Louis Salomonsky died Aug. 31 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. (BizSense file photo)
Louis Salomonsky had many sayings.
They were pearls of wisdom – some of them clichés, some of his own creation – that he didn’t hesitate to drop on family, business partners, competitors, politicians and whoever else was part of the constant stream of visitors stopping by his office in Shockoe Bottom for guidance.
But one of those axioms in particular seems to sum up how the prolific, polarizing developer navigated his six-decade career in real estate and, perhaps, life in general.
“He would say, ‘Never be afraid to die,’” Salomonsky’s eldest son Stephen recalled last week, shortly after his father’s death at age 84. “He wasn’t talking about dying and going to heaven. He was talking about the negotiating table.”
Since word of his Aug. 31 passing after a long battle with pancreatic cancer began to spread around Richmond last week, players in the local real estate world spanning multiple generations have recounted their experiences with Salomonsky and his influence on the industry.
Certain themes emerge from such conversations. Salomonsky was both revered and feared, sometimes in the same instance. He could put you in your place but also help you get to where you needed to go. Frugality on projects was a mantra of his, yet he was generous sometimes to a fault. He preached the virtue of hustle while showing how it’s done: his yearslong illness didn’t stop him from working, even in the final days of his life.
“A week up until he passed, he was still cutting deals that are two to three years into the future,” Stephen said.
From a hardscrabble childhood growing up along what is now Arthur Ashe Boulevard, Salomonsky became one of the region’s titans of development. Building off his architecture degree from UVA, he had a hand in the creation of thousands of apartments in the city over decades of work, particularly the last 30 years. He and his longtime business partner David White, through their company Historic Housing, were among the first in the region to see the promise of using historic tax credits to rehab the city’s old buildings into new uses.
They’ve since developed $750 million worth of projects, much of which they still own.
And while his creations still stand as a reminder of his work, it’s Salomonsky’s words that seem to have stuck with those who knew him.
Louis’s ‘pep talks’
Salomonsky and David White at an event in 2017. (BizSense file)
For many in Richmond, Salomonsky was known publicly mainly for two things: his impact on the city’s built environment and his notorious prison stint in the early 2000s related to a bribery scandal involving a then-city councilmember.
But behind the scenes, he was a mentor to many, from governors to young developers to laborers.
“Over 30 years I saw a constant parade of people coming into his office seeking his advice,” said White, Salomonsky’s partner since the early 1990s. “Most of them were names you would recognize but some were people who were down on their luck.”
Seeking counsel from Salomonsky came with a price – he wasn’t going to sugarcoat things.
“One thing that often gets missed in a discussion of Louis was his unique blend of tough and tender,” White said. “We called that in the office Louis’s ‘pep talks.’”
Margaret Freund
Margaret Freund said she got plenty of such pep talks over the years as she sought Salomonsky out as a mentor while building her own development company, Fulton Hill Properties.
“To win that kind of relationship you had to be willing to let him show what his perspective was,” Freund said. “I think it was like, ‘Are you worth my time and energy to teach you? Can you sit here and take this?’”
Daniil Kleyman, an up-and-coming local developer in the Church Hill area, got to know Salomonsky in the last several years and found a source of “unfiltered” advice.
“I came to admire his sharp intellect, his depth of experience through multiple decades and real estate cycles, and his ability to always give it to you straight,” Kleyman said. “I can just say that Louis was definitely a straight shooter and wouldn’t hesitate to tell you if you’re being stupid.”
Yogi Singh recalls his first interactions with Salomonsky five or six years ago, when he and his business partners were striking out on their own to develop office space, apartments and other projects.
Yogi Singh
“It was like meeting The Godfather,” Singh said. “He was the one that single-handedly put his hand behind my back and pushed us forward. I think he recognized that he could do more good by forcing an education on me than just wishing me good luck on the next thing. He could pick up on when people needed that and that sometimes people don’t recognize they need that. That was one of his superpowers, amongst many.”
