George Solt; West Hollywood Developer

George Solt, 81, a West Hollywood businessman and real estate developer. After earning a law degree in his native Hungary, Solt ran the family’s Bristol Hotel in Budapest until the Communists took power. In 1947, Solt and his wife, Maria, fled to London and later moved to Cape Town, South Africa. Solt founded Flattery Stockings, Africa’s first women’s hosiery factory, which he later sold to the British textile company Kayser. After immigrating to the United States, the family settled in Los Angeles, where Solt co-founded Solt Knitting Mills. In the 1960s, Solt switched his focus to real estate development, acquiring historic apartment buildings along the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. After redeveloping those properties, which were homes to former entertainment figures, he added industrial properties in Los Angeles and Orange counties. A philanthropist, Solt worked to promote awareness and education about the Holocaust. On Thursday in Beverly Hills of respiratory failure.