Vidal wrote, "Irene's evening dress was much too vivid, too personal, too fashionable for the calculated dowdiness" of a dinner in old-line Washington. "He's always very, very protective of the Cafritz name, as if it were his own. He was the eldest son of real estate titan Morris Cafritz and his wife Gwendolyn. Most of the band's song titles are too profane for citation in mainstream reviews (or newspaper magazines such as this); one, a song that would surely have outraged the vocalist/guitarist's grandparents, is titled "You Look Like a Jew.". Conrad's strategy has been diversity. Their complaint challenges her wish to leave all she owned, except for minor bequests, to the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, a charitable trust her husband had established 40 years before. "Decedent's condition deteriorated after the death of her husband in 1964 and grew worse in the following years. 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. Her two younger sons have also filed a separate petition that pursues only the marital trust. There are also real estate assets at Arlingtons 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, which is the former home of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The foundation, which Calvin led for over 30 years (after his mother Gwendolyn died in 1988), focuses on programs in the arts and humanities. 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. The family observed Jewish holidays, and the sons attended religious school at Washington Hebrew Congregation on weekends. 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. 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. All rights reserved. He was an excellent listener and always got both the big picture and important details by asking insightful questions. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation. This is in alignment with GW efforts to benefit the local community., Cafritz was a leading force in the establishment of GWs Center for Excellence in Public Leadership (CEPL) in 1997, to help support the D.C. government just as it was coming out of receivership from the U.S. Congress. 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. . A document filed in probate court says an initial inventory of her own property exceeded $90 million; however, inventories filed with her will account only for a little more than $80 million. So he began buying real estate speculatively, and in 1920 opened a real estate office on 15th Street NW. 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. And by 1970, arts and humanities took the largest share of the funding. When he died, his estate was the largest ever probated in the District of Columbia. He resigned seven years later to form Cafritz Enterprises. An obituary is not available at this time for Calvin Cafritz. Site design by, D.C. developer and head of the Cafritz Foundation. The house on Foxhall Road, completed in 1938, was explicitly designed to fulfill that ambition. 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. To one interviewer she said that art was "the theme, you might say" of her life, "as in a Wagnerian opera." No one needed to be told that this was Gwendolyn Cafritz's last hurrah. including, but not limited to, any facilities located in Washington, D.C.; Palm Beach, Florida; or Monte Carlo, Monaco." After college and military service, he rejoined the firm in 1956 and served in various positions, until the death of his father in 1964 when he became President of Cafritz Company, Cafritz Construction Company, and Ambassador, Inc. During his tenure, the companies developed, constructed, and leased a number of additional office buildings in Washington's central business district. She could no longer make an entrance, of course. CALVIN FRITZ OBITUARY Wyoming - Calvin "Roger" Fritz, 69, of Wyoming, passed away at 5:29 p.m. Friday, December 24, 2021 at his home. 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. Small grants went to 15 more Jewish charities, and the rest to such local charities as boys clubs and hospital funds. The suit was filed by the middle and youngest Cafritz sons, Carter, 53, and Conrad, 51. 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. Her gown, as in the past, was spectacularly formal: folds of purple satin sweeping to her ankles beneath a fitted bodice. 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. All three sons were rumored to have difficult relationships with their mother, and it was rare to find them together, bearing in unison the family standard. Asked in 1954 why all her sons bore two-syllable names beginning with "C," she replied, "Morris names all children, horses, dogs, apartment houses and everything around here. 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. They're more like the French salons.". (202) 338-4833, Georgetown Media Group. The mission of the foundation is improving the quality of life for all Washington, D.C., metropolitan-area residents, Boerstling said. But in the end, her siege of Washington society outlasted most of those limits. None of the Cafritz sons can be said to need the money that is at stake. Cafritz is survived by Jane, his third wife, who is a lawyer in the area. He served in these roles until 2022, when Jane Lipton Cafritz, his wife, was elected Board Chair and President and CEO. Where he was meat and potatoes, earnest frugality, civic pride, she was flashing dark beauty, mercurial moods and social ambition. Their differences were, in fact, a part of their legend, for they were one of the earliest families to bring together the two cities on the Potomac: On the one hand was the ethereal world of social and political Washington -- her world, which venerated either good birth or a seat in the Senate; on the other hand was his world, the corporeal city of sewers and streets and buildings and real citizens, men and women who grew up above grocery stores the way Morris Cafritz had. Says a friend, "He thinks they're a lot of fuddy-duddies living in the 17th century." She was born January 30, 1936 in Kennett, MO to the late David Richard Roberts and Betty Burbank Roberts. Calvin Cafritz, a native and longtime resident of Washington, DC, was born March 29, 1931, as the eldest son of Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz. 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. To Edward R. Murrow, in a 1956 interview, she said that to speak of Washington cocktail parties was "unfair to Washington. "Very sort of philosophic, sort of honorable." Today he shares office space and support staff with Conrad's growing interests, but for the most part pursues his own deals. It is hard to imagine, in this competitive atmosphere, that a single person could have dominated the field as Morris Cafritz once did. As you draw close to the famous burgundy front door, with its surrounding marble, you can see that the paint is cracking and fading to pink; and greenish stains from metal window fixtures are starting to weep down the white brick walls. 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. The Washington Harbour purchase, along with a current joint venture to develop a riverfront office and hotel project in Rosslyn, has caused speculation that Conrad Cafritz is increasingly eager to be identified with high-quality, high-profile projects that might bring him more notice. 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. "She felt that was the end, when she couldn't function socially.". In 1971, Mr. Cafritz resigned to form Calvin Cafritz Enterprises, with investments in aviation, communications, and Washington area real estate. 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. Prepare a personalized obituary for someone you loved.. March 29, 1931 - 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. Some basic help and starters when you have to write a tribute to someone you love. January 27, 2023. 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. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Among the guests that June evening were her three sons, Calvin, Carter and Conrad. The George Washington University community is remembering the life of Calvin Cafritz, a businessman, philanthropist and longtime supporter of GW. The strange paradox of her marriage was that Morris's money enabled her to carry out her lavish social dreams, while the family's being Jewish also placed limits on her chances of realizing them. "Carter Cafritz is just a genuine nice fellow," says Raymond Carter, a former vice president of the Cafritz Co. "Conrad is more in the father's mold. "Calvin is a very sweet, very nice person," says D.C. lawyer Max N. Berry. ", 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. Its annual reports list a fairly traditional, staid set of beneficiaries, and its grants are studied by an advisory board heavily weighted toward the kind of high-profile, high-society arts philanthropy that Gwendolyn favored: Among the members are National Gallery of Art Director J. Carter Brown, retired Smithsonian secretary S. Dillon Ripley and retired librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin, as well Carolyn Deaver, wife of former White House deputy chief of staff Michael K. Deaver, and a social friend of Gwendolyn's, Mrs. Tazewell Shepard.