Sometimes the advice was unsolicited.
Jason Guillot, a principal at Thalhimer Realty Partners who’s leading the massive Diamond District project, recalled receiving a call from Salomonsky in early 2021, when Guillot was under construction on the redevelopment of the former Westhampton School property.
“Louis called me one day… he said, ‘I’m driving past your project on Patterson… you’re spending way too much money on that façade – you’re going to lose your ass if you don’t watch out,’” Guillot said.
“And then he went on to tell me about all the ways he would have designed it differently to achieve a similar look at a lower cost. While I may not have always agreed with his design critiques, there was always some nugget of wisdom he’d pass along,” Guillot said.
Randy Reynolds Jr., whose family developed Reynolds Crossing in Henrico County, also got such a call.
“He called me up one time and said, ‘Do you all work on Saturdays?’ I said, ‘Not normally,’ and he said, ‘I’m going to give you a reason.’”
Randy Reynolds Jr.
Salomonsky then summoned the Reynoldses to their own office on a Saturday morning to tell them how he thought the vast parking lots at Reynolds Crossing were “wasted money” and offered to make better use of them.
“He came in harsh and hard, but he softened up later,” Reynolds said. “He wanted to test you and see what kind of person you are.”
Salomonsky’s kids – all seven of them – got a taste of it, too.
“He was tough on his children,” his son Stephen said. “Thank God he was, because we turned out well. He did test people. He wouldn’t make it easy. You don’t learn unless you go through the school of hard knocks, which was one of his cliché phrases.”
Prison
Salomonsky felt some of those hard knocks in the early 2000s, when he was sentenced to serve two years in federal prison in the highly publicized case involving bribes to City Councilwoman Gwen Hedgepeth.
Court records and reports from the time state the case was built by the FBI using an informant wearing a wire in an attempt to catch Salomonsky trying to buy Hedgepeth’s vote for Salomonsky’s preferred mayoral candidate for around $2,000. He ultimately pleaded guilty to the charges and was released in 2005.
“It was a horrible, horrible experience,” Stephen said of that time in his family’s life, adding that there’s far more to the story than what was reported 20 years ago.
Historic Housing was also affected.
“Obviously that was a major point in the history of the business,” White said. “We operated for a couple of years without him being involved. Some of the banking relationships were strained by that.”
But some good came from it, both during the sentence and after.
“He said many times that going to prison probably saved his life,” Stephen said. “He got into shape and it slowed him down. He came out much less aggressive. Most importantly, he wanted to restore his reputation and he worked very hard at that.”
Added White: “It calmed him down some. I don’t think you go off to prison and not be changed.”
Freund said the time she got to know Salomonsky best was after his prison stint. She said while he didn’t hide from that chapter of his life, he also made sure to move beyond it.
“That was one thing that people remember, but he was not that one thing,” she said. “He would want people to know that wasn’t what defined him.”
Up until the end
Salomonsky in his younger days.
From the time he left prison up until the final week of his life, Salomonsky’s work on projects both current and future was constant.
His 12-story apartment tower at the former Weiman’s Bakery property in Shockoe Bottom is under construction to become the neighborhood’s tallest building.
Finishing touches on the last commercial spaces at The Icon, a redevelopment of the former Quality Inn & Suites property at 3200 W. Broad St. in Scott’s Addition, are underway.
In the past 12 months he began planning a high-rise residential tower at the southwest corner of Gaskins Road and Patterson Avenue, not far from his home in western Henrico County, as well as an addition to the Bacon Retirement Community in the Church Hill area.
From his bed at home during his last days, Salomonsky continued to take visitors and offer advice like always. Those visitors say discussions of development perked him up until the very end.
“I went out to see him two weeks ago and he did not look good. I mentioned an issue we had with a permanent lender and his head turned around and he started giving me pieces of information that I really had missed,” White said. “He did a calculation in his head and said we’ll end up with ‘X’ dollars in that deal and he was right. It was remarkable.”
