An obituary is not available at this time for Calvin Cafritz. "Lots of times she could drink and she knew exactly what she was doing. After their marriage in 1981, Conrad and Peggy bought Sen. Stuart Symington's house in the Foxhall Road area, studied it for a while, then tore it down to build a new house. . 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. But he believes her drinking was a source of family discord. In Remembrance. The only thing worse might be to watch deals go on without him: Along with becoming chairman of the foundation, Calvin Cafritz has taken the helm of the old Cafritz Co., andis reportedly trying to bring it tonew life. Kateryna Pyatybratova directs the centers Cafritz Awards program. 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. (91 years old). The foundation, which Calvin led for over 30 years (after his mother Gwendolyn died in 1988), focuses on programs in the arts and humanities. All Rights Reserved. When the Cafritzes' back terrace offered the most celebrated view of the city, southeast, past the swimming pool and rolling lawn, all the way to the Capitol. By the time of her death, however, Calvin was still the son closest to his mother. Your email address will not be published. Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz were oil and water, a marriage forged out of surprisingly dissonant elements. "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. Special Neighborhood Hang Out: Say Cheese! It was an invitation to stroll around the house and remember: When Gwen Cafritz, with her 19-inch waist and Balmain gowns, her raven hair and regal air, had won constant publicity for her parties -- 22 to dinner, with toasts over champagne, and enormous receptions like this one each spring and fall. In 1971, he resigned from the company amid reports of conflict with his mother, and by the time she wrote a 1977 will, all three sons, including Calvin, had been dealt out of any inheritance. She is survived by her daughter Jane Cafritz (Calvin) of Washington, DC, five grandchildren: James Speyer, Irina Rubenstein and . Marvin LaVerne Katz, 83, of Dallas, Texas, passed away on November 22, 2019 in Dallas. Calvin's younger brothers, Conrad and Carter, are behind-the- scenes players in many business and charitable ventures players. Cafritz developed real estate here for more than four decades, until his death in 1964, and by the sheer volume and variety of his building activities was for a time the undisputed king of his field. It is a jolting reminder that Peggy and Conrad, a black woman married to a white Jewish millionaire in a racially divided city, represent a fascinating reshuffling of the social deck that produced the polarized marriage of Morris and Gwendolyn. "He took me into the kitchen and showed me how the cook would leave coffee for him in the morning," remembers the friend. He also is a director. ", She gave only two parties in the last 15 years of her life -- one in 1978, her first in five years, and the final party in 1986. Thanks to the support of the Cafritz Foundation for the last 25 years, CEPL has supported organizational transformation across the public sector in the city. The George Washington University community is remembering the life of Calvin Cafritz, a businessman, philanthropist and longtime supporter of GW. In the process, he amassed one of the first great fortunes to be carved out of Washington itself. In 1904, with a $1,400 loan from his father, he started out running a coal yard at Fourth and K streets NW, then a saloon near Fourth and O. She set aside bequests for two nephews ($35,000 each); a former company employee, Dorothy Casey ($10,000); and four former servants (two bequests of $50,000 and two of $25,000). The majority of this property was already owned by the Cafritz Foundation, but Gwendolyn was partial owner of many of the buildings; even a limited power to control their disposition would presumably attract men with ambitions in Washington real estate. They have helped us to be innovative and to expand. We welcome you to provide your thoughts and memories on our Tribute Wall. Or purchase a subscription for unlimited access to real news you can count on. January 16, 2023, 1:16 AM 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. He is a leading supporter of the Global India Fund, and the Ukapav Indian-American Scholarship Foundation. He has assembled a group of about 14 local hotels, including the Georgetown Inn and One Washington Circle. Prepare a personalized obituary for someone you loved.. March 29, 1931 - To Martin Atlas, she left $50,000 and a Chagall painting. Calvins brother Carter passed away in 2019. Home "She was good to me, and she was a good woman in my eyes," he says. 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. We'll help you find the right words to comfort your family member or loved one during this difficult time. But in the end, her siege of Washington society outlasted most of those limits. 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). The foundation, among Greater Washingtons largest with more than $400 million in assets and some $65 million in annual revenue and expenses, according to its most recent Form 990, is expected to issue a formal statement in the coming days. Cafritzs passing was confirmed by the charitable organization named after Morris and his wife, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation. The foundation also gave generously to support the recent GW Hillel building renovation, as well as to provide ongoing support to other civic-minded programs at GW. He was an excellent listener and always got both the big picture and important details by asking insightful questions. It has been variously reviewed as "one of the more important bands to emerge from the new head-slamming school of American guitar/noise bands" and "the gnarliest, most scuzzed out molotov to hit the streets since the heady days of Teenage Jesus and The Jerks." In Memoriam: Calvin Cafritz. He was 91. She was forever trying to tell me some long story I could never make head or tail of. Washington, DC 20007 But almost no one seems to doubt that Conrad is the main force behind it. It is, as always, unclear where her inborn quirkiness shaded into the effects of alcoholism; but many of her friends, in later years, simply came to think of her as "difficult" or "eccentric"; Almost everyone has a story about her forgetting their names, or making some sudden comment of shocking rudeness. Calvin Cafritz Obituary The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation has Died January 17, 2023 Calvin Cafritz Death, Obituary - Calvin Cafritz, the eldest son of Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz, died Thursday at Sibley Memorial Hospital. In the past two decades Washington has been one of the hottest real estate markets in the country, building new fortunes, multiplying old ones, constantly attracting new players from other cities. 