By Joe Holley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 27, 2007
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.
Working as an Agriculture Department lawyer in the early 1950s, he helped develop a plan that allowed the government to receive royalties from all Smokey Bear paraphernalia sold across the country.
He was appointed assistant county attorney for Montgomery County in 1954. Two years later, anticipating the county's transformation from a sleepy rural and semirural area into one of the nation's fastest growing and most prosperous suburban regions, he formed a law firm specializing in real estate development. In 1963, he joined with Joseph Blocher to establish Linowes and Blocher, a firm specializing in zoning and land use.
Representing some of the biggest developers in a county feverishly courting growth, Linowes gained a reputation as a shrewd lawyer who had the facts and the experts needed to get the best of his opponents, usually citizens groups trying to slow growth.
"He did a craftsmanlike job for his clients," Idamae Garrott, a former Montgomery County Council member and frequent Linowes foe, said in a 1978 Washington Post article. "But a great many citizens disagreed with what he said for his clients."
Linowes acknowledged that his efforts as a zoning lawyer weren't universally lauded. He saw himself as a persuasive advocate for balancing inexorable growth with quality of life. In The Post article, he pointed to innovative types of zoning he helped craft, including industrial parks and planned development, as a part of his legacy.
He opened an office in the District in 1975. It was an opportune time, Sparks said, for him to shift his considerable energies and enthusiasm to District challenges.
"Home rule government has just gone into effect, we were still recovering in the aftermath of the riots, and there was a need for people like Bob to come into town and help get things going again," Sparks said.
As president, Linowes urged the Greater Washington Board of Trade to become more actively involved in community problems and to venture into politics. During his tenure, the group set up committees in the District, Virginia and Maryland and made donations to various candidates. He helped set up the Greater Washington Research Center and the Greater Washington Community Foundation, and organized a coalition of area groups in support of a downtown convention center.
He was part-owner in the early 1980s of the Washington Federals football team, a member of the ill-fated U.S. Football League.
In 1987, then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer appointed Linowes to chair the Maryland Commission on State Taxes and Tax Structure. Made up of a blue-ribbon panel of residents, the commission undertook a three-year review of how Maryland raised and spent money. Linowes was described as an "evangelist" for the commission's proposals, which included $800 million in new taxes.
"Nobody wants to pay new taxes, . . . and that is a given," he told The Post in 1991. "But when people are asked are you willing to help support a better education system . . . the answer is yes. Ask the same question on transportation, the answer is clearly yes. . . . This is good and fair for Maryland."
He became board chairman of the Community Foundation of Greater Washington in 1991. The foundation, which distributes grants to organizations involved with the arts, education, culture and health, had assets of more than $18 million and made grants of almost $2.3 million when he assumed leadership, compared with assets of $300 million today and grants of more than $90 million annually.
Linowes also served as president of the Economic Club of Washington, the National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America and the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce. Washingtonian magazine named him Washingtonian of the Year in 1980, and the Baltimore Sun named him Marylander of the Year in 1990.
Survivors include his wife of 59 years, Ada H. Linowes of Chevy Chase; four children, Robinn Linowes Thomas of Sterling and Julie Linowes Firth, Lisa Linowes Yates and Michael Linowes, all of New York; and 10 grandchildren.