Guillot experienced it as well during a visit last month.
“Despite his declining health, his mind was racing at 100 miles per hour about his current and future projects,” Guillot said. “His unending passion for solving complex challenges in development and finance was on full display.”
Freund visited him a week prior to his death and saw a similar jolt.
“They were keeping him comfortable and he just wanted to know about my deal out here (in Colorado),” she said. “I said, ‘Listen, I’ve done something you’d be really proud of and never could have done it without listening to you.’ He sat up and said, ‘Go get me a smoothie.’ His brain was working right up until the very end.”
And while younger developers like Guillot, Kleyman and Singh say they benefitted from knowing Salomonsky, there may well be yet another generation behind them carrying some of his wisdom into the business in the years to come.
Salomonsky in recent years took on an adjunct professor position at UVA teaching real estate to students in the university’s school of architecture.
It was evident to many that Salomonsky viewed the gig, while part-time and short-lived, as a crowning achievement.
“To be able to go back and teach his business to these kids… I dare say it might have been the highlight of his life,” Stephen said.
Randy Reynolds was invited by Salomonsky to give a guest lecture at one of his classes. He said Professor Salomonsky wanted him to teach the students about joint and several liability, meaning the budding architects could someday be held liable on the loans taken out by their developer clients.
It wasn’t the sort of theory-based work that’s typical of academia, Reynolds said.
“He was trying to show them the ways of the world,” Reynolds said. “He was a realistic type of guy and taught practical knowledge.”
Freund said Salomonsky also focused his courses on the costs related to building housing for mixed-income residents, another real-world sort of topic.
“He was committed to helping these young architecture students understand that if they want to do some good work in that housing space they have to learn from how things are going to cost and not just how pretty it’s going to be,” Freund said.
Singh said it’s no surprise Salomonsky found joy in the classroom after dropping knowledge from his Shockoe Bottom office all those years.
“It was always done with a sense of academic thinking and refinement, and he pushed us on that,” Singh said. “That’s the legacy he should be remembered for. He was the ultimate teacher.”
Louis Salomonsky died Aug. 31 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. (BizSense file photo)
Louis Salomonsky had many sayings.
They were pearls of wisdom – some of them clichés, some of his own creation – that he didn’t hesitate to drop on family, business partners, competitors, politicians and whoever else was part of the constant stream of visitors stopping by his office in Shockoe Bottom for guidance.
But one of those axioms in particular seems to sum up how the prolific, polarizing developer navigated his six-decade career in real estate and, perhaps, life in general.
“He would say, ‘Never be afraid to die,’” Salomonsky’s eldest son Stephen recalled last week, shortly after his father’s death at age 84. “He wasn’t talking about dying and going to heaven. He was talking about the negotiating table.”
Since word of his Aug. 31 passing after a long battle with pancreatic cancer began to spread around Richmond last week, players in the local real estate world spanning multiple generations have recounted their experiences with Salomonsky and his influence on the industry.
Certain themes emerge from such conversations. Salomonsky was both revered and feared, sometimes in the same instance. He could put you in your place but also help you get to where you needed to go. Frugality on projects was a mantra of his, yet he was generous sometimes to a fault. He preached the virtue of hustle while showing how it’s done: his yearslong illness didn’t stop him from working, even in the final days of his life.
“A week up until he passed, he was still cutting deals that are two to three years into the future,” Stephen said.
From a hardscrabble childhood growing up along what is now Arthur Ashe Boulevard, Salomonsky became one of the region’s titans of development. Building off his architecture degree from UVA, he had a hand in the creation of thousands of apartments in the city over decades of work, particularly the last 30 years. He and his longtime business partner David White, through their company Historic Housing, were among the first in the region to see the promise of using historic tax credits to rehab the city’s old buildings into new uses.
They’ve since developed $750 million worth of projects, much of which they still own.
And while his creations still stand as a reminder of his work, it’s Salomonsky’s words that seem to have stuck with those who knew him.
