Eliezer Kestenbaum

Louis Kestenbaum (born 1952) is an American real estate developer who is the founder and chairman of New York City-based Fortis Property Group.

Biography Kestenbaum was born to a Hasidic Jewish family, the son of Rabbi Zvi Kestenbaum. His father lost most of his family in the Holocaust and founded the ODA Primary Health Care Network, a federally subsidized health care center that serves the Hasidic community in South Williamsburg. He is a follower of the Satmar Hasidic dynasty. In the early 1980s, Kestenbaum paid $4 million for Austin, Nichols and Company Warehouse, a vacant 500,000-square-foot industrial property at 184 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He used part of the building for his company and leased the remainder.

In 2004, he co-founded the Fortis Property Group with his son and Jonathan Landau, a modern Orthodox Jewish attorney from Cleveland, Ohio. Initially focusing on smaller projects and asset purchases, in the early 2010s, he began a ground-up development.

Since its founding, Fortis has acquired or developed more than $3 billion of commercial real estate across the United States. 161 Maiden Lane. Failed.

Personal life His son, Joel Kestenbaum, works with him at Fortis. Kestenbaum has continued the work of his father who restored more than 50 Jewish cemeteries in eastern Europe.