Henry ("Hank") Corbin

Henry Corbin, a real estate developer who built more than 800 homes in Easton, died Thursday at his Easton home. He was 88. Mr. Corbin, known to his friends as Hank, came to Easton in 1976 from Annapolis when he saw what looked like a great opportunity to build houses for working families in a growing market. Over the next 25 years or so, he built the Chapel, Golton and Stoney Ridge subdivisions. Hank’s target customers were typically first-time homebuyers without a lot of money. He aimed particularly at such service providers as teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters. He especially liked to sell to cops. He knew that patrol cars in the driveways would always ensure a safe neighborhood. He knew a key to success in home sales was financing, and he used the federal Farmers Home Administration program to great advantage, building relatively modest homes within FmHA’s tight price limits. If you wanted extras in your new home, you could add them later. And if a buyer needed additional help with the financing, Hank would provide that if his gut told him the customer was a reasonable risk. He held prices low by holding overhead and materials costs to a minimum. While he was developing homes in Easton, he never had a fancy office. Headquarters was always in a model home, and headquarters moved frequently. And he shunned debt. Hank made enough as a real estate broker in his earlier days in suburban Washington to bootstrap himself into the development business. He watched with disdain as friend after high-rolling friend went down in flames when the housing market went south and their debt service didn’t. The Talbot County Chamber of Commerce named Hank the county’s “Business Man of the Year” in 1997 for his efforts to build affordable housing in the Easton area. Born in the New York City suburb of Larchmont to Joe and Ethel Guntzburger in 1925, Hank moved to New York City with his mother and his younger brother, Alfred, after Ethel and her husband separated in 1931. While working in New York, Ethel met a young architect named Will H. Corbin. They married in 1940. Two years later Will Corbin adopted the boys, and they changed their name to his. Hank and Al bounced between public schools and private boarding schools through the 1930s and early ‘40s. Hank graduated in 1943 from Lake Grove Preparatory School on Long Island. When he and Al graduated together, they received no diploma when they walked. The night before graduation, Hank, Al and some classmates took the automobile they had bought in violation of school rules and went out and got loaded. They got caught. The headmaster substituted for their diplomas a note that invited the boys’ parents to pay him a visit. With the United Stated deep in World War II, Hank immediately joined the U.S. Navy, where he started in the V-12 officer training program at the University of Pennsylvania. He didn’t want to be in college, he wanted to be in the war. So he wound up in submarine school in New London, CT. He became a yeoman – he knew how to type, so his course was set – on the USS Bashaw, mostly while the boat was at Mare Island, CA, for an overhaul. He served on one Pacific patrol on the Bashaw before the war ended. He left the Navy in 1946. As a yeoman, he discovered that the guy who controls the paperwork rules the boat. A bottle of Scotch could greatly increase the chances that a shipmate’s liberty papers would be completed in good order. While he was serving in the Navy, Hank’s mother and stepfather moved to Annapolis, where Will Corbin established himself as an architect and builder. After Hank returned from the Navy, he attended the University of Maryland, studying business administration for a couple of years before college bored him. He greatly respected a particular economics professor, until he noticed that the guy was a shabby dresser who lived in a hovel. If the professor was so smart, Hank reasoned, then why wasn’t he rich? Hank decided he could figure out business himself, and he became a salesman, a pursuit he quickly discovered suited him well. Hank’s first sales job was selling new Packard automobiles at a College Park dealership. He moved on to storm windows, and then kitchen cabinets and other home construction materials. That led him to a Rockville real estate broker, where he sold tract homes in the burgeoning Washington suburbs and launched the career in which he’d spend the rest of his life. Later, he opened his own real estate brokerage, in Silver Spring, and that segued into developing single-family houses. (He tried other real estate endeavors over the years, but he always returned to houses.) His first development was in Annapolis, where he worked with his stepfather on a neighborhood called Corbin Park. He was a swinging Washington bachelor in the ‘50s, living a high life of good-looking women, luxury convertibles and dry martinis. That lasted until he met a West Virginian named Kathryn Burgess, who was not only pretty but also smarter than Hank. When he failed to deliver a marriage proposal in timely fashion, Kathy headed out to see the world. She wrote him a letter that mentioned a handsome bullfighter named Carlos. Hank caved, reached her in Spain and begged her to come back. They were married on Aug. 8, 1964, a date Hank always remembered for its mathematic simplicity: 8 X 8 = 64. Hank loved big toys, especially boats and aircraft. From the time he and his family – he and Kathy quickly had a son, and then a pair of twin boys – moved to Annapolis, he always had big boats, yachts as long as 60 feet. (He may have enjoyed wheeling and dealing for the boats as much as he enjoyed using them. He was still regularly checking the boat ads until not long before his death, even though he was confined to a wheelchair.) He was also a tyrannical captain, shouting his displeasure in no uncertain terms from the bridge while some hapless relative tried to secure the boat to a dock. Afterward, he would laugh about it. He also loved flying. He owned a succession of small fixed-wing planes (the first was a 1940 Taylorcraft) until he discovered helicopters, which became his passion. His favorite was a Hughes 500; he owned one that looked like the helicopter featured in the TV show “Magnum P.I.” When his real estate business was straddling the Chesapeake Bay between Annapolis and Easton, he beat the Bay Bridge traffic by commuting by helicopter. Hank was a member of the Rotary Club in Annapolis and Easton and of the Miles River Yacht Club. Kathy began to show signs of Alzheimer’s disease roughly a decade ago. Hank spent much of his time in retirement as her caregiver, until the progression of the disease and the deterioration of his own health forced him to move her into a care facility. She now resides comfortably at William Hill Manor. Hank’s other survivors include his son Will and wife Jib, of Gaithersburg, and their children, Natan and Alyssa; his twin sons, Boyd of Fort Lauderdale, FL, and Brett of San Diego, CA; his brother, Alfred, of Fort Walton Beach, FL; and many nieces and nephews. He also leaves behind a longtime caregiver, housekeeper and family companion, Kelly O’Ferrall, who looked after Hank and Kathy for the past decade. Hank insisted that no event accompany his passing, no commemoration or party. He even threatened a pal: You put on something when I croak, and I’ll come back to haunt you. His family has decided to brave the risk and hope Hank’s friends will join them to share refreshments and memories on Sunday, Nov. 17, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Miles River Yacht Club in St. Michael’s. Memories may also be shared at the website of Ostrowski Funeral Home, www.ostrowskifh.com. Hank made a yearly practice of providing 50 Thanksgiving dinners to the Easton Food Pantry. His family asks that those who wish to honor Hank’s memory do so with a donation in his name to that organization.

Henry ("Hank") Corbin

October 27, 1925 - November 7, 2013