Louis’s ‘pep talks’
Salomonsky and David White at an event in 2017. (BizSense file)
For many in Richmond, Salomonsky was known publicly mainly for two things: his impact on the city’s built environment and his notorious prison stint in the early 2000s related to a bribery scandal involving a then-city councilmember.
But behind the scenes, he was a mentor to many, from governors to young developers to laborers.
“Over 30 years I saw a constant parade of people coming into his office seeking his advice,” said White, Salomonsky’s partner since the early 1990s. “Most of them were names you would recognize but some were people who were down on their luck.”
Seeking counsel from Salomonsky came with a price – he wasn’t going to sugarcoat things.
“One thing that often gets missed in a discussion of Louis was his unique blend of tough and tender,” White said. “We called that in the office Louis’s ‘pep talks.’”
Margaret Freund
Margaret Freund said she got plenty of such pep talks over the years as she sought Salomonsky out as a mentor while building her own development company, Fulton Hill Properties.
“To win that kind of relationship you had to be willing to let him show what his perspective was,” Freund said. “I think it was like, ‘Are you worth my time and energy to teach you? Can you sit here and take this?’”
Daniil Kleyman, an up-and-coming local developer in the Church Hill area, got to know Salomonsky in the last several years and found a source of “unfiltered” advice.
“I came to admire his sharp intellect, his depth of experience through multiple decades and real estate cycles, and his ability to always give it to you straight,” Kleyman said. “I can just say that Louis was definitely a straight shooter and wouldn’t hesitate to tell you if you’re being stupid.”
Yogi Singh recalls his first interactions with Salomonsky five or six years ago, when he and his business partners were striking out on their own to develop office space, apartments and other projects.
Yogi Singh
“It was like meeting The Godfather,” Singh said. “He was the one that single-handedly put his hand behind my back and pushed us forward. I think he recognized that he could do more good by forcing an education on me than just wishing me good luck on the next thing. He could pick up on when people needed that and that sometimes people don’t recognize they need that. That was one of his superpowers, amongst many.”
Sometimes the advice was unsolicited.
Jason Guillot, a principal at Thalhimer Realty Partners who’s leading the massive Diamond District project, recalled receiving a call from Salomonsky in early 2021, when Guillot was under construction on the redevelopment of the former Westhampton School property.
“Louis called me one day… he said, ‘I’m driving past your project on Patterson… you’re spending way too much money on that façade – you’re going to lose your ass if you don’t watch out,’” Guillot said.
“And then he went on to tell me about all the ways he would have designed it differently to achieve a similar look at a lower cost. While I may not have always agreed with his design critiques, there was always some nugget of wisdom he’d pass along,” Guillot said.
Randy Reynolds Jr., whose family developed Reynolds Crossing in Henrico County, also got such a call.
“He called me up one time and said, ‘Do you all work on Saturdays?’ I said, ‘Not normally,’ and he said, ‘I’m going to give you a reason.’”
Randy Reynolds Jr.
Salomonsky then summoned the Reynoldses to their own office on a Saturday morning to tell them how he thought the vast parking lots at Reynolds Crossing were “wasted money” and offered to make better use of them.
“He came in harsh and hard, but he softened up later,” Reynolds said. “He wanted to test you and see what kind of person you are.”
Salomonsky’s kids – all seven of them – got a taste of it, too.
“He was tough on his children,” his son Stephen said. “Thank God he was, because we turned out well. He did test people. He wouldn’t make it easy. You don’t learn unless you go through the school of hard knocks, which was one of his cliché phrases.”
Prison
Salomonsky felt some of those hard knocks in the early 2000s, when he was sentenced to serve two years in federal prison in the highly publicized case involving bribes to City Councilwoman Gwen Hedgepeth.
Court records and reports from the time state the case was built by the FBI using an informant wearing a wire in an attempt to catch Salomonsky trying to buy Hedgepeth’s vote for Salomonsky’s preferred mayoral candidate for around $2,000. He ultimately pleaded guilty to the charges and was released in 2005.
