In 2000, the private bank Charlie Haberstroh worked for downsized. He had 4 college-aged children. The dot-com era was crashing.
“What better time to start a new wealth management firm?!” he laughs.
It may not have been the best timing. But Haberstroh was the right man.
This year, CastleKeep Investment Advisors celebrates its 25th year. And the Westport-based firm is doing it the way they’ve done business for a quarter century: by giving back to the community.
The CastleKeep team (from left): Christy Pasqua, Lauren Quesada, Steve Haberstroh, Charlie Haberstroh, Chuck Haberstroh, Mary Hackett.
The highlight of their anniversary celebration at The Bridge at Saugatuck — a few yards away from their Riverside Avenue office — was the announcement of long-term financial support for 2 local groups: Westport’s Department of Human Services, and Staples Tuition Grants.
Both choices were no-brainers.
Patty Haberstroh — Charlie’s wife, and the mother of Chuck and Steve Haberstroh, 2 of her 4 children who are partners in their dad’s firm — died 2 years ago this month, after a long battle with ALS.
She was (among many other activities) a beloved family program coordinator for Human Services.
Patty Haberstroh
Patty ran and supported important initiatives like their annual Back-To-School program that offers backpacks, school supplies and shoe store gift cards to children from low-income families; the Westport Mentor program; summer camperships; after-school scholarships; Thanksgiving dinner donations; MLK Day basketball clinics; Minds in Motion, and Prom and Graduation Gowns programs.
In 2000 Steve was a beneficiary of Staples Tuition Grants — the 83-year-old organization that this year awarded $400,000 to over 100 graduating seniors and alumni.
Chuck served for 4 years on STG’s board. Years ago, a friend established a Staples Tuition Grants fund in the Habestrohs’ family name. Charlie continues to support it. Now there will be an additional scholarship, named for CastleKeep.
CastleKeep’s gifts are not their first to the community. In December they supported Human Services’ Holiday Giving Program with a donation that ensures that all graduating seniors who need help will attend college with their own laptops.
Like many small family-owned businesses — albeit on with nearly $1 billion in invstments under management to clients around the world — CastleKeep reflects the values of its founder. In this case, community service is key.
Charlie chairs the Levitt Pavilion Committee. He’s also chaired the Parks & Recreation Commission; been 2nd selectman; served on the Board of Finance and Representative Town Meeting, and was president of the Sunrise Rotary Club.
His children have followed their parents’ lead. Chuck, for example, is very involved in his own kids’ Westport sports program. He also co-founded and co-heads the Lou Gehrig Day Committee, which works closely with Major League Baseball.
Chuck joined CastleKeep soon after graduating from Fairfield University’s Dolan School of Business. At the time, he says, “I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do, except I wanted to succeed Theo Epstein as general manager of the Boston Red Sox.”
That seemed unlikely.
“I knew my father needed help at CastleKeep,” Chuck says. “I was willing to do whatever he needed. I had seen what my family had done for each other, and for others. I really wanted to treat colleagues and clients as family, which to me means going above and beyond.”
Steve joined the company afer 5 years with a publicly traded financial planning firm. He gained valuable experience and leadership training there. But, he says, the family aspect attracted him — and helps him attract clients.
Over 25 years — through good times and bad — the firm has grown. They’ve added employees. Every partner began as an intern.
The CastleKeep “family” — blood relatives and others — is proud of that quarter century.
They’re even prouder of the role they play in their community. Both Human Services and Staples Tuition Grants agree: They’re a keeper.
The Haberstroh family has long set the gold standard for civic involvement in Westport.
Charlie and his wife Patty were involved in a long list of activities, from politics (Board of Finance, RTM, Board of Selectmen, Parks & Recreation Commission) and sports (you name it), to social welfare (Department of Human Services).
Their children continue the tradition, without missing a beat.
Patty Haberstroh
When Patty — a beloved and long-time Human Services family coordinator — was diagnosed with ALS, the Haberstrohs added their prodigious energy to education, advocacy and fundraising around the debilitating and deadly disease.
