PITTSBURGH (TNS) — In 1957, Howard Hanna and his wife Anne Freyvogel Hanna started a real estate company with a single office in Pittsburgh.
Today, Howard Hanna Real Estate Services’ green-and-yellow sign is a fixture along the side of the road throughout not just western Pennsylvania but the U.S., and that single office has expanded to become the nation’s fourth-largest real estate company.
Nearly 65 years after founding the company, Howard Hanna Jr. died Saturday. He was 101 years old.
Hanna’s business empire began with a small office at the corner of Bayard and Craig streets in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood, just a couple blocks from the family home. By 1973, the first branch office opened on Loop Street in Aspinwall.
By the mid-1980s, the “Howard Hanna Showcase of Homes,” a television show featuring the company’s properties, debuted, and by 1992, the firm was ranked first in Pennsylvania by industry publication REAL Trends Magazine.
Today, the company has a presence in Michigan, Indiana, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and Hanna’s home of Pennsylvania.
” Pittsburgh has lost a business pioneer and a civic leader,” said Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald. “ Howard Hanna began in humble beginnings, and through hard work, he changed the real estate industry.”
Hanna is survived by his children: Howard W. “Hoddy” Hanna, III (and wife MaryAnne), Helen Hanna Casey (Stephen) and Annie Hanna Cestra (Dennis); his grandchildren Annie Hanna Engel (Gus), Howard W. “Hoby” Hanna, IV (Stacey), Kelly Hanna Riley (Patrick), F. Duffy Hanna (Dana), Mollie Hanna Lang (Tom), Sarah Hanna White (Andrew), Dennis A. Cestra, Jr., Helen Freyvogel Cestra, Annie McTighe Cestra and the late Vincent de Paul Carson; and by 19 great grandchildren.
Friends will be received from 3-7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday at John A. Freyvogel Sons Funeral Homes, 4900 Centre Ave. in Oakland.
A 10 a.m. funeral service will be held Thursday at St. Paul Cathedral, 108 North Dithridge St. in North Oakland. Interment will be private.
{p class=”krtText”}In lieu of flowers, remembrances can be made to the Howard W. Hanna Jr. Scholarship Fund at the University of Pittsburgh, or to the Urban League of Pittsburgh-Cleveland Hanna Home Ownership Fund.
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