“It was a horrible, horrible experience,” Stephen said of that time in his family’s life, adding that there’s far more to the story than what was reported 20 years ago.
Historic Housing was also affected.
“Obviously that was a major point in the history of the business,” White said. “We operated for a couple of years without him being involved. Some of the banking relationships were strained by that.”
But some good came from it, both during the sentence and after.
“He said many times that going to prison probably saved his life,” Stephen said. “He got into shape and it slowed him down. He came out much less aggressive. Most importantly, he wanted to restore his reputation and he worked very hard at that.”
Added White: “It calmed him down some. I don’t think you go off to prison and not be changed.”
Freund said the time she got to know Salomonsky best was after his prison stint. She said while he didn’t hide from that chapter of his life, he also made sure to move beyond it.
“That was one thing that people remember, but he was not that one thing,” she said. “He would want people to know that wasn’t what defined him.”
Up until the end
Salomonsky in his younger days.
From the time he left prison up until the final week of his life, Salomonsky’s work on projects both current and future was constant.
His 12-story apartment tower at the former Weiman’s Bakery property in Shockoe Bottom is under construction to become the neighborhood’s tallest building.
Finishing touches on the last commercial spaces at The Icon, a redevelopment of the former Quality Inn & Suites property at 3200 W. Broad St. in Scott’s Addition, are underway.
In the past 12 months he began planning a high-rise residential tower at the southwest corner of Gaskins Road and Patterson Avenue, not far from his home in western Henrico County, as well as an addition to the Bacon Retirement Community in the Church Hill area.
From his bed at home during his last days, Salomonsky continued to take visitors and offer advice like always. Those visitors say discussions of development perked him up until the very end.
“I went out to see him two weeks ago and he did not look good. I mentioned an issue we had with a permanent lender and his head turned around and he started giving me pieces of information that I really had missed,” White said. “He did a calculation in his head and said we’ll end up with ‘X’ dollars in that deal and he was right. It was remarkable.”
Guillot experienced it as well during a visit last month.
“Despite his declining health, his mind was racing at 100 miles per hour about his current and future projects,” Guillot said. “His unending passion for solving complex challenges in development and finance was on full display.”
Freund visited him a week prior to his death and saw a similar jolt.
“They were keeping him comfortable and he just wanted to know about my deal out here (in Colorado),” she said. “I said, ‘Listen, I’ve done something you’d be really proud of and never could have done it without listening to you.’ He sat up and said, ‘Go get me a smoothie.’ His brain was working right up until the very end.”
And while younger developers like Guillot, Kleyman and Singh say they benefitted from knowing Salomonsky, there may well be yet another generation behind them carrying some of his wisdom into the business in the years to come.
Salomonsky in recent years took on an adjunct professor position at UVA teaching real estate to students in the university’s school of architecture.
It was evident to many that Salomonsky viewed the gig, while part-time and short-lived, as a crowning achievement.
“To be able to go back and teach his business to these kids… I dare say it might have been the highlight of his life,” Stephen said.
Randy Reynolds was invited by Salomonsky to give a guest lecture at one of his classes. He said Professor Salomonsky wanted him to teach the students about joint and several liability, meaning the budding architects could someday be held liable on the loans taken out by their developer clients.
It wasn’t the sort of theory-based work that’s typical of academia, Reynolds said.
“He was trying to show them the ways of the world,” Reynolds said. “He was a realistic type of guy and taught practical knowledge.”
Freund said Salomonsky also focused his courses on the costs related to building housing for mixed-income residents, another real-world sort of topic.
“He was committed to helping these young architecture students understand that if they want to do some good work in that housing space they have to learn from how things are going to cost and not just how pretty it’s going to be,” Freund said.
Singh said it’s no surprise Salomonsky found joy in the classroom after dropping knowledge from his Shockoe Bottom office all those years.
“It was always done with a sense of academic thinking and refinement, and he pushed us on that,” Singh said. “That’s the legacy he should be remembered for. He was the ultimate teacher.”
