went to work for Jay Chamberlain Automotive in north Hollywood, where he met Steve McQueen through a mutual friend in the movie industry, according to his obituary.

DeHaven raced cars with McQueen in the Los Angeles River Bottom. He also got a part as a racecar drive in the movie “On the Beach.”

In the early ’60s, DeHaven moved to Wichita, Kansas, and opened his own dealership. He closed it when his bank was seized. He left for New Orleans then, where he trained in securities. 

He attended a one-year program at the Culinary Arts School in Brussels, Belgium, but ran out of money in six months, according to the obituary. DeHaven worked as a cook on a freighter to get back home.

In 1967, Jay moved to Little Rock. He, his brother Kent and friend, Kris Zumbrunn, started an office coffee service after acquiring Tom’s Coffee. 

Then DeHaven worked for Robert B. Anderson & Co. in New York for about 10 years, where he represented PanAm and their worldwide liquidation. He became friends with PanAm’s founder, Juan Tripp.

He returned to Little Rock and worked in the securities business. He also acquired real estate in Angel Fire, New Mexico.

In 1987, DeHaven and his partner, Mike Todd, began putting together a deal to purchase all of the Maumelle assets held by Worthen Bank. That transaction closed in 1988.

DeHaven was preceded in death by his parents, Charles Sylvester and Margaret Walker DeHaven, and by his brother, Kent.

He is survived by his wife, Ashley; daughter, Beren (Holland) Gould; sons, Drew, Jeffrey and Brad; brother, Denny (Martha); sister-in-law, Charlotte; nephew, Ben DeHaven; and seven grandchildren.

A graveside service is set for 11 a.m. Friday at Forest Hills Memorial Park at 10201 Highway 5 in Alexander. A memorial celebration will follow, at 1 p.m. Friday in the Roller-Chenal Funeral Home Chapel at 13081 Chenal Parkway in Little Rock.

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