On June 17th, brothers Chuck and Steve — a former Staples High School All-State golfer — played 100 holes in Hartford, to raise funds to fight ALS.
No big deal? That was 100 holes in one day.
The group of 24 — including ESPN NFL analyst and Westport resident Dan Orlovsky — teed off at 5 a.m. They finished nearly 16 hours later, at 8:45 p.m.
Dan Orlovsky, midway through the long but rewarding day.
They did it all in pouring rain — all day long.
That was challenging, Chuck says. But, he notes, “it was nothing compared to what our mom dealt with battling ALS.”
The long, emotional day brought in over $450,000.
Funds go to 3 charities. ALS TDI is laser-focused on finding cures and treatment for the disease. Team Gleason is a leader in developing and sharing technology for people living with ALS.
Experience Camps — based here in Westport – is a national program offering year-round programs for children whose parents or caregivers have died.
Chuck and Steve Haberstroh, with a sign honoring their mother at Keney Park.
39 Staples High School scholar-athletes were honored last night, at a unique dinner.
The coach of each varsity sport nominates one candidate, for his or her combined academic and athletic achievements. Each is given one question to answer on the spot, involving their interests, activities and passions.
Topics last night included flying as a solo pilot at age 16, overcoming a gymnastics neck injury to compete again, and experiences in clubs like Girls Who Code, Females in Finance, and AWARE.
Congratulations to all the scholar-athletes:
Fall sports: Charlotte Moody (fall cheerleading), Ben Lorenz (boys cross country), Emma Morris (girls cross country), Kathryn Asiel (field hockey), Troy Toglia(football), Jeremy Rosenkranz (boys golf), Avery Mueller (boys soccer), Coco Crombie (girls soccer), Libby Turner (girls swimming), Isabella Rivel (girls volleyball), Ronan Waddhwani (boys water polo).
Spring sports: Luke Oakley (baseball), Erin Oldale (girls golf), Ryan Skolnick (boys lacrosse), Caroline Cooper (girls lacrosse), Kellen Archibald (boys rugby), Katelyn Bouchard (girls rugby), Caitlyn Schwartz (sailing), Carley McGarry (softball), Jared Even (boys tennis), Sarah Marron (girls tennis), Luke Rabacs (boys outdoor track), Valentina Davis (girls outdoor track), Mason Siskind (boys volleyball), Kira Tomoda (girls water polo).
In addition, Staples athletic director VJ cited 2 coaches for career victory milestones: Laddie Lawrence (track, 2,000) and Jack McFarland (baseball, 300).
Sarullo also presented Bud Titsworth with a Block “S” award, for his longtime service to Staples athletics.
Bud Titsworth (left) and Staples athletic director VJ Sarullo, at last night’s Scholar-Athlete dinner. (Photo/Mark Sikorski)
Brendan Donohoe — known to many generations of Westporters as a friendly, knowledgeable and passionate maître d’ at several local restaurants, most notably his decades at Chez Pierre (now Nômade) — died suddenly on Thursday.
He was 88, and lived in Wilton.
The Newry, Ireland native joined the Merchant Marines as a young man, and traveled the world. He often recounted adventures from those days.
Brendan immigrated to the US in the 1960’s. He settled in Westport, and began his restaurant career.
He was a lifelong history enthusiast, especially that of Ireland and the Celtic tribes. He followed political and financial news, and was an officer and investor in several gold mining firms.
His rituals included breakfast daily with friends at Orem Diner, and a weekly lunch at the Sherwood Diner. He attended mass every Sunday.
Brendan was an avid runner. He completed over 30 marathons throughout the United States.
He is survived by his wife, Susan Butler; siblings Marie, Veronica, Kevin and Dermot; many nieces and nephews, and his beloved dog Gigi. He was predeceased by his sister, Shelia Barr.
Visiting hours will be held at Harding Funeral Home, Westport on Wednesday (June 5, 5 to 7 p.m. A Memorial Mass is set for at Our Lady of Fatima in Wilton on Thursday (June 6, 10 a.m.).
