M. William Frey

On January 23, 2026, at about 3 PM, Milton William "Bill" Frey II, Ph.D., age 91, took his last breath and is now in the presence of Jesus, his Lord and Savior

His Story

Bill was born to Charles Elmer and Mary Starke Frey in Roxborough, PA. He was raised in a community of extended family. His older sister, Mary Ann and brother, Charles (Bud) Elmer Frey, Jr., both predeceased him.

Bill graduated from Roxborough High and proudly wore his Roxborough Indians ring all his life. He attended The Pennsylvania State University, majoring in Psychology. At Penn State, he met and, after graduation, married Doris Jean Wenger of Fredericksburg, PA; they remained happily married until her death at age 68. He was awarded a master's in psychology from The University of Connecticut. They returned to Penn State, had 3 boys, and Bill attained a Ph.D. in Management. He then joined the Management faculty in the Business School at Penn State. In 1968, he moved to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. In 1972, he heard the call of entrepreneurship and moved to Pinellas County Florida, earned his general contractors license, and started a building business. In 1975, he moved the business to Sanibel Island. Wife Doris was an integral part of the business. In 1985, youngest son Barry joined the business, which soon began operating as Frey and Son Homes. That firm operates under Barry's leadership to the present. After Doris's death, Bill married Lorraine Betts. They remained been happily married until his death. Bill and Lorraine enjoyed summers at Lake Glenville near Cashiers North Carolina for 16 years. They have lived at Shell Point for the last 16 years and spent 3 summers at the Chautauqua Institute. Bill spent his last 13 months in assisted living and skilled nursing at Shell Point. The nurses and caretakers remember him as a fine and kind gentleman. He died with a grateful heart in the company of family.

His Faith

Bill caught his faith from his family. He was raised in the Ridge Avenue Methodist Church, where his parents taught Sunday school, acted as treasurers, and he won prizes for memorizing scripture. He met Doris at the Lutheran Student Association while at Penn State. His faith bloomed into action at the Sanibel Community Church, where he was a member from 1975-2022. There he was generous with his time, talent and treasure. He served on the church board several times, lead an early rewrite of the bylaws, helped lead several building campaigns, and built the church manse at cost. He was a friend and supporter of the pastors. He had a passion for the local church, which he loved, and wanted young people to catch that passion. He did not fear death and looked forward to meeting Jesus face-to-face.

His Family

Bill is survived by his wife, Lorraine, his 3 sons, Eric of Lutherville Maryland, Roger, of New City New York, and Barry, of Naples, FL, 3 daughters-in-law, 9 grand-children, and one great grandchild. His family was the delight of his life.

He loved Doris deeply. In the early days, when finances were tight, he bought Doris an assortment of kitchen gadgets. In later years he bought her jewelry even when she didn't want it. They went to reunions and on a trip to Israel and many times to Europe. He especially loved France and to say "Passez moi le beurre." He was heartbroken when she died of breast cancer. He loved Lorraine too. He said he was blessed with 2 good marriages. They traveled to Europe, Russia, South Africa and South America. They enjoyed their summers in North Carolina including sessions of dock therapy and entertaining visitors with South Carolina firework displays. In his latter days they would debate who loved whom more. Both wives loved him enough to fly with him in his plane. As he neared death, he said he looked forward to seeing Doris again.

He loved his '3 boys'. He taught them to read, ride bikes, fish, drive boats, take things apart, build and lubricate champion pinewood derby cars, photography, and the value of hard work and excellence. He helped build a pushy that became a motorized go-cart with a steering wheel he took them back to the dump to retrieve. Though not a great sports fan, he took them to Penn State Bowl games. He let them make mistakes and learn from them. He taught them to be travelers and explore the world on a budget, including a 6-week 13,000-mile pop-up-camper trip across the country and a one-month European adventure in an Opal Rekkord 1900. He showed them how to eat and love lobster and butter, and to make sticky buns. He took each of them on a trip to visit colleges, eat lobster, and attend a Broadway show. He paid for their educations, even in years when business was bad. He attended their weddings and welcomed their wives to the family as his daughters.

He loved his grandchildren, too. He visited them to attend plays, sporting events, and graduations. He invited them for week-long vacations at his homes in Florida and the NC mountains. He jumped into the pool in his work clothes to entertain them. He took them on boat trips in the lake at Gumbo Limbo, Jungle Cruises around Kinzie Island, and tubing on Lake Glenville. He attended their baptisms, bar/bat Mitzvahs, weddings and graduations. He also taught them to make sticky buns.

His Philanthropy

In recent years when you asked Bill how he was, he would say "I am blessed." He knew that those blessings were from God. He knew he was to be a good steward of them, and he was eager to share them with others. His accountant once asked him, "are you trying to buy your way into heaven?". He knew that price was already paid and gave out of the overflow of a grateful heart. On Sanibel he was a key figure in construction of the new Pirate Playhouse and several expansions of Sanibel Community Church. He was on the Board of the Southwest Community Foundation and was awarded their 2007 Philanthropist of the Year award by the Southwest Florida Community Foundation. He believed strongly in the importance of Christian Education for Youth and education in general. He was a board member and major supporter of The Logos Ministry (now GenOn), which at its peak was used in more than 1,500 churches and 20 denominations across the country. He was convinced that young people who had a relationship with Jesus would be the future of the church. He wanted the church to be engaging, interesting, and life giving for young people. He found that in the LOGOS ministry and became a tireless supporter of it and its leaders. He supported a conference of visionaries in Wittenberg on the 500th anniversary of the 95 theses to imagine the future of the church. He was on the board of the Ben Carson Scholars Fund, which gave him a Visionary Award in 2009, in part for making the largest contribution to the Fund at that time. He endowed Carson Awards at 15 elementary schools in Lee County, and he worked to obtain funding for the rest. He showed great generosity to his immediate and extended family.

