Zoning Lawyer Helped Shape District and Montgomery

R. Robert "Bob" Linowes, 85, an influential zoning lawyer and businessman who helped shape the growth and development of Montgomery County before turning his attention to the economic and cultural development of the District over the past three decades, died Dec. 26 at his home in Chevy Chase after a stroke.

Linowes, who served as president of the Greater Washington Board of Trade in the late 1970s and as board chairman of the Community Foundation of Greater Washington, was perhaps best known for leading the effort to rescue the Folger Shakespeare Theatre in the mid-1980s. The classical theater faced closure before Linowes put together a prestigious steering committee that set it on a steady financial footing.

Lawrence A. Hough, a former Sallie Mae chief executive who also served on the Folger committee, said Linowes showed him and fellow committee members how a well-chaired organization could work.

"He made the dignity of the service we all provided very apparent," Hough said. "He approached nonprofit boards in the most responsible way and collected people around him who shared his passion for the endeavor or moved off. There was no middle ground."

For many years Linowes conducted civic business from a prominent table in the dining room of the Hay-Adams Hotel. Promptly at 12:15 p.m. every day, the room's other diners could glance up and see the quintessential power lunch in action, as Linowes, adviser and confidant to those who wielded power and influence, dined with a fellow mover and shaker who had something to offer the city.

"He knew how to get things done," said Ken Sparks, retired executive director of the Federal City Council. "When he had his civic hat on, he was always an enthusiast, always self-deprecating. On the other hand, he was as focused as a laser."

For 20 years, Linowes was known primarily as a Montgomery County zoning lawyer, before turning his attention to the District in the early 1970s and becoming president of the board of trade. He told The Washington Post in 1978 that he realized the city was ripe for a business boom.

"I thought I could materially assist in that," he said. "I am an impatient guy. I have to be doing things that are good as far as I'm concerned."

He was born Robert Linowitz on Feb. 15, 1922, in Trenton, N.J., the youngest of four sons of a wholesale food importer. His brother David suggested in the mid-1930s that the family change its name from Linowitz to Linowes because the suffix "witz" denoted a Russian heritage at a time when Russian ancestry could be suspect.

The three youngest brothers changed their name. The eldest, Sol Linowitz, did not; he was working as a lawyer in Rochester, N.Y., and was known as a Linowitz.

The brothers all would eventually have Washington connections: Linowitz as a former U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States and one of the U.S. Panama Canal negotiators, David Linowes as founder of the accounting firm of Leopold and Linowes and Harry Linowes as president of the Jewish Community Centers of Washington.

Robert Linowes received an undergraduate degree from Hamilton College in 1944 and law degree from Columbia University in 1949. He served as an Army translator during World War II.