William A. Seiler III
Real estate developer created Sagamore Village near Glyndon and was a Ferrari motor car enthusiast
William A. Seiler III, a retired real estate developer who was a U.S. Professional Tennis Association coach and umpire, died in his sleep of liver failure Aug. 30 at his Monkton home. He was 80. Born in Baltimore and raised on Tunbridge Road in Homeland, he was the son of William A. Seiler, an owner of a wholesale plumbing supply company, Schumacher & Seiler, and Katherine Meister Seiler, a homemaker.
Mr. Seiler, who was known as Sy, was a 1952 Friends School graduate and was class president for his last three years. He also played on the school’s varsity football, basketball and lacrosse teams. Family members said he turned down an athletic scholarship to the Johns Hopkins University and earned a bachelor’s degree at Bucknell University. He also served in the Army Reserves.
“Without a lacrosse program in place there, he founded the Bucknell Lacrosse Club. He hand-built the goals from piping he got from his father’s firm, Schumacher & Seiler,” said his son, Thomas Keller Seiler of Baltimore. “The club remains in place to this day.”
While at Bucknell, he met his future wife, Cecily Jean Kline.
He and his wife moved to the family farm in Reisterstown and he worked at the family plumbing supply business on Greenmount Avenue for nearly a year. He later moved to Allentown, Pa., where he sold securities.
In 1961, he returned to Baltimore and became a self-employed real estate broker and land developer. Family members said he acquired the controlling interest in the Reisterstown farm, on Nicodemus Road, which he subdivided. He developed Sagamore Village at Glyndon and tracts along Wesley Chapel Road at Monkton, among other properties.
His real estate office was in a small red building behind Four Corners Theatre in Jacksonville.
“My father utilized three corporations and developed more than 1,000 acres of raw land and hundreds of properties in his 50-year career,” said his son.
He retired from real estate nearly 20 years ago.
Mr. Seiler moved to Monkton in 1966, where he developed an interest in horses and fox hunting. He attended a pony sale at the fairgrounds in Timonium and bought his daughter and later his sons their own horses. Mr. Seiler hunted on what became his favorite horse, Shipmate, a bay gelding he acquired from McDonogh School.
He attended events of the Elkridge Harford Hunt Club and was its volunteer bartender at its annual point-to-point race held in early April.
Mr. Seiler lived on Jarrettsville Pike at Pocock Road, a spot where fox hunters crossed the traffic lanes. Members of the club supplied him with a list of the days when they would be riding and he remained ready with a pair of red flags to stop vehicular traffic.
Mr. Seiler, who liked imported cars, had owned Mercedes-Benzes and Porsches. He acquired the first of his many Ferraris in 1974.
“He was an avid enthusiast and a member of the Ferrari Club of America. He drove his black 308 GTS until just a year before his death,” said his daughter, Jean Elizabeth Seiler of Madonna. “A lot of people would say my father was a character. He was a character with a kind heart. He was the kind of guy who would talk to anybody in a grocery store.”
Mr. Seiler was an accomplished golf and tennis player. He set up an annual tennis tournament at St. James Church in Monkton and was a U.S. Professional Tennis Association coach and umpire.
He spent part of the year in Stuart, Fla., and coached tennis at the Indian River Plantation and Country Club in the 1970s.
He also played golf at the Greystone Golf Course in White Hall and at Pleasant Valley Golf Club in Stewartstown, Pa. He posted a “golf lessons” sign on his property and had a putting green in his backyard.
“A lot of people knew where Sy’s place was,” said his daughter. “At times he had the flags of different countries flying outside his home.”
A life celebration will be held at 2 p.m. Oct. 4 at the parish hall of St. James Episcopal Church, 3100 Monkton Road.
In addition to his son and daughter, survivors include another son, David Kerr Seiler of Baltimore; two brothers, Robert Seiler of Williamsburg, Va., and Richard Seiler of Baltimore; and three sisters, Jane Britton of Naples, Fla., Katherine Black of Cary, N.C., and Susan Haw of Sheffield, England. His wife of 10 years died in 1964. A second marriage ended in divorce.