Peter B. Rosenwald, Baltimore department store executive turned brokerage firm managing director, dies

Peter B. Rosenwald, a Baltimore department store executive who later changed careers and joined the board of the old Ferris, Baker Watts Inc. brokerage firm as a managing director, died of complications from Parkinson’s disease Monday at his Roland Park Place home. The former Stevenson resident was 89.

“Peter Rosenwald was a gentleman sui generis: loyal, courteous, accomplished, generous, involved, civilized, educated, well-mannered, reverent, honorable, loving and polite while jesting … and grand master of remembering the old uniform numbers of the Baltimore Colts,” Stan Heuisler, longtime friend, and former editor of Baltimore magazine, wrote in an email.

“He was a very bright individual who had a great sense of humor and a deep knowledge of the many activities going on in the city that were of great importance,” said Dr. Solomon H. Snyder, a world renowned neuroscientist, who retired from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2022. “He was a wonderfully good-natured man.”

Peter Benno Rosenwald, son of Edward John Rosenwald, an advertising executive, and Katherine Jacobs “Kitty” Rosenwald, a homemaker, was born in New York City, and raised on the Upper East Side.

“Peter came from the very famous Rosenwald family,” Mr. Heuisler said in a telephone interview. “Julius Rosenwald, who was a part-owner of Sears, Roebuck & Co., funded and built schools for Black people throughout the South, which became known as Rosenwald Schools.”

Julius Rosenwald, a relative of Peter Rosenwald, provided funds that were used to build more than 5,000 schools for African Americans during the era of segregated education.

Mr. Rosenwald was a graduate of Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1956 from Dartmouth College.

Mr. Rosenwald got his start at the old Abraham & Strauss department store in Brooklyn, New York.

In 1957, he moved to Baltimore and joined the staff of the Hecht Co. department store.

He was named vice president and general merchandise manager in 1972, leaving two years later for Stewart & Co., a division of Associated Dry Goods Corp.

Mr. Rosenwald was promoted in 1975 to vice president and was responsible for Stewart’s home furnishings, men’s and children’s and budget store divisions.

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He held similar executive positions with the old Hochschild Kohn & Co. and Hutzler’s department stores before, at the age of 50, making a career change.

“Peter worked for all four department stores and flourished even as they were going out of business,” Mr. Heuisler said. “He was successful and known for that.”

“When it came to department stores, he was a leader,” Dr. Solomon said. “His success in business was related to his deep knowledge of the business community on the East Coast and especially the Baltimore business community.”

In 1984, he joined the board of Ferris, Baker Watts Inc., as a managing director, and remained with the Baltimore brokerage firm after it was acquired in 2008 by RBC Dain Rauscher, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Canada, until his retirement in 2016.

“Peter Rosenwald was so successful because he was Peter Rosenwald. He was a very smart man,” Mr. Heuisler said. “When Betsey and I did our five year hippie trip around the world, Peter asked only one question. ‘How did you pay for it?’ He just had a wonderful happy spirit.”

In 1957, Mr. Rosenwald married the former Cynthia “Cynnie” Miller, a writer and daughter of J. Jefferson Miller, former chair of Charles Center-Inner Harbor Management Inc..

The couple later settled in Stevenson, where they raised three children.

Mr. Rosenwald was an early board member of the National Aquarium and “when their gift shop was struggling, they turned to Peter,” Mr. Heuisler said.

Mr. Rosenwald brought his years of merchandising expertise to the gift shop, which was redesigned and diversified the range of goods available.

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He was a board member of the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and the Hopewell Cancer Support Center.

After spending three weeks in the intensive care unit at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, he established an award for ICU nurses who demonstrate exceptional care.

He also created an award for the most outstanding and innovative nurse at Hopkins.

When the couple’s oldest daughter, Cathy Rosenwald, died of Crohn’s disease in 2003, they founded the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation in Baltimore.

Mr. Rosenwald enjoyed spending time at the century-old family home in Lake Placid, New York, where he went canoeing, water skiing and sailed his vintage 1954 Cris-Craft Boat.

Services were private and plans for a celebration of life gathering to be held later this year are incomplete.

In addition to his wife of 67 years, Mr. Rosenwald is survived by a son, Peter B. Rosenwald II of Harbor East; a daughter, Jayne R. Miller of Summit, New Jersey; two brothers, E. John Rosenwald II of New York City and Tom Rosenwald of Washington, Connecticut; and five grandchildren.