Palm Beach real estate mogul Burt Handelsman, the self-described “Mayor of Worth Avenue,” has died. He was 95 years old.
Handelsman, whose last years were colored by a very public, bitter divorce from his wife of 67 years, was a longtime resident and prominent landlord in Palm Beach, the Palm Beach Daily News reported, citing his death on Jan. 5. From their kitchen table in Brooklyn, the couple built a $550 million real estate empire that a Palm Beach County judge divvied up in a nonagenarian legal battle.
According to the outlet, the mogul was born in Brooklyn and served in the Navy during World War II. He went to college at New York University, then worked for his father as an accountant.
Handelsman married Lucille “Lovey” Handelsman in 1948, and the couple started investing in real estate in the 1950s. They acquired property on Palm Beach’s ritzy Worth Avenue over several decades, making them landlords to the likes of Ralph Lauren, Jimmy Choo, Gucci, and the island’s own Lilly Pulitzer. As one of Worth Avenue’s most significant landlords, Burt Handelsman referred to himself as the “mayor” of the famed shopping street.
Lovey Handelsman filed for divorce in 2016, citing Burt’s affair with one of his longtime attorneys. The split was finalized in 2019, and the property portfolio was divided as well. At the time, Burt Handelsman was 91, Lovey Handelsman was 90. The judge ruled on a total of 18 properties worth an estimated $210 million, as well as the division of the Handelsmans’ stock holdings, cash, and art collection. The rest of their assets were parsed out to Lovey and the pair’s adult children during negotiations.
Burt Handelsman also unsuccessfully sued his children, alleging they forged his signature on company checks to pay themselves, at one point calling them his “enemies.”
In the finalized divorce, he won the family home in White Plains, N.Y., as well as a golf course in the Catskills. Lovey Handelsman won the majority of the Worth Avenue property holdings. Just a month after the divorce was finalized, she died in her sleep in her Worth Avenue apartment.
In 2021, Burt Handelsman sold several of his remaining Worth Avenue properties for $58 million to Aspen, Colo.-based investor Mark Hunt.
— Kate Hinsche