Investor's Influence Expands In Region

"I was expecting Mr. MacFarlane to be this older Irish guy," Thaderine recalled with a laugh. Instead she met the 6-foot-6 MacFarlane. He asked her to lunch, but she declined because hotel policy forbade employees from dating guests.

"I'm not a guest. I own the hotel," the soft-spoken MacFarlane fibbed.

She agreed to lunch. Three months later, they were married.

MacFarlane used the same bravado to secure the deal that would help create his fortune. He had started his first real estate investment firm in 1987 but struggled to find a major client until 1995. That's when he persuaded the California Public Employees Retirement System to hand him $50 million to invest in neighborhoods still scarred from the Los Angeles riots of 1992.

At the time, few institutions were investing in urban areas, but MacFarlane argued that predominantly black neighborhoods with great density and buying power were being under-served. He teamed with former NBA star Magic Johnson to revitalize the Ladera shopping center, bringing in a grocery store, Starbucks and TGI Friday's. The retirement system turned a healthy profit.

"It was a poster child for what you can do and how you can make a difference," MacFarlane said.

His star rose rapidly. By the late 1990s, he had teamed up with Charles Berman, founder of Avalon Properties, and Gregory Vilkin, former president of Forest City Enterprises, with the goal of expanding MacFarlane Partners into three hot East Coast markets: New York, Boston and Washington.

A few years later, MacFarlane began talking to D.C. developer Herbert S. Miller, who was seeking funding for his own massive revitalization effort in downtown Washington: Gallery Place.

The two never struck a deal, in part because in April 2002, MacFarlane fell ill with a mysterious liver disease during a trip to Las Vegas. By the time he had entered the Stanford University Hospital emergency room two days later, doctors told him that he was days from death unless he received a liver transplant. He did. The donor was a teenager who had died in a car accident.

MacFarlane said the experience taught him to slow down and appreciate his family. In June, he surprised Thaderine with a trip to Europe for her 50th birthday, flying their five adult children and 120 friends along for a week-long cruise. The Neville Brothers and Ashford & Simpson provided the entertainment.

But, in fact, MacFarlane hardly slowed his work pace. In 2003, he bought a 25 percent stake in Forest City's $1.7 billion mixed-use development called the Yards, near the Nationals' new stadium in Southeast.

"We go back a really long time and share a similar vision about working on urban cores," said Deborah Ratner Salzberg, president of Forest City Washington. "For the Yards, we wanted a long-term partner who would give back to the community and be patient."