Harry Brown: screenwriter/film producer

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HARRY JOE BROWN, JR. (1934-2005) Harry Joe Brown, Jr., affectionately
known by his friends as "Coco", real estate developer,
screenwriter, and former film and theater producer, died this past
Wednesday, November 23. He was 71 years old and lived partly in West
Palm Beach, Florida and partly in New York City, where he died at home
with his family around him after a courageous battle with cancer. Mr.
Brown who came from a prominent Hollywood family - his father was the
producer/director Harry Joe Brown and his mother was the screen star
Sally Eilers - first made his mark in the theatrical world in the late
50s and early 60s with original, award-winning New York productions of
works by Edward Albee, Samuel Beckett, Jean Anouilh, and Tennessee
Williams. In subsequent years Mr. Brown was in charge of a creative
development program for Twentieth Century Fox and had an original
screenplay, Duffy, produced by Columbia Pictures in 1970. Duffy was
also published as a novel. Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy,
Stanford, and Yale, where he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta
Kappa, Mr. Brown went on to earn a Master's Degree at Oxford University
under a Marshall Fellowship. With a keen instinct for real estate
value, Mr. Brown made his first foray into development with a large and
lucrative residential sub-division project called Mulholland Estates
above Beverly Hills. Over the next three decades, he assembled a highly
eclectic portfolio of largely commercial real estate in many parts of
the U.S. as well as in South America, Europe, and Canada. But Mr. Brown
will undoubtedly be best remembered for his conversion of a failed
housing development in the hamlet of Sagaponac, NY into a historic
showcase of architecture called The Houses at Sagaponac. With
curatorial assistance from architect Richard Meier, Mr. Brown assembled
34 of the most talented architects practicing today, both seasoned and
new, to design Hampton weekend homes which were aesthetically fresh,
sensibly sized, and relatively affordable, going against the current
trend of affluent house design that emphasized size and strayed away
from innovative design. Coco Brown broke the mold, as they say. He was
a diverse individual who lived life intensely and always with a sparkle
in his eye. He will be sorely missed by those who had the honor to know
and love him. He has left an everlasting impression. Mr. Brown is
survived by his partner, Catherine Nelson Brown, his former wife, Karen
Dempsey, two daughters, Morgan Brown and Esme Brown, of Beverly Hills
and Manhattan respectively, and a grandson, Remington Rivers. A
memorial will be held at Temple Emanu-El, Leon Lowenstein Sanctuary, 10
East 66th Street, NY, NY 10021 on January 10, 2006 at 10:00 am.
Published in The Palm Beach Post on 12/4/2005.