Old press notices, written in the uncritical fashion of the day, recount her summers in Monte Carlo; her typical day in Washington (beginning with a ride in her limousine -- license number 2301, to match her address -- to the Supreme Court or the Capitol, to take in a decision or an interesting hearing); her winter trips to Palm Beach; her shopping trips in Paris; her ladies lunches at the Mayflower Hotel. There is, for example, the very palpable legacy of real estate developed by Morris Cafritz, including several lots and office buildings downtown. In relation to real estate, Calvin Cafritz dove deep into area projects over the years like the Riverdale Park Station in Prince Georges County as well as developments at 5333 Connecticut Ave. NW and 1725 I St. NW. Ways to honor Calvin Cafritz's life and legacy. Once it was built, he wasn't interested in it.". Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz were oil and water, a marriage forged out of surprisingly dissonant elements. Gwen Cafritz and her chief rival, Perle Mesta, were in fact the first of a new breed -- celebrity hostesses who openly courted the press and saw no shame in self-promotion. She has pressured the Smithsonian to increase the number of minorities in high-ranking positions and has been arrested outside the South African Embassy as a leader of Mother's Day protests there. The family observed Jewish holidays, and the sons attended religious school at Washington Hebrew Congregation on weekends. The judge's decision, though in favor of Conrad and Carter Cafritz, is of little. 91. There was no one she would not invite to dinner, sometimes calling the offices of Cabinet secretaries to ask for any day in the next year when the secretary would be free. She was born January 30, 1936 in Kennett, MO to the late David Richard Roberts and Betty Burbank Roberts. Calvin Cafritz (1931-2023) | The Georgetowner His commitment to causes and institutions extended beyond writing checks to giving time and energy. January 2023 - Page 189 - obituaries death He has interests too in a booming brokerage firm he helped bankroll, and in a Midwestern shopping-center conglomerate. G Guest 4 hours ago Comment Share T The staff at Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care Inc a day ago We plant this tree as a living memorial to Calvin. The Cafritz Foundation was one of the biggest in the D.C. area, with over $400 million in assets and around $65 million in annual revenue and expenses, according to The Washington Business Journal. All rights reserved. An obituary is not available at this time for Calvin Cafritz. Marvin LaVerne Katz, 83, of Dallas, Texas, passed away on November 22, 2019 in Dallas. What do the younger sons of the celebrated Washington hostess hope to gain by waging legal war over their mother's will? "He's always very, very protective of the Cafritz name, as if it were his own. Where he was meat and potatoes, earnest frugality, civic pride, she was flashing dark beauty, mercurial moods and social ambition. There is still a sign directing deliveries to the back of the house, as if tradesmen were still streaming up to the front door to importune the lady of the house, and Ridgewell's were due at any moment with more shrimp and cocktail sauce. He and his wife, Jane, and the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation have made major contributions to the city of Washington, DC and the region. Yet in Morris's absence, the family was anything but the tight-knit dynasty he had paved the way for. Carter appears something of a cipher even to old family associates. . Here, still, was the art moderne house, nearly as startling in 1986 as it had been when Morris Cafritz built it for his young family almost 50 years earlier. Washington, DC 20007 Beginning with single-family houses, moving on to apartment houses and office buildings, he managed to dodge the Depression and was well positioned to preside over the city's transforming boom during and after World War II (see box, Page 20). Perhaps one day Calvin, or Conrad, or some Cafritz now unknown, will find a way to bring together the opposite forms of ambition that thrived in this house, and give a second start to the dynasty that never was. He was "greatly respected and liked, even in an antisemitic society," recalls Dixon. . In any case, he was at least 20 years older than his bride when they married in 1929. Cafritz was a native and longtime resident of Washington, DC. He started by buying -- for $700,000, in 1922 -- the equivalent of 90 city blocks in Petworth, including the Columbia Golf Club, and ultimately built 3,000 houses there. To those who thronged to the parties, the children were rarely in evidence. Of the $54 million the foundation has given away since 1970, $32 million has gone to the arts and humanities, almost $9 million to community services, $8 million to education and almost $5 million to health. Of the three Cafritz sons, says restaurateur Herb White, "Conrad seems to be the one who has something to prove to himself.". . January 12, 2023 In particular, he has carried on an epic feud with Herbert S. Miller, chairman of Western Development Corp. Western won a city contract in 1985 to develop the so-called Portals site at the