Gilroy
– The tenants at the Milias Apartments can’t make it to the
elevator without stopping to say hello to 90-year-old manager Frank
Rhinehart. Shuffling around in his gray work suit and constantly
bursting out in an infectious laugh, he adds character to the
complex, located above Harvest Time Restaur
ant downtown at Sixth and Monterey streets.
Gilroy – The tenants at the Milias Apartments can’t make it to the elevator without stopping to say hello to 90-year-old manager Frank Rhinehart. Shuffling around in his gray work suit and constantly bursting out in an infectious laugh, he adds character to the complex, located above Harvest Time Restaurant downtown at Sixth and Monterey streets.
“They all holler and I holler back at them,” he said of the tenants. “When you see people everyday it becomes just one big happy family.”
He is very fond of the residents and proud to share stories about them.
Every Thursday one of the residents has coffee for her daughter, nieces and sometimes her son. When they walk through the lobby, past huge deer heads hanging on the walls, Rhinehart shouts “Well it’s coffee time”.
He is especially proud of another woman who volunteers at the hospital and maintains the street flowers by Nimble Thimble and on Monterey Street.
“I figure the friendship is safety in a building like this. There’s a lot of close friends in here and we encourage that,” he said.
Rhinehart has been a resident himself for the past eight years. Shortly after moving in the owner asked him to take the manager position temporarily. Almost a decade later, Rhinehart is still overseeing the complex.
If he isn’t chatting with residents, he is working in his office, showing vacant apartments or completing repairs. Recently he renovated one of the 48 studio apartments with new carpet and countertops, completing the work himself.
“I love to help people, that’s what keeps me young,” he said.
Rhinehart grew up in Kansas, one of eight children. At 26 he was drafted into the military to fight in World War II, but he was never deployed.
“The big battle I fought was San Diego,” he said. During his service, he worked five days a week on consolidated aircraft.
He returned to his family in Missouri before moving to Los Angeles to work in construction. In 1973 he found himself in Gilroy where he came out of retirement to open a paint shop with his brother.
“I didn’t know anything about the paint business, so he helped me a lot,” he said. The two brothers had always been close.
“With eight kids you always have to have someone to fight with and laugh with,” he said.
Even though he has only one daughter, he has three grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren spread all over the country.
“For my birthday a few years ago, we lined up the five generations and my grandson said ‘Grandpa, look at the damn mess you started’,” he said.
Rhinehart is quite proud of that mess, making an effort to visit family whenever he can. And when he can’t, he is content to watch over the residents of Milias Apartments.
“There is never a dull moment,” he said on his way to get supplies for another apartment project he hoped to complete that day.
