He is a member of the family behind the creation of some of Boston’s most prominent buildings, but Sandy Beal doesn’t take his success in the commercial real estate industry for granted. He is proud of his family – he named his 39-foot sloop the Evangeline, after a ship his great-grandfather commissioned around the time he founded the family company, A.W. Perry, in 1884 – but he is quick to laugh and not embarrassed to talk about his ongoing struggle to keep his office tidy.

Beal, who at 74 is now the semi-retired chairman of the board emeritus, started working at A.W. Perry, based in Winthrop Square in Boston, when his grandfather brought him on in 1956. He had worked summers before that, while growing up in Rockland and attending St. Lawrence University.

“Why I got involved in real estate was mainly because my grandfather, who was running the company at the time, asked me to come in,” Beal said. “You learned it from the ground up.”  When he started, Beal did payroll, checked meters on the company’s buildings and sold electricity to tenants. “[It was] a lot of grunt work that would keep you busy,” he said.
Three of Beal’s uncles also worked at the firm when he started. His father had never been involved in real estate; the company was owned by his mother’s side of the family and his father was an oral surgeon. But as his uncles moved on, he moved up.  “As they retired, I advanced,” he said.

Early on in his career, Beal met his wife of 46 years, Mary. He frequented a multi-floor restaurant that was an off-shoot of the candy company Schrafft’s, where she was a hostess.  “She took good care of me at lunchtimes, so I thought she could probably do that all the time,” he said.

	Gov. John A. Volpe (seated signs into law an important-at-the-time sales tax bill, which took pressure off real estate taxes, as (standing, from left) Lobbyist Clarence A. Roberts, S. M. Beal, Jr., Executive Vice President of GBREB H. Ray Hoffard, Bertram A. Druker and Rental Housing Association Director A. Donald DeLuse look on.

At age 32, in 1964, he was named the president of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, the youngest president up to that point. His youth meant that his grandfather was still in the business, and he enjoyed working together.

“One of the things about being president of the Real Estate Board [that I really enjoyed], was that we had an annual meeting when you finished your tenure and my grandfather was in the audience [for my outgoing speech],” he said.

Several years after his tenure as president, Beal left A.W. Perry for awhile. In 1970, he was offered a position at CW Whittier & Bro., which is now CB Richard Ellis/Whittier Partners. The company needed someone to help manage and lease their building at 1 Federal St. “Although I was satisfied with working in a family business, it’s more difficult to determine your worth when you’re being judged by your family,” he said.  He stayed at CW Whittier until 1 Federal was fully occupied, and rejoined A.W. Perry.

The second half of his career has been full of triumphs and some challenges. The biggest of those challenges came in the early 90s, he says, when the company entered into a partnership with a Saudi Arabian company to build 125 Summer St. Everything went along smoothly, Beal said, until the recession hit. Many tenants could not pay their rent, and the company could not fulfill its obligations with mortgages, so they sold their interest in the building to their partner.
“That was painful, to lose a building,” Beal said. “That was a difficult time.”

But challenges like that have been offset with successes. The company recently had a 100th birthday party for The Berkeley Building at 420 Boylston St., which A.W. Perry has owned since 1906.
These days, Beal usually comes into the office from his Winchester home three days a week. He jokes that he likes his long lunches at Locke-Ober or The Four Seasons, and continues trying to clean off his desk, which was a goal when he partially retired a couple of years ago.

One of Beal’s favorite aspects about coming to work now is that his son is there. Richard Beal is vice president at A.W. Perry and joined the company about three years ago, after 20 years spent coaching football and lacrosse. His most recent coaching job was as head football coach at Stonehill College. Before joining the company, Richard Beal’s real estate experience was limited to the summers he spent working at A.W. Perry when he was in school. But he has found the field to his liking, he says, and is in charge of several properties in and out of the city. Richard is also active in the Building Owners and Management Association.  Sandy is glad to have his son working for the company.

“It’s probably one of the happiest aspects, when you have someone close to you contributing to the same field you find fascinating,” he said.  With family companies, “the pride in the company is with you all the time,” Beal said. “That’s been a great source of enjoyment.”
Sandy has seen many changes during his 50 years in real estate. When he first started, the company would do all the leasing of its buildings itself. Now leasing is handled almost exclusively by brokers. There have been other changes, as well.
“When I first came in, there were no women [in commercial real estate],” he said.
But now he sees many successful women in the industry.
Some aspects of the industry never change, however.
“Personal contact is still very important. That’s one of the reasons people should belong to a real estate board,” Beal said. “Your opportunity is best served when you work with a group to improve the product you’re handling.”
Some of the tools to be successful in the real estate industry have not changed, either.
“You try to be up on as much that’s going on in this world as possible,” he said.
Not just with the television, but real estate professionals should read newspapers and industry publications to get in-depth news, he said.