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Our Lady of Fatima.
Yesterday, Major League Baseball celebrated its 4th annual Lou Gehrig Day.
The event — a joint effort of all 30 clubs, along with broadcast partners, and digital and social media — raises both awareness of ALS, and funds for research.
Also is also called Lou Gehrig’s Disease. MLB remembered the New York Yankees hero, and all who have been lost to the disease.
MLB’s strong advocacy for the project is due in large part to Chuck Haberstroh. The former Staples High School basketball star — whose mother Patty, a beloved Westporter who touched many lives through her work with the Department of Human Services, and who was afflicted with ALS — c0-chaired a committee that developed the league’s several initiatives.
MLB honored Patty Haberstroh yesterday, in their publicity for Lou Gehrig day.
PS: A special fundraising auction is underway now, through June 12. Click here for items, and to bid.
===============================================
If you missed the first showing of Homes with Hope’s 40th anniversary documentary: Don’t miss the next one.
It’s Sunday, June 9 (2 to 3:30 p.m., Christ & Holy Trinity Church’s Branson Hall).
The free event showcases the non-profit’s 4 decades of housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, and offering hope to neighbors whose lives are not as fortunate as others’.
Former Westporter Livio Sanchez’s documentary film uses interviews and archival material (including long-ago video), to trace Homes with Hope’s history, from a controversial concept (with plenty of NIMBY and it’s-not-our-problem opposition), through its move from a drafty firehouse to an old maintenance shed on Jesup Road (now the Gillespie Center), and its current array of multi-pronged programs.
Jim Gillespie’s family will be honored at the showing. He played a major role in the founding and development of the Interfaith Housing Association, the original iteration of Homes with Hope.
The Gillespie Center was named in his honor Dr. Gillespie, a clinical psychologist, was killed when struck by a car in France in 1988.
The Gillespie Center. Dr. Gillespie’s family will be on hand June 9, for the showing of a documentary on Homes with Hope’s first 40 years.
=================================================
Temple Israel found a unique way to celebrate Pride yesterday.
Members baked rainbow challah, then handed them out at Jesup Green.
(Photo/Amy Schneider)
Meanwhile, here’s another great shot from yesterday. Their t-shirts and smiles say it all:
The future of pedestrian safety may be seen on Myrtle Avenue.
There — at Evergreen Avenue — pushing a button lights up the crosswalk.
It’s a bright, startling sight for drivers. They immediately slow down.
I’m not sure why this hasn’t gotten more publicity. But it seems like a relatively inexpensive, high-return solution to one of Westport’s biggest concerns.
This photo does not do justice to the crosswalk lights. (Hat tip and photo/Carl Addison Swanson and Jo Ann Miller)
This is a photo of lighted crosswalk (not in Westport). The “Xing” sign is also not in Westport.
Staples High School’s senior prom was Saturday night, at the Greenwich Hyatt Regency. “06880” received this photo, of attendees at a pre-party:
(From left): Michael Belpedio, Nate Goodman, Lucas Fischel, Jack Marshall, Aidan Kogan.
================================================
The next Westport Book Shop Short Story Book Club meeting is June 27 (6 to 7:30 p.m.).
Attendees will read 2 selections from Alice Munro’s “Runaway” collection. “Soon” and “Silence” are connected stories that relate different stages of a character’s life, and explore themes including relationships, family and loss.
Copies are available at the Westport Library. The Westport Book Shop has 1 copy, for borrowing.
Registration is required. Call 203-349-5141 or email bookshop@westportbooksaleventures.org.
Westport Book Shop, on Jesup Road.
================================================
Alexanderina “Ina” Lozyniak of Westport died on Friday.
A native of Aberdeen, Scotland, she came to the US as a teenager. She was a long time Westport resident.
Ina was an active member of Saugatuck Congregational Church. She enjoyed bingo at the Senior Center, movies and having lunch with friends. Ina was an avid reader, and loved challenging word puzzles.