foot of the 14th Street Bridge, potentially the largest commercial development in the city. She was forever trying to tell me some long story I could never make head or tail of. Following the death of his father, Calvin became president of The Cafritz Co., Cafritz Construction Co. and Ambassador, Inc. in 1964. "Maybe we try a little harder because our family name is well-known," he told a reporter in 1965. ", While she cultivated the mighty, Morris looked closer to home, helping to found the Washington Community Chest, becoming an activist in local Jewish groups. "I know Atlas hates publicity like poison," says Raymond Carter, a former Cafritz Co. vice president. "I used to call up the house and get her maid, and her maid would talk to me about her, and say that she was completely worn out and simply couldn't get up and get herself ready to go on the warpath," says socialite Polly Logan. All of their lives, the Cafritz boys have been aware of their status as the sons of Morris and Gwendolyn. "I think it has the clean linear design of a Botticelli, and the elegance of an English portrait," she burbles, in her faintly accented great-lady voice, "and that's the way I would like my children to remember me. He has always been involved in the bread and butter real estate of housing, from building single-family homes in Prince William County to renovating apartment complexes in Alexandria; he was a major beneficiary of the Washington condo boom. Cafritz Calvin Cafritz Washington developer and one of the region's leading philanthropists, died Thursday morning, January 12, 2023, at Sibley Memorial Hospital, in Washington, DC. "I'm sure part of it was to show Herb Miller he was serious.". Two and a half years later Gwendolyn Cafritz was dead of cancer, at 78, and the following summer -- three years after that final party -- her two younger sons filed suit in D.C. Superior Court to have her will overturned and her estate, worth at least $140 million, divided among her children. There are also real estate assets at Arlingtons 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, which is the former home of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. 5.8K. What kind of arrangement is appropriate, where should you send it, and when should you send an alternative? CALVIN CAFRITZ, CARTER CAFRITZ, CONRAD CAFRITZ WILLIAM CAFRITZ AND BUFFY CAFRITZ The Cafritz name has been a Washington fi xture for almost a century, with Morris and Gwen Cafritz's 1937 Foxhall Road mansion an epicenter of D.C. social life. D.C. developer, businessman and philanthropist Calvin Cafritz, the eldest son of real estate icon Morris Cafritz and his wife Gwendolyn, died Thursday at Sibley Memorial Hospital. You can still show your support by sending flowers directly to the family, or plant a tree in memory of Calvin Cafritz. Upon Morris Cafritz's death in 1964, he became president of the Cafritz Co.; and in the first will Gwendolyn wrote, in 1969, which included all three sons, she made Calvin an executor and left him the Foxhall Road house. Calvin Cafritz Obituary It is with deep sorrow that we announce the death of Calvin Cafritz (Rockville, Maryland), who passed away on January 12, 2023, at the age of 91, leaving to mourn family and friends. "Old Washington was very antisemitic, as you know," continues Vidal, whose childhood here as the stepson of lawyer and investor Hugh D. Auchincloss and the grandson of Oklahoma Sen. Thomas Gore gave him an intimate education in Washington society. Then, in 1988, came the announcement that Conrad Cafritz, with Japanese partners, had bought Washington Harbour, the glitzy development below K Street in Georgetown that had been troubled from its opening; the original developer of Washington Harbour was Western. The foundation's board of trustees consisted of Gwendolyn Cafritz and the two men who would become her executors -- Atlas and William P. Rogers, her attorney. Under the terms of an old agreement, each of the sons will automatically receive $7 million, tax-free, in recompense for having forfeited, in the late '60s, some money from a different trust. And {Gwendolyn} was just considered comical, and there were a lot of jokes about her. An old friend remembers a Fourth of July party at which one or more of the boys stood in a window above the path that led indoors from the pool to the cocktail area, throwing firecrackers down onto the guests. "When I heard about it, I wrote Conrad and told him I thought it was a horrible thing he and his brother were doing to his mother," says Dorothy L. Casey, a retired secretary who worked for the Cafritz Co. for decades, reflecting a widespread tendency to speak of Carter as his brother's satellite. "Jews in general just didn't figure. Calvin Cafritz, a successful businessman, was involved in real estate for more than fifty years. And in the two decades of her advocacy, she has established a high profile -- and raised a lot of hackles among the old guard that runs most of the city's major cultural institutions. Rogers had served as her personal attorney since her husband, Washington real estate magnate Morris Cafritz, died in 1964. Operating under his own banner, Calvin Cafritz Enterprises, he has built both residential and