Lillian Hirshleifer, who ran family store Hirshleifers at the Americana Manhasset, dies at 97

With her "innate sense of style," Lillian Hirshleifer had an undeniable presence and command as she helped her husband run a luxury department store founded by his family more than a century ago, her daughter said. 

"She basically was the person who helped my father have the vision, the sense of what brands we carry," said Caryn Hirshleifer, of Old Westbury, vice president and counsel of her family's store, Hirshleifers, which is in the Americana Manhasset shopping center. Hirshleifers carries high-end brands of clothing and accessories, including Chanel, Valentino, Gucci and Brunello Cucinelli, according to their website.

"She laid the seeds for a lot of that with my father," the daughter said. "My mother had impeccable taste, this innate sense of style ... Basically, she was a really strong, powerful, secure, confident woman."

Lillian Hirshleifer (née Gruder) died Tuesday at her Roslyn home after a long illness from kidney disease, her daughter said. She was 97.

Hirshleifer was born and reared in Brooklyn. After she married Paul Hirshleifer, "they moved out to Roslyn in 1958 or so," Caryn Hirshleifer said. Paul Hirshleifer died in 2004.

The couple were soon part of the Hirshleifers store dynasty founded by Caryn Hirshleifer's great-grandfather, Jacob Hirshleifer.

Hirshleifers originated in 1905, not in 1910 as the store's website states, according to Caryn Hirshleifer. "I'm the family researcher," she said. "There's an entry in the Brooklyn phone book in 1905 [saying] Hirshleifer Brothers on Manhattan Avenue."

About a year later, she said, "the next phone book entry was Hirshleifers; and then it became Hirshleifer & Son. And then it became Hirshleifer Inc."

Family-run business

"My great-grandfather started it when he immigrated from Eastern Europe with his children, which included a son, Herman," Hirshleifer said. She said Herman and his wife, Rose, ran the store after Jacob died. "My father, Paul, at that point, who had been working at Bloomingdale's, came and helped my grandmother, his mother," run the business after her husband died.

"And then my mother got involved," Hirshleifer said.

She said the store had moved from Brooklyn to Forest Hills, Queens. In 1960, a second Hirshleifers store opened in Americana Manhasset. The Forest Hills store remained open until 1990, she said.

"The [Americana] center was about four years old" when the Hirshleifers store became part of it. As it was being developed, Hirshleifer said her father saw it and "met with owner Frank Castagna, and thought it was a great place for a luxury center."

Hirshleifer said once the Manhasset store opened, her mother "was in charge of the store," while her father ran the one in Forest Hills. 

"My mother helped my father create this business. She and my father really put down the seeds for what is now a 20,000-square-foot, high-end luxury store that employs 135 people. When she started, it was 1,200 square feet with about five to seven employees," Hirshleifer said.

'Command of style'

Her mother, who retired from the store about a decade ago, didn't have a title, Hirshleifer said. "We're not big on titles." Her mother, she said, "was Mrs. H. People, employees adored her. She was a figure.

"I don't have words to describe her presence and her command of style. She was so creative. Not just in terms of clothing. She just had an incredible eye. She knew how to wear things in certain ways." 

Deirdre Costa Major, president of the retail division of Castagna Realty Co., owner of the Americana Manhasset shopping center, said of Lillian Hirshleifer: "She was a very stylish woman, very elegant ... She understood designer fashion, what it could do to a woman and how to present the best features of a woman." Major, who said she worked for Castagna Realty for 40 years, said she saw how Hirshleifer interacted with customers, providing "a very elegant experience, very specialized — like a couture experience."

She called the Hirshleifer family "one of our important entrepreneurial families."

Today, the fourth and fifth generations of the Hirshleifer family run the store. In addition to Caryn Hirshleifer, she said, "my sisters work there." She said her sister Lori "does merchandising and buying with my niece, Marci ... my sister Shelley does operations."

In addition to Caryn, Lillian Hirshleifer's survivors include daughters Lori Hirshleifer Sills, of Roslyn, and Shelley Shapiro, of Woodbury; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

The family will not have a formal funeral for their matriarch, Caryn Hirshleifer said. Donations may be made in Lillian Hirshleifer's name to the Northwell Foundation.

By Olivia Winslow

olivia.winslow@newsday.com@newsollie