Peter V. Tishman, 85, Real Estate Developer
Peter Valentine Tishman, a member of a family that is synonymous with New York City real estate, died on Aug. 26 at Stony Brook University Hospital. He was 85 and had progressive supranuclear palsy for four years. A resident of Manhattan, he spent weekends and the summer months in East Hampton, where he owned a house on Georgica Pond.
The son of Rita Valentine Tishman and Norman Tishman, he was born in Manhattan on Jan. 12, 1932. He graduated from the Horace Mann School for Boys in 1949 and went on to St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., graduating in 1953 with a bachelor’s degree in history and government. Three months later Mr. Tishman enlisted in the Army, and was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers, attached to the Air Force. He served in Korea at a forward fighter base in Taigu, then transferred to a Strategic Air Command bomber base on Guam. After 18 months overseas, he was discharged in September 1955 as a corporal.
He married the former Ellen Morse in 1956. She died in 1973. The following year, he married Judith Rothenberg, who died in 1989. On May 31, 1992, he married Lynn Perkins, who survives.
Like his father before him, Mr. Tishman made real estate his life. He joined the family company, Tishman Realty and Construction, in 1955, and worked there until 1968. In January 1969, a few years after his father’s death, he resigned from the company to head his own firm, Peter Tishman Real Estate, where he put his knowledge of real estate, detail, and design to good use, on projects in Manhattan, Minneapolis, New Orleans, and other cities around the country.
Within the New York community, Mr. Tishman served on the boards of Citymeals on Wheels, the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association of Greater New York, and the Neuropathy Association. He was also on the board of governors of the Real Estate Board of New York and a member of the National Association of Real Estate Boards.
The Tishman house on Georgica Pond was designed by Eugene Futterman and built by Pat Trunzo in 1980. The first shingle-style house built since the early 1900s, it was featured in The East Hampton Star in 2002 and is pictured in the definitive book “East Hampton’s Heritage.”
Mr. Tishman was passionate about boats and was rarely without one. He owned a number of sailboats and a 24-foot Thompson motorboat, but his family said his favorite was a 12-foot wooden, gaff-rigged, Beetle Cat with a green hull and tanbark sail, appropriately named Pete’s Sake. The boat was instantly recognizable, the only one on Georgica Pond with a reddish sail. Until the age of 80, he raced it every Saturday at 3 p.m. in July and August. “Sail Fast, Live Slow,” he was often heard to say. From 1994 to 2009, the Tishmans hosted a Labor Day Weekend Round the Pond regatta party.
Travel was also important. With his wife, Mr. Tishman visited the Galapagos, Africa, Indonesia, Asia, South America, Egypt, Dubai, Costa Rica, the Caribbean, and most of the European nations. He took photographs all along the way, a hobby he began as a child, when he had his own darkroom in the family apartment.
His collection of European and American vintage cars, mostly from the 1940s and ’50s, was another passion. He enjoyed buying, restoring, maintaining, and driving them, particularly a 1948 Plymouth Woodie, which he finally sold in 2014. Whether on Main Street in East Hampton or parked at Georgica Beach, the Woodie always attracted attention.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Tishman is survived by his children, Steven Tishman and Linda Tishman of Manhattan and Anita Tishman Winkler of Pound Ridge, N.Y. He leaves six grandchildren.
Rabbi Joshua Franklin of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons officiated on Aug. 28 at Shaarey Pardes Accabonac Grove Cemetery in Springs. The family received visitors afterward at the Georgica house. The day after, Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson of Temple Emanu-El presided over a memorial service at Frank E. Campbell in Manhattan, followed by a reception at the Carlyle Hotel.
Memorial donations have been suggested for Cure PSP, online at PSP.org.