commercial buildings in D.C. and Virginia. ", She kept up appearances even in the privacy of her home, where she drank Scotch from a decanter in the living room. The same plain white damask draped the table, with plain white damask napkins tied around settings of her heavy Georg Jensen flatware. And Gwendolyn's estate is not, in the end, the only -- or even the main thing -- at stake. ", High culture was one of her chosen routes to acceptance. As the hostess had asked, Ridgewell's Caterers heaped the silver platters and chafing dishes with the same filling, fusty food -- the whole poached salmon, the ham and turkey and carved tenderloin; none of the pastas or blackened seafood or grilled vegetables then in fashion. Cafritzs grace, elegance, discernment, desire for excellence and commitment to making the most of every day and every situation will continue to inspire and motivate all who knew and loved him, his obituary reads. In the process, he amassed one of the first great fortunes to be carved out of Washington itself. But he believes her drinking was a source of family discord. . In the '50s, Cafritz had an early conviction that the future direction of downtown Washington was along the K Street corridor, and before his death in 1964 he built a dozen buildings in the "new" downtown, mostly on K and I streets NW. She could no longer make an entrance, of course. But Gwendolyn sometimes took pains to tell friends that she herself was not Jewish. At the time the lawsuit was filed, family sources told The Washington Post that the marital trust was worth $84 million. And by 1970, arts and humanities took the largest share of the funding. . The best poems for funerals, memorial services., and cards. Says a friend, "He thinks they're a lot of fuddy-duddies living in the 17th century." Cafritzs encouragement has particularly strengthened the Washington-area communitys appreciation of textiles as a vital form of artistic expression and global cultural heritage.". His faith was great enough to lead him into investments that would later seem visionary: He developed the Temple Heights tract at Connecticut and Florida, for example, buying the land in 1945 with developer Charles H. Tompkins and sitting on it for 12 years before selling the northern part for development of the Washington Hilton, and building the two Universal Buildings on the southern part of the site. Calvin Cafritz obituary - fskhub.com Cafritz Calvin Cafritz Washington developer and one of the region's leading philanthropists, died Thursday morning, January 12, 2023, at Sibley Memorial Hospital, in Washington, DC. She is survived by her daughter Jane Cafritz (Calvin) of Washington, DC, five grandchildren: James Speyer, Irina Rubenstein and . Decedent lacked sufficient capacity to, and did not, dispose of her property with judgment and understanding, considering the nature, character and extent of her estate.". Carter Cafritz, who sits on the board of WETA, began his career in partnership with Conrad, building apartments and town houses in and around the city. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation in December 1988 and since February 1989 had served as Board Chairman. A memorial service will be held at a later date. Only between the lines or in conversations with old friends can one make out how nakedly she wore her ambitions, and how hard she was working to measure up. Calvin Fritz Obituary (1952 - 2021) - Legacy Remembers At the same time, he and Tompkins had the foresight to buy the land now known as Pentagon City. Dean Liesl Riddle of the GW College of Professional Studies (CPS), where GW CEPL has been housed since 2005, said, Our college was launched to make an economic and social impact through innovative professional programs that cultivate talent for employers and propel students careers forward. Comment * document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a33c63ad631098ddb002d9da023fc09f" );document.getElementById("gab125c3ec").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Between 1925 and 1941, Cafritz built more than 85 apartment houses, including 15 large luxury buildings, such as the Majestic and the Hightowers on 16th Street NW and the Westchester on Cathedral Avenue NW. JAMES CAFRITZ Obituary (1930 - 2020) - Rockville, DC - The Washington Post That's why her final victory rather delighted me. There he built the massive River House apartments; his estate eventually sold most of the land for others to develop. . Conrad and his first wife entertained often in their Georgetown house in the '60s, giving parties -- often liberal fund-raisers -- that offered cozy intimations of radical chic. For some people, the best send-off is one that they would have loved to attendthemselves: a big party. She carried her isolation to her grave. ", Other documents filed in court indicate that the sons will argue their mother was incapacitated by alcoholism. She appears every week on the WETA-TV arts show "Around Town." Mr. Cafritz has been an exemplary advocate for excellence in government and nonprofits in D.C., and the foundation has been a force for community self-efficacy. All three had become local real estate developers, successful, if less spectacular, emulators of their father. Mr. Cafritz