Daily News from New York, New York • 302

At the top by Jerry Adler BUB Trite 2 DodDDd! MDsiif mm Real estate can be fun, if you own enough of it JL 1' and 50th St. Another of his properties 230 Park which used to be the drab heap of brick behind the Pan Am building has been cleaned, gold-leafed, dramatically lighted and renamed the Helmsley Building. "You can have a lot of fun with these things," Helmsley said recently from his top-floor office in another of his buildings, the Lincoln. "At this point in my life, it's the sense of accomplishment and the excitement that motivate me." For that reason, he says, he has dropped plans to turn Parkchester and Fresh Meadows into co-ops deals, bitterly opposed by tenants, on which Helmsley reportedly stood to make over $100 million. "I have so many other things much more interesting to do," he says.

"I'll bet he does," says Uncle Sol, who is devoting his golden years to watching his living-room ceiling crack. After more than 40 years with the same company the firm now called Helmsley-Spear, of which he is the sole owner what -has caused Helmsley to discover at age 70 that real estate can be fun? Acquaintances say he changed after his second marriage, in 1972. The woman he married, Leona Roberts, was a top executive in Brown Harris Stevens, a Helmsley subsidiary. Naming the Helmsley Building was her idea, he told me. "She said it was about time." lelmsley has always looked the fZZtft GM QUALITY Vg'l SERVICE PARTS part of a landlord: a dour Quaker, I eyes narrowed behind steel-frame Rn arry Helmsley, who owns enough I i I property in New York to make a sixth borough, says he's not in real estate for the money anymore, but for the fun.

Which I thought was great news for my Uncle Sol, who lives in Helmsley's Fresh Meadows project and traces every major disappointment in his life to Helmsley's love of money. Every time Uncle Sol reads that Helmsley bought another office building, he figures out how many living rooms in Fresh Meadows you could paint with that money instead. course," Helmsley went on to say, "part of the fun is seeing that you make a profit." Better take those drop-cloths off the divan, Uncle Sol. Helmsley is a commanding figure on the civic skyline, controlling about $2 billion in prime real estate including the Empire State Building, One Penn Plaza, the St. Moritz and Park Lane hotels, Bush Terminal, Tudor City and Parkchester.

His name is a byword among yet for years his only public following has been among his tenants, like Uncle Sol, who believes that Helmsley paid $55 million for Fresh Meadows solely to make Uncle Sol's retirement miserable. Suddenly, though, Harry Helmsley is becoming more visible. He is building two major new hotels: the $42 million Harley (as in HARry HelmsLEY) on E. 42d and the $65 million Palace," which will incorporate the landmark Villard Houses on Park Ave. SUNDAY NEWS MAGAZINE NEW YORK JUNE 24, 1979 glasses, a thin gray line of mustache that suggests this is no one to fool with.

In person, though, he is an engaging and forthright man, not above a humble confession of avarice. When I asked how his personal net worth compared with the $2 billion in property he disposes, he answered, "Nowhere near. I wish it were." (There is, though, a widespread belief that it approaches half that number.) Yet his office, facing south with a view of the Empire State Building, is no bigger than Uncle Sol's bedroom, its walls lined with drab volumes of balance sheets from all his major properties. I thought of asking him to look up Uncle Sol's account in Fresh Meadows, but then I changed my mind; knowing Uncle Sol, he's behind on the rent. msm urn- 33- iPtUiie.