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.". Through a number of different companies, he both invests in and develops all kinds of properties -- commercial, residential, retail and even industrial. Funeral arrangement under the care ofSAGEL BLOOMFIELD DANZANSKY GOLDBERG FUNERAL CARE INC. ", While she cultivated the mighty, Morris looked closer to home, helping to found the Washington Community Chest, becoming an activist in local Jewish groups. For him, philanthropy required partnerships that are broad, diverse, and extensive. 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. "Very sort of philosophic, sort of honorable." James Edward Cafritz <p>James Edward Cafritz of Bethesda, MD, passed away on Tuesday, December 22, 2020, at the age of 90. ON JUNE 10, 1986, GWENDOLYN D. CAFRITZ GAVE HER LAST PARTY. Nor, apparently, is it for us to judge what her sons now want from a D.C. Superior Court judge: All three declined to beinterviewed. While he was head of the foundation, Cafritz distributed grants to places like The National Gallery of Art, Washington National Opera and The Kennedy Center. "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. But almost no one noticed what seemed apparent to Gore Vidal, in brief glimpses of her during the '60s: "Toward the end {of the decade}, she was always drunk whenever I saw her. Unless you are experienced as an estate executor, you probably should hire an attorney. In plain English, Gwendolyn Cafritz's two younger sons are contending in court that their mother was too feebleminded to write her will; document requests filed in court suggest they may try to prove she was incapacitated by alcoholism. But Carter and Conrad Cafritz are not named in their mother's will. That task was left to her closest relatives. . Late last year, Calvins wife Jane was elected to succeed her husband as the foundations president and CEO and he was named chairman emeritus. Calvin, 58, who finds himself a defendant in this lawsuit, is usually described as gentlemanly, methodical and reserved. The George Washington University community is remembering the life of Calvin Cafritz, a businessman, philanthropist and longtime supporter of GW. Morris had one vision, and Gwendolyn another; whoever now gains control might offer still a third. Conrad, who was a losing bidder for the job, waged a lengthy challenge, arguing that Western was giving short shrift to the minority partners whose participation qualified the partnership for the contract award; though he finally lost last year, he succeeded in forcing a renegotiation of terms between Western and the Redevelopment Land Agency. ", 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." He was the eldest son of real estate titan Morris Cafritz and his wife Gwendolyn. It asks the court to rule that under Morris's will, which gave Gwendolyn the right to leave the trust to "such person or persons" as she wished, the foundation -- technically a corporation -- could not qualify to receive the trust. For another, he is said to alternate in seconds between a manic intensity and a mumbling diffidence. But maybe they just don't want Gwen Cafritz to have the last word. And given the life she had lived and the kind of friends she had cultivated, few people were close enough to her to understand why. Authorize the publication of the original written obituary with the accompanying photo. To slip out of the speedy traffic on Foxhall Road into the half-circle driveway was to slip back in time. The control of so much money, especially in a city with limited corporate philanthropy, brings enormous power. Calvin Cafritz began his career with Cafritz Construction in 1947, pausing briefly to attend college and serve in the military. 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.". "Getting along with her," says one developer who knows the family, "was something none of them ever mastered. Under an earlier agreement between Gwendolyn and her sons, she gave up her power to "appoint" one-quarter of the trust, meaning that $21 million -- or $7 million each -- would automatically go to her sons upon her death. So he began buying real estate speculatively, and in 1920 opened a real estate office on 15th Street NW. As he stood by her chair, he could name at a glance quite a few of the guests -- Chief Justice and Mrs. Warren Burger . But she had a disconcertingly self-serious way of advertising it. "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. 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. They had a large fund-raiser for Jesse Jackson in 1988, and for Conrad's 50th birthday, Peggy gave him an enormous black-tie dinner at home. He was "greatly respected and liked, even in an antisemitic society," recalls Dixon. "He's part of a legendary family, and he's the only one who seems interested in keeping up the legend," says one friend. Calvin H. Frazier (February 16, 1915 - September 23, 1972) was an American Detroit blues and country blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. But it has that air of a property just turning past ripeness, toward seed. His father, one of Washington's leading commercial and residential builders from the early 1920's to the 1960's, distinguished himself as an outstanding civic leader known for generosity. In July 1993, he was elected President and CEO of the Foundation and in the last six months became Chairman Emeritus. Finally, there is an emotional legacy to be earned -- or perhaps shed. 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. 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.