Frederic D. "Fritz" Wolfe

1929 - 2020

(News story) Frederic D. "Fritz" Wolfe, 90, who helped grow his family's lumberyard into a diversified construction firm before turning his interests to health-care real estate and founding the companies that would become Welltower Inc. and HCR ManorCare, died Sunday in Kingston Rehabilitation of Perrysburg.

He had Lewy body dementia and Parkinson's disease. The cause of death was unrelated to coronavirus, his family said.

He titled his autobiography, 'It Takes Hard Work And Good Luck ... And The Harder You Work The Luckier You Get.'

"He had amazing perseverance and worked very hard," his daughter Christine Wolfe Nichols said.

Mr. Wolfe in the late 1980s, with Bruce Thompson and George Rumman, founded Kingston Healthcare Co., which now has health-care facilities in four states and more than 2,000 employees.

"You have to say he was a pioneer," said Susan Reams, a longtime local arts advocate whose best friend was Mr. Wolfe's late wife, Mary. "Fritz was truly an innovator, an entrepreneur. His contributions to our community were huge.

"It's sort of an end of an era," Mrs. Reams said.

Mr. Wolfe and Mrs. Reams' husband, Frazier, the former state legislator and owner of broadcast stations, were born on the same date in Toledo. The men grew up together, and the couples for decades celebrated their shared birthdays. With Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Reams ailing, 2019 brought the first Oct. 21 they didn't spend together, Mrs. Reams said.

Educated at Yale University, Mr. Wolfe served two years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War before enrolling in Harvard Business School.

He returned to northwest Ohio and joined his father at Lima Lumber Co., a business that had grown prosperous in the post-World War II building boom.

But it was in long-term care facilities for the elderly - not suburban homes for returning GIs - that Mr. Wolfe found his greatest success.

"We were in building material, heavy duty trucks, health-care development and financial services," he told The Blade in a 1984 interview. "No one was very excited about those. There was nothing very attractive about them."

By the early 1980s, he said, "people started to realize the long-term care business was the going business to be in."

Lima Lumber built its first nursing home in 1963, partnering with an outside firm to run the facility's day-to-day business. Following the death of his father four years later, Mr. Wolfe took the family business deeper into the skilled nursing industry, eventually launching a pair of publicly traded companies - one that managed nursing homes and another that invested in the construction and acquisition of nursing homes.

Founded in 1970 by Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Thompson, his Yale roommate, the Health Care Fund was the country's first real estate investment trust to focus exclusively on nursing homes and clinics. By the end of the decade, the firm's assets had grown to more than $25 million.

Now known as Welltower and based in Toledo, the company Mr. Wolfe started had a portfolio worth more than $25 billion by the late 2010s.

"Bruce, together with Fritz, were leaders not only in health care, but in long-term care," former Welltower CEO George Chapman told The Blade in 2005. "They formed the first REIT that was fully dedicated to health-care properties. They paved the way for many other health-care REITs to come."

Mr. Chapman, who knew Mr. Wolfe for three decades, said Wednesday in a statement: "Although a tough taskmaster with a laser focused mind and a driven work ethic, he was also a gracious, erudite friend."

Mr. Wolfe also found considerable success with Health Care and Retirement Corp. of America, a publicly traded nursing home operator he founded in 1981.

As investors suddenly saw opportunity in elder care, the company grew rapidly before being acquired by Owens-Illinois for $99 million in 1984.

The sale of HCR and the continued success of what would become Welltower brought Mr. Wolfe substantial wealth, which he and his wife, Mary T. Wolfe, who was an artist and art historian, shared generously with the community that they loved.

They donated millions of dollars to the University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the Toledo Symphony.

"Fritz was very serious about paying attention to how we operated," said Robert Bell, Toledo Symphony president emeritus. "He was an astute, responsible person who was always mindful of his fiduciary responsibility in whatever he did, whether with the symphony or anything else. He was extraordinarily generous with his time, talents and treasure.

"He had such a long and consequential effect on the symphony," Mr. Bell said.

John Stanley, interim director of the Toledo Museum of Art, said: "Early in my museum career I had the great opportunity to work with Fritz when he served on the board. I also had the pleasure of knowing Mary. Together they were an incredible couple and supporters of the arts, especially our museum."

Todd Ahrens, the museum's director of development added, "Fritz, and his late wife Mary, were true patrons of the arts. They provided leadership support to the museum for decades. Our sympathies go out to their daughters, Lisa, Christine and Frederica, and to their family and friends."

Challenging and questioning were part of Mr. Wolfe's approach. "He liked discourse, he liked the idea of debate, and he was excellent at it," Mr. Bell said.

He could seem a tough guy, his daughter said, "but there was a lovely nurturing soft side to him that was caring. The fact that he cared so much about education and helping his community is pretty wonderful."

A $1.5 million gift to UT by the Wolfes led to Wolfe Hall, dedicated in 1997 equipped with state-of-the-art laboratories, classrooms, lecture halls, and a rooftop greenhouse.

The couple donated $1.5 million to BGSU in 2005 to help build what became the $41 million Wolfe Center for the Arts.

Longtime Perrysburg Township residents, the Wolfes were able to spend more time at homes in North Palm Beach, Fla., and Harbor Springs, Mich., after Mr. Wolfe stepped aside in 2010 from his Kingston duties.

Frederic Daniel "Fritz" Wolfe was born Oct. 21, 1929, in Toledo to Vera and Cletus V. Wolfe. In addition to the lumber business, his father had worked as a high school principal, an instructor of government and constitutional law at UT, and as a lawyer.

Fritz Wolfe, who spent much of his childhood in Lima, Ohio, attended Maumee Valley Country Day School and graduated from Culver Military Academy, Culver, Ind., in 1947. He then attended Yale University, where in 1951 he received earned a degree in industrial administration. Following graduation, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, serving two years including a 10-month stint in Laon, France.

Afterward, he enrolled at Harvard Business School, from which he graduated in 1955.

He and the former Mary T. Tebbetts married on Aug. 7, 1954. She died Oct. 23, 2014.

Surviving are his daughters Elizabeth Wolfe, Frederica Wolfe, and Christine Wolfe Nichols; six grandchildren, and a great-grandson.

A memorial service will be held later. Arrangements are by Witzler-Shank Funeral Home, Perrysburg.

The family suggests tributes to the Fort Meigs YMCA in Perrysburg, or Cherry Street Mission Missionaries.