Boston, Brookline Landlord, Mogul, Harold Brown, 94, Dies

BROOKLINE, MA — Brookline resident and Boston area housing mogul with storied past Harold Brown has died. He was 94.

"With great sadness we share the news that Harold Brown died yesterday. Until a short time ago, Harold was in the office each day," reads a statement on the company website. "He spent time at Commonwealth Sports Club before coming over to our Head Office at 39 Brighton Avenue. Harold started The Hamilton Company in 1954 and it has grown to the successful and large property management company that we know today."

Brown was born in 1925 and grew up in Brookline. He attended the Devotion School and then graduated from Brookline High School. He graduated from MIT in 1947.

He served in the military for WWII and the Korean War and then held multiple jobs — from a position selling at John Deere to selling doughnuts — before he moved to Beacon Street and got it in his head that he'd like to rent or buy a small building.

He ended up buying a six-unit building on Commonwealth Avenue. He then subdivided it into 12 apartments and then refinanced it. He got all of his money back and some extra, to boot.

“This is a good business,” he told this reporter in an interview in 2016.

He'd gotten the bug. The rest, as they say, is history.

He founded the Hamilton Company in 1954. Six decades later the company has more than $1.7 billion in residential and commercial assets in the Greater Boston area. Brown also helped found the Hamilton Company Charitable Foundation, where his brother Ronald Brown is chairman and his son Jameson Brown is a board member.

He played an active role in the company in his 90s. At age 91, he told this reporter he couldn't imagine retiring. His company is one of the area’s largest privately owned development companies and manages thousands of properties, including the 400-unit Dexter Park on Freeman Street and the Clear Flour Bakery building on Thorndike Street.

Brown in his 90s was known for his philanthropy, but earlier in his career the man who operated some 45,000 apartments and about 2.5 million square feet of commercial property was at times accused of being a slumlord.

He was also accused of dealings with the Bulger family, violating building codes, bribing a city building inspector and lying to a federal grand jury.

Brown, one of the city's wealthiest businessmen, was arrested and then indicted in Boston in 1985 when he was 60 years old. The Justice Department and a tenants' organization both sued and settled out of court with Brown for racial discrimination.

He denied knowing Whitey Bulger, aside from meeting his brother in the sauna of a sports club and befriending him.

Brown leaves behind wife Maura Nolan Brown and three grown children and a brother.

Do you have a memory of Brown? Send an email to me at jenna.fisher@patch.com

Services are planned for Wednesday, Feb 27 at 10 am at Kehilath Israel, 384 Harvard St.

Read an entertaining Wicked Local Q&A with Brown from 2016: Q&A: Harold Brown On Bulger And Buildings

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[Editors note: This article has been updated to correctly reflect the number of Brown's children]