Lee Ratner

Leonard Lee Ratner was an American businessman who built his fortune through mail order sales, particularly as the founder of d-CON rat poison company, before moving into real estate investment.

He was the biological grandfather of film producer and director Brett Ratner. In 1950, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation patented warfarin, a new chemical compound which had been in development since the 1930.

A 1950 d-CON meeting. From left to right: Jermone Garland, d-CON vice president of sales; Joe Abrams, d-CON public relations director; Lee Ratner, d-CON president; Alvin Eicoff, Marfree vice president On September 5, 1950, a trial run of radio advertisements for d-CON commenced. To increase momentum for the new product, Ratner organized a 15-day experiment in Middleton, Wisconsin, a town with a particularly bad rat problem. On November 4, d-CON was distributed throughout the community free of charge. By November 19, the town's rat problem was over with no "signs of rats in the entire area". Explaining d-CON's success over its competitors, Ratner remarked "exterminators has a terrific market but no one had ever advertised the product properly." The success of d-CON led Ratner to expand the business, announcing plans to introduce 10 to 12 household products as subsidiaries of d-CON over the next several years. The first was an insecticide called Fli-Pel.

d-CON in particular was a huge success and Ratner sold the brand for approximately $7 million in 1956.

Gould and Ratner would often ride horses together on Lucky Lee Ranch. It was on one of these rides in 1954, that Gould suggested Ratner develop the property by slicing it up into a checkerboard pattern and selling off half acre lots. Ratner liked the idea and formed a corporation named the Lee County Land and Title Company for that purpose, naming Gould as president.

Ratner was a 25% owner and chairman of the board of the Southern Radio and Television Company (originally Lehigh Acres Radio & Television Company), which was founded in 1960 with the aim of serving the Lehigh Acres community and making the area more attractive to live in. Southern's application to build a broadcasting tower was approved in December 1966 on land donated by the Lee County Land and Title Company. From 1958 to 1964, the sought to develop property on the Venetian Islands in St. Petersburg under the Venetian Isle Development Corporation, a subsidiary of the Lee County Land and Title Company.

In June 1958, Ratner formed the Leeco Gas & Oil Company for purposes of oil exploration. A number of additional drilling permits were obtained in Texas, but by 1960 the business had "practically petered out" according to a 1963 FCC hearing on Southern Radio & Television. At some point the business was revived. Additional Texas gas wells were drilled in 1964. By 1975, had expanded westward into Colorado and California. Ratner's Four R's Producing Company, formed in 1958, initially sought to develop oil producing properties before becoming involved in real estate investment. It became part of Lehigh Acres by early 1962 and was inactive by 1964.

Business strategy Ratner's motto was "you can sell anything if you use radio to introduce it." At one time, Ratner's businesses were the eight largest purchaser of television ads in the United States.

Personal life Ratner had a brother named Walter and a sister. He married Esther Richmond and the couple had three sons – Joel, Ronald, and Ira. Together with Gould, he formed Lehigh Acres Farms in 1964 for breeding and training race horses. who was married to Reina Nadell in 1964.

Ratner died in Palm Beach, Florida in 2000.

Footnotes The story is often told that Ratner bought Lucky Lee Ranch specifically to protect him from capital gains taxes on the recent sale of the d-CON company. An alternate suggestion is the development of Lehigh Acres was begun to offset the sale of d-CON. Neither suggestion is possible, as the property was purchased in 1951 and development began in 1954, but d-CON was not sold until 1956. There was still a tax advantage locally, as the land received an agricultural income designation for valuation in property taxes, as opposed to the (almost always) higher 'Fair Market Value'.