Harry Weinberg; Hawaii Landowner, Businessman
Harry Weinberg, the reclusive industrialist and tough-talking corporate raider who became Hawaii’s biggest landowner, died Sunday.
At his death, the tempestuous, highly opinionated immigrant had earned an estimated $950 million in real estate, transit companies and corporate buyouts and left $900 million of it in a charitable trust, one of the largest in the United States.
He was 82 and died in Honolulu, victim of an eight-year struggle with bone cancer.
It was when he learned he had the fatal illness that his major philanthropies began.
Weinberg--ranked by Forbes magazine last month as 70th on its list of the 400 richest Americans--came from humble beginnings.
He came to the United States from Austria as a boy, grew up in a poor section of Baltimore and dropped out of school in the sixth grade to help in his father’s auto repair shop.
He sold newspapers on the street and during the Depression bought dilapidated properties in Baltimore. He renovated and sold them and with the profits bought bus companies in New York, Honolulu, Scranton, Pa., and Baltimore.
In 1962 his Fifth Avenue Coach Line in New York precipitated a crippling transit strike that led to the city’s purchase of the line and a huge profit for Weinberg.
He traveled often to Honolulu because of his interests there and fell in love with the climate. He also grew fond of the land, acquiring huge properties on Oahu and Maui, today among the most lucrative real estate markets in the world.
He moved to Honolulu permanently in 1968, leaving behind in Baltimore a foundation for the poor that bears his name and that of his late wife.
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation--which will receive most of his estate--will be among the nation’s largest and obligated to spend as much as $45 million a year, said Shale D. Stiller, attorney for the foundation.
“It really is an unbelievable task,” said Stiller. “It’s an incredible amount of money to give away.”
The foundation’s charter requires that 25% of annual expenses be given to charities, primarily Jewish causes and the needy. Another 25% is to go to charities benefiting Gentiles and the needy.
The remaining 50% is to be given to charities that benefit the poor regardless of religion, color or creed.
Weinberg left nothing to his son, Morton, said Stiller, and about $3 million to his four grandchildren.
For years Weinberg held a reputation as a hard-bitten landlord who refused to improve his properties. He also shunned the trappings of wealth, never bothering to properly furnish his offices and driving cars that were years old. Business Week in 1985 described his Honolulu office as “ramshackle” and reported that he traveled coach on his frequent flights, preferring to make extra stops so he could accumulate more miles on frequent-flier programs.
He wore inexpensive Hawaiian shirts and other clothes that came off the rack and consistently avoided those who sought to interview him.
“He didn’t play golf. He didn’t play tennis,” his son told the Associated Press. “His business was his life. He didn’t waste his time doing other things.”
In the 1960s he took control of such Hawaiian conglomerates as Dillingham Corp. and Amfac Inc. and talked both firms into giving him directorships. Later Dillingham reduced its board in size to force out the contentious Weinberg while Amfac lined up several investors to buy him out.
After learning he was to die of cancer, he announced he would give all his money away and began paying particularly attention to the plight of the elderly.
On a final trip to Israel in 1989, he asked to visit several of Tel Aviv’s nursing homes.
It was a humid and hot day and Weinberg was disturbed when he found the nursing homes did not have air conditioning. He wrote a check for $1 million to pay for units at every nursing home in Israel.