First Style and now RichmondBizsense, publishing these hackneyed pieces, defending someone who for many reasons came to represent the horrible corruption of our government and society by unscrupulous real estate developers who think that their power and money makes right. I don’t like speaking ill of the dead, but I am commenting to make it clear that the public knows the real score. The real heroes are the ones who stood up to his bullying ways.
He says as he speaks ill of the dead. Your jealousy is showing Mr burger.
I’ve been in this business as a developer and broker since ‘78. When I first entered it, a builder told me to look around me. “If God didn’t put it there, man did. Make sure what you add to the landscape belongs there.” That wasn’t always in my control, but it was worthwhile advice. I liked Louis for many reasons but not his take on facades or finishes. I’m glad Guillot did not take his advice. I love how Westhampton turned out. I wish Reynolds had taken it, but his hands were probably tied by his financing vehicle. As for… Read more »
Look, I am a firm believer in the “two things can be true at once” and a person isn’t or shouldn’t be defined by one thing camps. That said, rationalizing misdeeds by saying all developers “stretch rules ” (i.e. break laws) is no way to build a case for the guy. Yes, I get it – he made time to mentor others, offered at times sage advice, taught students, etc and he can reasonably be recognized for those good deeds. But, suggesting bribery and other crimes are no big deal because all developers do it is ludicrous and is simply… Read more »
Bravo! I am also a big proponant of the “two (or more) things can be true at once” — smartness usually can’t be expressed on a bumper sticker.
Government, esp local corrupt ones, are the ones who make pay to play a thing.
I’m glad you brought up Facades, etc, but I have a slightly different take. One has to be VERY careful to build to the market, and overbuild to the market. SOMETIMES, it makes sense to go classier, the trick is knowing WHEN. The most famous example of this in RE is the Trumps. Fred Trump was cheap because cheap was what worked in NYC when NYC was a crime ridden dump — it’s easy to pick one NYC player out of the group, shine a spotlight on their imperfections, and call them a scumbag, but not fair if you don’t… Read more »
How depressing to hear someone assert that breaking the law is required to be successful in development.
You should read a bit about Chicago.
You might learn that the depressing thing is the political culture of the city, not the individuals who learn to play the game, per se.
It’s easy to be a critic Scott.
I have asked this before, but I am asking again does anyone know if he left behind any memoirs or anything similar? I believe that reading about his experiences and the lessons he learned over the years would be invaluable information, as well as entertaining. I am sure that the knowledge he gained throughout his career includes information that cannot be learned in a school and would take the average person several lifetimes to experience and grow from. This information would also be helpful in avoiding some of the unscrupulous tactics that are often used in real estate deals.
No matter what the view is of him, you are right. I think a book on his life would be interesting and as you said, helpful to those in the business. I hope the family or a colleague who knew him well considers it.
I bet the man would be better understood through a biography — there are certain types of people who are not the sit down and write for posterity types because they are more intuitive-action type personalities and when they DO write for posterity, they hire ghost writers to do most of the actual writing for them.
Fine appreciation of a huge influence on this community. He will be missed
RIP Louis. I hope you are getting a kick out of this banter.
You enlightened me every time I asked for enlightenment.
My Cancer journey is better for learning from you on how to approach the realities of the gift of life.
Thanks buddy. What a smile!
Good luck to you. One of the things I am still trying to live is the idea that “we only have this day, this moment” the future doesn’t really exist, and focusing on the past is usually worse than fruitless unless it is to apply lessons in the now.
I grew closer to ”Uncle Louis” (as many of us affectionately called him) after my time spent on City Council. He always made time to take my calls. He was an amazing story teller and mentor. He encouraged me to always keep striving. There wasn’t one single request that I made of him (from RPS students in need of instruments, to families in need of food, and most recently VCU students in need of housing) that went unanswered. He was one of the kindest people I have known. He will be missed.
Brava Ms Gray!