Photo: (pictured left to right) Enrique Darer, Jamie Leibowitz, Teresa Hynes, and Harold Brown

Harold Brown Breaks Ground On Brighton Project

Venerable Developer’s Loft/Condo Complex is City’s First in 10 Years

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

BRIGHTON - On Aug. 14, ground was broken at a 163-165 Chestnut Hill Ave. Brighton warehouse for Chestnut Hill Gardens, the city’s first new housing contruction project in a decade. The $11M project, which will ultimately house12 lofts and 24 condo units, is the latest in a long run of development and urban renewal ventures for Boston-area real estate magnate Harold Brown, whose achievements also encompass remarkable community support.

"Chestnut Hill Gardens will restore an otherwise tired commercial area with owner-occupied housing," said Brown, Chairman of development firm Hamilton Company, which was founded in 1955 and owns over 3,250 apartment units and 2.8 million square feet of commercial space in New England. He added that Hamilton, in conjunction with affiliate Russell Development, was working closely with the community on aesthetics of the property. Hamilton, with full time legal, architectural, construction, maintenance and property management departments, “has always provided quality services focused on the needs of our tenants, clients, and associates," he said.

Hamilton’s other Brighton holdings include the new Super 88 Market at 128 Brighton Ave., the Atrium apartment building at 1079 Comm. Ave. (Packard’s Corner), the Marty’s Liquors building at 1227-1245 Comm. Ave., the Twin Donuts building at 501 Cambridge St., The Courtyard at 150 No. Beacon St., the CORT Furniture building at 155 No. Beacon St., Hamilton’s headquarters at 39 Brighton Ave. and AutoZone’s building at 55 Brighton Ave.

Brown, a 1947 MIT grad in Engineering and U.S. Navy Amphibious Forces Pacific Officer from1943-1946 and 1950-1952 (World War II and the Korean Conflict), was raised in Brookline, where he currently resides. His parents were Russian immigrants; he attended Kehillath Israel Hebrew School and was bar mitzvahed there in 1938. He’s given real estate talks at B’nai B’rith offices and is an ADL and CJP supporter who built the the Ben Gurion Institute’s Young Israel Tennis Center in Tel Aviv. He also installed a computer center in Allston’s West End House, where a plaque acknowledges this contribution (future building at the House is under consideration).

His expansive business distinctions include Director of National Rehabilitation Association, Washington, DC; Landlord representative, Boston Rent Board; Vice Chairman, State College Building Authority, Lecturer for Apartment Management Institute on Finance and Building Operations; Chairman, Wedgestone Advisory Corporation, a public REIT; Chairman, University Bank & Trust Company; Chairman Northeastern Mortgage Company; Boston Real Estate Board; Member Advisory Board, MIT Center Real Estate Development; and Licensed Massachusetts Real Estate Broker; Licensed Builder, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 

His community contributions are vast as well; one place that knows this is the Coolidge Corner Theatre, which was saved from becoming a mall in 1989 by Brown’s 11^th-hour intervention.

“Harold Brown has been the main supporter of the Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation from its very beginning,” says CCT Executive Driector Joe Zina, “both financially and in business suggestions about how we can succeed. He’s also become a good friend.”

In 1989, Brown became a partner with the foundation to establish and preserve the art house cinema. “As a Brookline resident,” said Zina, “Brown would go to this theatre and the Allston theater (demolished in the 60s and now Fern Cleaners on Brighton Ave.). “He stepped in to finance the theatre when the bulldozers were literally starting and supporters were lining up on the streets to block them. He came through with the financing that was required to take the theatre off the market.”

Today, the theatre remains vibrant, although Zina said that they are still in a capital campaign (in which he said Brown has continued to be very generous). “The Hamilton Charitable Trust actually owns the theatre,” he said. A plaque acknowledging the Trust is by the upstairs theatre screening room.

Brown has also provided reduced rent to the Brookline Chamber of Commerce at 1101 Beacon St. Future Hamilton projects include 40 rental units next to the downtown Ritz, 40 rental loft units at Harrison and East Berkeley Sts. and South End condo projects.