Streets of Gold

California's first road, El Camino Real, was built in 1769-long before the gold rush of 1849. It wasn't until the 1930s and the spread of automobiles that roads freely spilled across the countryside. The opening of the Arroyo Seco Freeway (today's Pasadena Freeway) in 1940 heralded the beginnings of the "freeway era" in America, and with that, a niche market for paint emerged.


Paint with A Past
Henry DeRuiter emigrated from Holland to the U.S. in the late 1920s with a dream and a formula-a very special paint formula-for achieving it. Once in America, he promptly married Herman Van Dulst's daughter Dorothy. Together the two families moved from Michigan to California, where DeRuiter and his father-in-law launched The Pervo Paint Company.

Why Pervo? Meaning "impervious" in the Dutch language, and to these eager entrepreneurs, the name captured the ideal characteristic of a top-quality paint brand. The company still proudly uses the original logo, sporting two regal lions holding a shield emblazoned with the letter "P." The design appropriately honors an old Dutch coin.

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