Charles B. Benenson

Charles B. Benenson (1913-2004) was a prominent philanthropist and lifelong real estate entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, he was an idea man. Mr. Benenson constantly thought of ways to make deals happen. His imagination was legendary. Whenever a real estate deal presented itself he was excited about its potential and would intellectually obsess on how to make it work. Real estate professionals continually sought his advice and relied on his creativity.

In addition to being a developer and owner of buildings in New York City and throughout the United States, he had a passion for the visual arts, which led him to amass one of the great private collections of African Art. He was active on behalf of innumerable charitable organizations including the Inner-City Scholarship Fund, United Cerebral Palsy, The New York Junior Tennis League, and was a co-founder of The Association for a Better New York. He also served on the Board of Directors of several organizations including the Loews Corporation and Lincoln Center's Real Estate and Construction Council

Along with his brothers Lawrence and Raymond — and later his sons and other family members — he was part of one of the great real estate families of New York. Among his holdings were luxury apartments such as 400 Park Ave., the Connaught, on Second Avenue and 54th Street, and the Mondrian (originally Le Grand Palais), also on 54th Street, which he built in partnership with the Tisch brothers. Elsewhere, the Benenson portfolio of more than 200 properties included the World Bank building in Washington, the Beacon Center in Miami, and the Cross Country Shopping Center in Yonkers.

Benenson got his start in the New York City real estate market in the 1930s by joining the family firm, Benenson Properties, which built tenements in the Bronx. Heading the company after his father’s death in 1938, Benenson quickly became one of the most prolific dealmakers in the city, at one point in 1946 averaging four a week. He was collecting properties as rapidly as he would later amass art.

Benenson was one of the originators of the “triple net lease,” a financing structure whereby the tenant is responsible for all expenses related to the building being leased. In 1977, when the federal government prevented him from demolishing the historic Willard Hotel in Washington, he sued, forcing the government to buy it from him instead. The case set a precedent known as inverse condemnation.

It was his art collecting that most distinguished him from the other great real estate families of the city. In the 1950s, he began collecting art, starting with works by 20th-century masters including Leger, Matisse, Picasso, and Kitaj. He was ravenous and omnivorous, at times purchasing objets d’art seemingly daily. He loved the chase. Some of his favorite stories concerned beating out museum directors for particular paintings. On one well-publicized occasion, in 1964, he paid $4,500 for an 18 1/2-inch-high bronze cast by Rodin called “The Mighty Hand” from The Four Seasons restaurant — while dining there. “It’s a lot of money for just one hand,” he conceded. “But then, too, it’s quite a hand.”

By the 1970s, he had caught “the African bug,” as Susan Vogel, his adviser on many of his purchases, termed it. He was among the first board members on what became the Museum for African Art, now located in Long Island City (and soon to announce a Manhattan location). As he did for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale Art Gallery, Lincoln Center, and other organizations he underwrote, Benenson provided critical real estate advice for the Museum for African Art. “The museum wouldn’t have existed without him,” recalled Ms. Vogel.

Born in the Bronx, Benenson attended public schools before going to Yale. When his father died, he willed 75% of the company to Benenson, with the remainder being split between his wife and two other sons. Unsatisfied with this arrangement, Benenson made the split equal, although he later bought his brothers out on many, but not all, properties.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the firm, now renamed Benenson Capital Partners, bought underdeveloped land, which it later used to build profitable developments in the 1980s and 1990s. Its properties include offices and industrial buildings, residences and shopping centers, senior housing, and hotels.

In the 1970s, responding to the city’s fiscal crisis, he and Lew Rudin founded the Association for a Better New York. In the 1980s, he founded the Coalition Against Double Taxation to fight a proposal in Congress to eliminate the deductibility of state and local income taxes. After that battle was won, the group morphed into the Real Estate Roundtable, an influential lobbying group.

Although not particularly active in politics, Benenson once loaned rooms at the Willard to President Nixon’s election campaign, figuring it would pay to have a friend in the White House. He was therefore surprised to find his name (misspelled “Beneson”) on a list of suspected White House enemies, made public by John Dean in testimony before Congress in 1973. He chalked it up to his support for Businessmen Against the
War in Vietnam, and his inclusion on the list became a source of personal pride.

At the height of the crack epidemic in the late 1980s, he went back to his South Bronx high school and sponsored a class in partnership with Eugene Lang and the I Have a Dream Foundation. Later, he offered to pay the tuition for several dozen students to attend Catholic school. When it turned out that almost all the Catholic school students went on to college while few of the public school students did, it made news. He continued to sponsor students, and currently well over 100 are on the receiving end of his largess.

Known universally as Charlie, he was notorious for sporting loud and unconventional ties, as well as obnoxious golfing pants featuring inverted whales, among other patterns. He was a scratch golfer who funded the refurbishing of Yale’s golf course. In his youth he had been a nationally ranked tennis player, and the New York Junior Tennis League was another favorite charity. He built several tennis courts in the Bronx.

He continued to work in real estate until close to the end, and his enthusiasm for art never flagged. “The bug never let go,” Ms. Vogel said. “Most people cure themselves eventually. Most people buy for about 10 years until they have one of everything. He never got rid of a single piece. It was epic.”

Born January 30, 1913 in New York: died February 22, 2004 at his home in West Palm Beach of natural causes. He is survived by his wife, Jane, sons, Lawrence, Fred and Bill, brothers, Lawrence and Raymond and four grandchildren.