Ina was predeceased by her husband Steve in 1998. She is survived by her children Kenny, Robbie, Stephanie and Stephen; daughters-in-law Carrie, Laurie and Marcy; son-in-law Mike; granchildren Michelle (JR), Kim (Phil), Nicole (Bill), John (Nicole), Kenny (Dani), Courtney, Kristen, Helen, Alex, Lindsey, Stevie and Shane; 9 great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews.
Calling hours are tomorrow (Tuesday, June 4, 5 to 7 p.m., Harding Funeral Home). A funeral service will be held Wednesday *June 5, 1 p.m., Saugatuck Church in Westport), with interment to follow at Willowbrook Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to a favorite charity.
Ina Lozyniak
=================================================
Today’s “Westport … Naturally” photo comes from the Library Riverwalk.
But it’s a scene that’s repeated all around town, these late spring days:
June 4 marks the 80th anniversary of the death of Lou Gehrig. The legendary New York Yankees’ 1st baseman — “The Iron Horse” — died 17 days before his 38th birthday, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The disease now bears his name.
This June 2, all 30 Major League Baseball teams will inaugurate an annual tribute to Gehrig, and recognize the fatal illness. All players and managers will wear a patch with his #4. “4-ALS” logos will be displayed around stadiums.
MLB will use the occasion to raise money and awareness to battle the disease, and pay homage to advocacy groups like the LG4Day committee.
That group was responsible for the league-wide initiative. Co-chair of the committee was Chuck Haberstroh, the former Staples High School basketball star whose mother Patty is afflicted with ALS.
Well-known to Westporters through many activities, including her work with the Department of Human Services, Patty was diagnosed in 2017. She has inspired her family — and many others throughout town — since then.
Haberstroh, songwriter Bryan Wayne Galentine — who was also diagnosed with ALS in 2017 — and Adam Wilson spent 2 years persuading MLB to honor Gehrig with a day, as it does Black pioneer Jackie Robinson and Puerto Rican humanitarian Roberto Clemente.
Hall of Fame statues (from left): Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente.
Various teams held their own ALS Awareness Days, but Haberstroh and his group wanted more. They had to convince all 30 clubs to sign on. The breakthrough came in October, when the presidents of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins agreed to email the presidents of nearly 2 dozen teams that had not yet pledged support.
Within minutes, it was done. Sadly, Galentine died 2 days later.
Patty Haberstroh
That galvanized Haberstroh to work even harder to raise ALS awareness — along with funds to find cures and treatments. The family has already raised hundreds of thousands of dollars through the #ALSPepperChallenge.
“Lou Gehrig Day will increase awareness of ALS year after year,” Haberstroh says.
“And it will give hope to those with little today — somethin Mom has always cared about as a social worker in town.
“Someone diagnosed today receives the same prognosis — 100% fatal — as Lou got over 80 years ago. That’s unacceptable.”
Word has just gotten out about the June 2 4-ALS Day. The nation will hear more about it in the months ahead.
For Chuck Haberstroh and his family, that makes every team a winner.
Click below for an ESPN SportsCenter highlight, featuring brothers Chuck and Steve Haberstroh:
Two years ago, Patty Haberstroh was diagnosed with ALS.
She did not take the news lying down.
Neither did her family.
Together they embarked on the #ALSPepperChallenge. Across the country, people — from national celebrities like Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Dan Le Batard to local ones like the Staples High School principal and first selectman — ate habaneros and jalapeños, raising nearly a million dollars to fight what is also called Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
In addition, 2 of Patty’s sons — Chuck and Steve — joined the IAmALS advisory board.
This morning, they rose early. With their friends — current and former Westporters Chris Aitkin, Matt Cook, Ben Erwin, Chris Kenyon, Steve O’Dell, Stacy Rosenthal and Raffi Tokatlian — they joined 150 others as IAmALS “took over” nearly a dozen billboards in Times Square.
Steve and Chuck Haberstroh, helping change the world for their mom.
Their messages brought attention to the fight — and spread the message that ALS research can also unlock critical breakthroughs for diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.
Some of the messages were hopeful. Some were educational. Some were defiant.