said that the awards are designed to "shine a light on the contributions of extraordinary government employees. But Conrad has rolled out impressive legal artillery, captained by former White House counsel Lloyd N. Cutler, and seems prepared to dig in for a long siege -- at least long enough, perhaps, to wring a settlement from his opponents. Calvin Cafritz, developer and head of the Cafritz Foundation, dies "He took me into the kitchen and showed me how the cook would leave coffee for him in the morning," remembers the friend. Calvin Cafritz and the Cafritz Foundation have been part of the GW Honey Nashman Center from its earliest roots in the Office of Community Service and the Neighbors Project in the 1990s through to the present, said Amy Cohen, executive director of the center. He was 91. It is easy to imagine that for a son of Morris Cafritz, watching great deals go unmade is a kind of hell. Morris Cafritz incorporated the foundation in 1948 to give money to Washington-area charities, and when he died 16 years later, he left it half his estate, mostly as stock in dozens of closely held corporations; as the new majority owner of most of these companies, and with Gwendolyn owning most of the rest, the foundation became in essence the owner of the Cafritz Co., its subsidiaries and its assets. In Memoriam: Calvin Cafritz | GW Today | The George Washington University But like all wills, the one now known in probate court as 3035-88 offers more than one legacy, and thus more than one motive. ", Today, he still combats a version of that assumption, pithily summed up by one detractor in this way: "You don't have to be Albert Einstein to take money and make additional money in real estate." When the Duke and Duchess of Windsor came and danced downstairs in "the Club," with the dance floor lighted from below. Here, beyond the threshold, was the stunning circular entrance hall, dramatic enough to live up to the woman who once swept down the stairs to greet her guests. "She wanted something, and she put up with a lot of {expletive}, and she got it. When she drafted her third and last will in 1981, she wrote a final clause that reads almost like an afterthought, but resounds in the lawsuit now underway: "It is my wish that our descendents {sic} shall maintain an interest in the affairs of THE MORRIS AND GWENDOLYN CAFRITZ FOUNDATION and its philanthropic purposes and I desire that, following my death, CALVIN CAFRITZ be elected to serve on the board of the Foundation.". With such a ruling, the trust would pass to the three sons, as outlined in Morris's will. Remembering Calvin Cafritz - The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation For the sons of Gwendolyn Cafritz, to accept her last will and testament would be to allow her, in more than one sense, the last word. Mr. Cafritz recognized and championed this work, and its success is a part of his inspiring legacy., Throughout the years, he gave feedback constructively and in a helpful manner, said Jim Robinson, executive director of GW CEPL. But she had a disconcertingly self-serious way of advertising it. And he still fights his battles with a surprising intensity, rarely bothering with the shake-hands-and-forget-it bonhomie common in Washington business. It charges that Rogers and Atlas "exerted undue influence" on her decision to leave all her money to the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, and that Gwendolyn herself "lacked testamentary capacity," meaning that she was incapable of writing her will. She retained the right to will awaythe remaining three-quarters, or $63 million, which sheleft to the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation. CAFRITZ V. CAFRITZ - The Washington Post Another longtime beneficiary of Cafritz Foundation support has been The Textile Museum. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. It is intriguing to imagine what different directions Conrad Cafritz might urge -- and how much they would draw from the activism of his wife, who has likely pondered what difference the Cafritz endowment might make to her lifelong campaign to wrest the arts from Washington's white upper classes. But of the property over which she had control, Gwendolyn left her children only "such photographs, family mementos, and similar objects of domestic use or ornamentation as my executors, in their absolute discretion, shall determine that I would wish to have preserved for my children.". Finally, there is an emotional legacy to be earned -- or perhaps shed. Ymelda Dixon, who covered many of her parties for the Evening Star, recalls, "They were great parties, because she had the means and the imagination. "He wasn't overly enthused about it, but those were her wishes, and he sort of enjoyed it in a quiet way. Marvin Katz was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to Dr. Donald LaVerne Katz and Lila Maxine Katz on December 12, 1935. The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the charitable organization Calvin Cafritz had led since 1989, confirmed his passing and provided a copy of his obituary, which didnt disclose cause of death. Calvin Cafritz, D.C. developer, businessman and philanthropist has died That's what we call a success story.
