Muriel Broxmeyer, 92, Fairfield Properties co-founder, dies
Muriel Broxmeyer helped establish a regional apartment-rental giant. Credit: Family photo
Muriel Broxmeyer, a matriarch who broke gender barriers in the real estate industry and helped establish a regional apartment giant, died last month at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, her family said. She was 92.
Broxmeyer was remembered during a memorial service at New Montefiore Cemetery on Aug. 19 as a bright, generous businesswoman who helped launch Fairfield Properties and as a model of persistence, her son Gary Broxmeyer said.
She had a photographic memory, meticulous work ethic and showed a will to persevere after the deaths of two other sons — Neal at 43 and Mark at 61.
"Some of my employees say that she was the smartest person they ever met," said Gary Broxmeyer, co-managing partner of Fairfield Properties. "They knew her history of how she broke that barrier, and that really inspired people."
Born in 1929, Broxmeyer was part of a tightknit family that lived in the northern Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood. She skipped two grades, graduated high school at age 15 and enrolled at New York University, Gary Broxmeyer said. She curtailed her studies to get married, relocate to Westchester and raise three sons.
Broxmeyer began working as a secretary for a small Westchester developer and real estate firm, Robert Martin Co., in the 1960s, Gary Broxmeyer said. The business grew into one of the largest developers in the county, and Broxmeyer ascended to the office of vice president by the early 1970s, he noted. Fewer women worked outside the home than nowadays and Broxmeyer took on more responsibility within her family than many other mothers, Gary Broxmeyer said. She and her husband divorced in the early 1970s.
In the 1980s, Broxmeyer launched Property Ventures Ltd., which landlords hired to transform rental apartments into co-op developments, primarily in Westchester and Long Island, Gary Broxmeyer said. She crafted offering plans, set prices, and marketed and sold the units. The conversion business slowed down in the mid-2000s, her son said.
"I never knew what a glass ceiling was until I was older," her granddaughter Dara Broxmeyer Gruenberg said, recalling how she and her sister role-played working in an office while staying over at their grandmother's house. "We would get up in the morning and go into her closet and get dressed in her work clothes … She'd give us a bag and a briefcase."
Despite her demanding career, Broxmeyer made time to help her sons, ex-husband and other partners launch Fairfield Properties, now the largest residential landlord on Long Island. She found the first property the firm purchased in 1973, Gary Broxmeyer said. As an original partner, she helped with a wide array of tasks and came into the office well into her 80s.
For months, Broxmeyer drove her grandson Michael Broxmeyer to various developments so he could start working in the family business after graduating from college. He had recently suffered two seizures, but needed to be mobile to work as a property manager, Michael Broxmeyer said.
"It was this bad circumstance in my life," said Michael Broxmeyer, now co-managing partner at Fairfield Properties. "We turned it into a great positive … I learned so much about business, so much about life."
Broxmeyer settled in Roslyn Harbor in the early 1980s with her late partner, Richard "Dick" Weil, who worked in the decorating industry, Gary Broxmeyer said. The two routinely had family and friends over to swim in their pool, barbecue, play pingpong and watch movies. They relocated to a senior community in Port Washington around 2010.
Broxmeyer never forgot the birthdays of her 10 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, her relatives said. She even remembered the milestone for the children of Alvin Wasserman, who was friends with her son Neal and then worked for her at Property Ventures Ltd.
She routinely clipped out news articles on an array of topics that she thought might interest others, he said.
"We had these wonderful conversations, endless conversations," said Wasserman, now a limited partner, director of asset management and director of human resources at Fairfield. "Even though Muriel wasn't formally educated, she knew everything about everything."
Broxmeyer contracted COVID early on in the pandemic and was released from the hospital after 60 days. Several health issues contributed to her death, including heart and respiratory problems and lingering effects of COVID-19, Gary Broxmeyer said.
Sarina Trangle covers affordability and cost of living issues and other business topics. She previously worked as an editor and reporter at amNewYork.