All are crucial.
Bad weather kept Patty Haberstroh from attending the Times Square event this morning. Her husband — Parks & Recreation Commission chair Charlie Haberstroh — and daughter Kim watched the livestream at home. So did their son Tom, in Charlotte, North Carolina with his family.
The Haberstroh family is well known in Westport — Charlie’s on the Board of the Finance, Patty does yeowoman’s work for Human Services, and they and their kids were long involved in town athletics.
The Horeliks are well known too — think sports and Dunville’s.
Now, the entire world will know that Chuck Haberstroh and Jacque Horelik bought a house together. Before they got married.
The ins and outs of both long journeys — home-buying and proposal-engagement-marriage — form the centerpiece of a feature story appearing in the Real Estate section of tomorrow’s New York Times. Apparently, Chuck and Jacque are on the cutting edge of a new trend. In Times-talk, that means:
Two distinct forms of desire — the carnal type and the kind that involves granite countertops — have been known to intermingle, but perhaps never more so than now.
Chuck Haberstroh, Jacque Horelik and their new home (Photo courtesy of Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times)
Writer Hilary Stout describes how the couple met by chance at Lehigh, where Chuck was a student. Later, in Westport, they “went on a date to a cool pub and restaurant. Things were a bit on and off for a while, but then they began to get serious.”
Soon they were living next door to each other in Norwalk. Not long after, “she ditched her room and moved in with him.” Then — ka-ching! — they “signed a lease on a small apartment of their own.”
This being the Times Real Estate section, where the twin voyeur hobbies of homes and personal lives meet — er, intermingle — we learn more about the young lovers/house hunters:
He was in his late 20s, she was two years younger. They had been together for two years. They made each other laugh, they liked each other’s friends, they loved each other’s company. And so they knew — as everyone seemed to be telling them — that it was time.
To buy real estate.
According to Stout:
The peculiarities of the housing market today are leading more couples to ponder the question, “Should we buy?” before they settle the question, “Should we commit?”
With the market beginning to favor buyers, on October 30 Chuck and Jacque closed on a “three-bedroom Cape Cod-style cottage in Fairfield, Conn., with hardwood floors, a front porch and a back deck on a pretty corner lot. They got it for $430,000, $29,000 less than the asking price.”
Jacque — a 28-year-old special education teacher — said she was “itching to get engaged before we bought the house.” Chuck — a 30-year-old vice president of CastleKeep Investment Advisors in Westport — “definitely felt the pressure from me and both of our families.”
But prices and rates were dropping; the time was right. Rings, dresses and seating charts could take a back seat to mortgage applications, home inspections and moving vans.
In good Times fashion, after a detour to explore the home-buying processes of 2 other unwed couples, the story circles back to Our Heroes:
And for Mr. Haberstroh and Ms. Horelik, both the real estate and the relationship have now fallen into place, to the delight of Ms. Horelik’s family, who are of the wedding-before-house school.
The first night they slept in their new home, they got engaged. They are hoping for a late-summer 2010 wedding, but have not set the date.
“Between moving in and outfitting the house,” Mr. Haberstroh said, “we’ve had a hard time finding time to really make progress on that front.”
Let’s hope their parents knew that already, and won’t just read it — along with the rest of the country — in tomorrow’s New York Times.
Click here to help support “06880” via credit card or PayPal. Any amount is welcome, appreciated — and tax-deductible! Reader contributions keep this blog going. (Alternate methods: Please send a check to “06880”: PO Box 744, Westport, CT 06881. Or use Venmo: @blog06880. Or Zelle: dwoog@optonline.net. Thanks!)
GET THE “06880” APP
The “06880” app (search for it on the Apple or Android store) is the easiest way to get “06880.” Choose notifications: whenever a new post is published, or once or twice a day. Click here for details.
This June 2, all 30 Major League Baseball teams will inaugurate an annual tribute to Gehrig, and recognize the fatal illness. All players and managers will wear a patch with his #4. “4-ALS” logos will be displayed around stadiums.
