GC Hotel Owner Myron Nelkin Dies

Garden City Hotel Owner Myron Nelkin

The Garden City Hotel has announced the death of its owner Myron Nelkin who passed away at age 82 on Sunday, July 22. Mr. Nelkin leaves a legacy of returning the luxury hotel, known since 1874 for its rich history in attracting the great and the good, to its rightful place. The hotel was originally designated as the focal point of Garden City -- 7,000 acres of land 20 miles from New York City -- by Alexander Turney Stewart to attract a famous and wealthy clientele from around the world. The Garden City Hotel continues to be known today as a first-class destination for leisure travelers from around the world but also for local high-flyers from the worlds of business, sport and entertainment.

Born in Brooklyn on January 5, 1925, Nelkin was a student at Boys High in Brooklyn and graduated from Columbia University with a degree in business in 1946. With his father, Harry L. Nel-kin, DDS, he began his working life building homes in Queens and Long Island. Nelkin founded three companies, Fairhaven Properties, Nelkin Construction Corp., and Central Management, and built all of Long Island's Fairhaven apartment complexes and the Woodbury Gardens senior residence. What Nelkin considered his crowning achievement was the rebuilding of The Garden City Hotel in 1982, on the site of the storied original, where Charles Lindbergh slept in 1927 on the night before his trans-Atlantic flight. The completely new construction opened in 1983 on 21 acres in the heart of Garden City. Lavishly landscaped and decorated, lively and bright, the acclaimed establishment maintains a sense of its place in the history of Long Island as Nelkin wished. The nine-story, 280-room luxury property is known today for its lavish events, award-winning cuisine and a tradition of acclaimed hotel services. The family business continues under the guidance of a third generation of Nelkins.

Nelkin is survived by his wife, Barbara (nee Norinsberg), whom he married he 1952; his children Henry L. Nelkin, Mindy Nelkin, and Cathy Nelkin Miller and her husband, Charles Miller; his grandchildren Rachel, John and James Schwartz, and Robert Miller; and his brother and sister-in-law, William and Trudi Nelkin.

The Garden City Hotel's President, Cathy Nelkin Miller, says, "My father was not just a father-figure to our family but to the many employees of the hotel who he has known over the past 20 years. He was a mentor and inspiration to us all. We shall miss him greatly and take his legacy forward with great pride."

"Myron Nelkin built Fairhaven Properties into the one of the largest privately held real estate companies on Long Island. He did so the old fashioned way, through hard work, a willingness to shoulder tremendous responsibility and trusting implicitly the people he hired into his business. Myron had keen business instincts and he was not afraid to act on them," says Patrick Smalley, Executive Vice President of Fairhaven Properties and The Garden City Hotel, and Nelkin's chief business consul for over a decade.