Philip Corning Iglehart, a devoted family man and sportsman who made a profound impact in commercial real estate, died Sept. 5 of cancer at his home in Glyndon. He was 81.
The son of Philip L.B. Iglehart, an investor, farm owner and polo enthusiast, and Mary Corning Iglehart, a homemaker, Mr. Iglehart was raised in Westbury, New York, along with two siblings and graduated from St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire.
His five-decade professional career in commercial real estate began in 1958 at W.C. Pinkard & Co. (now Cassidy Turley), where he started as a junior salesman and became the firm’s president 16 years later.
In 1982, he joined the RREEF Funds, then considered one of the country’s leading real estate investment trusts, serving as principal in opening an office in New York City.
Mr. Iglehart returned to Baltimore in 1987 and spent three years with Alex. Brown Realty Advisors as managing director, helping the firm become the nation’s largest real estate adviser to public pension funds. After leaving Alex. Brown, he spent three years at Cushman & Wakefield before returning to Cassidy Turley in 1993. As executive vice president, he was vital in the firm’s becoming one of Baltimore’s most successful real estate companies.
Wally Pinkard, chairman of Cassidy Turley, who knew Mr. Iglehart his entire life and started working alongside him in 1975, said he brought a consistent balance of competitiveness and compassion.
“While he was a great mentor and took great pride in other people’s success, he was incredibly competitive both in business and sports, and he instilled a competitive spirit among everybody he worked with. That competitiveness was balanced with his human empathy,” Mr. Pinkard said.
“He was a wonderful listener, and in this day and age, you don’t see that as often,” Mr. Pinkard said. “He would just remember things about people, and it was an amazing gift for him to see somebody he hadn’t seen in a year and a half and ask how their kid was doing in some ice hockey league.”
In January 2012, after Mr. Iglehart retired from full-time work at Cassidy Turley, the Baltimore Business Journal dubbed him “a dean of Baltimore real estate” in his retirement story.
Mr. Iglehart’s competitive fire started in sports as a youth and continued throughout most of his life. He was a standout pitcher on his high school baseball team, played ice hockey in the Chesapeake Hockey League in the 1960s and ’70s and was an avid tennis player. On the ice, he played center with his younger brother, David, on the same high-scoring line playing wing. The two also enjoyed success as tennis partners as they captured a number of Mid-Atlantic Tennis Association doubles championships. Mr. Iglehart was an avid huntsman, spending many weekends on the Eastern Shore during duck season.
Mr. Iglehart was married for 61 years to the former Susan Lonsdale. The couple, who were married Dec. 6, 1958, met through friends at a casual spaghetti dinner.
“There was so many of us there and we all had our plates of spaghetti and sat on the floor because it wasn’t a dining room table kind of an evening,” Mrs. Iglehart said. “We were playing with these puppies and I looked up and saw this handsome young man. That was the story for me — lightning struck. From then on, we’ve been together. We’ve been so blessed with a charmed life.”
In addition to raising three children, the couple enjoyed planting gardens and trained countless Labradors.
A private family service was held at St. Thomas Cemetery in Garrison, and a celebration of life will be planned for a later date.
In addition to his wife and brother, Mr. Iglehart is survived by one son, Philip L. Iglehart of Owings Mills; two daughters, Sasha Iglehart of Montclair, New Jersy, Laura Iglehart of Charlotte, Vermont; and six grandchildren.