His Professional Accomplishments

Bill had careers as a scholar and businessman. He was on the faculty at Penn State rising to tenured associate professor and The University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he was an associate professor and assistant dean. He was the co-author of two books. He served as the President of the Eastern Academy of Management. He always said teaching and working with graduate students were what brought him the greatest satisfaction. He said academics was a great life and maintained life-long contact with his former colleagues and students.

In Pinellas County he started a home building business, humbly named North American Contracting Corporation. After 3 years of struggling with building moratoriums and economic effects of the Arab Oil Crisis, he moved to Sanibel and started building under the name Sanibel Homes. His first homes were small, on-grade, affordable houses in Atlantic Highlands. Soon after came the City of Sanibel, a building moratorium, the Rate of Growth Ordinance, and flood regulations. He adapted by designing and building some of first and ultimately hundreds of houses on pilings all over Sanibel. Double digit interest rates hit in the late 70s. He persevered and his first big financial success was Sea Oats of Boca Grande with partners from Canada. The next venture with the Canadians, Island Dunes on Hutchinson Island, was a technical success but coincided with difficult economic times.

After Barry joined the business, they started Frey and Son Homes in the Naples area, concentrating on luxury homes. Shortly thereafter, he turned Barry loose, resulting in a thriving and award-winning business operating to this day. In the early 1990's, they developed the Churchill Square shopping center in Ocala, which was successfully rented and then sold. In the early 2000's, they started America's First Home in Orlando, growing it to build 1,000 entry-level homes per year before being hit by the Great Recession.

His Hobbies

He caught the travel bug from a high school French teacher and remained a lifelong Francophile. He loved traveling with his family, taking them to National Parks, museums, and other sites of natural, historical or architectural importance and beauty. Vacations were meticulously planned: his bookshelf was half-filled with travel books, and especially Michelin Green Guides, from places he had been or planned to go to.

His love of flying fit well with his love of travel and his dislike of commercial air travel. He learned to fly while at Penn State and bought his first plane, a 4-seat fabric-covered Piper Tripacer (aka 'flying brick'), N830MD. He took the family various places with the '3 boys' sitting in the 2-person back seat and equipped with Human Element Range Extenders (a plastic bottle with a built-in funnel). He taught the family how to check the gas for water and tie it down using an "airplane knot". The Tripacer was sold before the move to Florida to help fund the business. In the mid 1980s he had a series of Cessnas ending in a turbocharged 6-seat T210, N9561Y. He flew in that plane with family, business partners and relatives. He flew all over the country. He always said that God was his co-pilot, and he knew that because he and his birds, survived five different emergency landings. He loved the precision, gadgets, and attention to detail that flying required. He lamented the need to hang up his wings at age 75 but made the best of it by giving his beloved bird to the Moody Bible Institute.

Photography tied his hobbies and loves together. He started as a teenager with a Speedgraphic, a large-format, sheet-film camera purchased with earnings from a lawn-mowing business. In the 1960s he bought an Exacta 35mm that was a constant companion at family events and on trips. The family joked that dad thought that all the sites in Europe had a line through the middle of them. There were boxes and boxes of Kodachrome slides of the places and people he loved. He had an 8mm movie camera used to take movies of the growing family, which were fun to play backwards. He built a darkroom in the garage of the family home to encourage his son's interest in photography. He was an early adopter of digital cameras. He digitized his slides and then printed boxes of glossy prints that he enjoyed thumbing through to remind himself of people, events and places as he grew older and less mobile.

He loved classical music, waking up the whole house to the Hallelujah Chorus or the 1812 Overture. He played the violin, though not well and usually near the end of parties. One of his joys at Chautauqua was attending the daily orchestral performances. He loved gadgets. He renovated a Model A with a rumble seat, bought a calculator in the early 1970s, a programmable calculator and pre-IBM PC personal computer as the decade progressed. In the 1980s he had a Casio calculator watch, Macintosh 128, 'brick' cell phone, Palm Treo, and an iPhone 1, and his plane was filled with the latest avionics. Doris said, "the difference between men and boys is the cost of their toys." He loved learning. In later years he enjoyed watching Great Courses, and especially the Great Tours. At Chautauqua he enthusiastically attended the daily worship services and lectures.

His New Beginning

Bill died with a grateful heart, unafraid of death, anticipating a glorious future, and in the presence of family. He is and will be sorely missed by his family and friends.

A visitation will be held at the Harvey-Englehardt Funeral Home in in Fort Myers from 6-8 p.m. on February 9, 2026. A memorial service will be held at Sanibel Community Church on February 10, 2026 at 10 a.m. with a reception and lunch to follow.

Memorial gifts may be given to GenOn Ministries (https://genonministries.org) or the Harry Chapin Food Bank of Southwest Florida (https://harrychapinfoodbank.org).