Anchorage Daily News

Consider the predicament of 94-year-old Augusto Jaen, one of the last tenants at the Marlow Manor senior assisted-living complex downtown.

A self-taught portrait artist born in Peru, Jaen traveled across Europe in the 1930s and ’40s painting world leaders. In the 1950s and ’60s he wrote and directed Spanish-language radio and TV shows. Once, in a New York City hotel lobby, he hugged Albert Einstein.

“When I met him, I kissed him like he was my father,” Jaen said. “To me he was very special.” Now it’s Jaen who seems special. Sitting alone at an antique table in the empty Marlow Manor dining hall a week ago, he longed for company. But nearly all of his fellow pensioners were gone.

Soon Jaen will go too, another casualty of the recent decision to close down this 2-year-old residence for seniors that occupies the bottom four floors of McKinley Tower, the 14-story high-rise (previously known as the MacKay Building) that owner Marc Marlow remodeled at Fourth and Denali.

Like most of the other elderly tenants at the manor, a 52-unit complex that never came close to filling up, Jaen received word at the end of October that he had 90 days to find a new home.

Most of the seniors who were there have already moved out, including the 72-year-old woman with whom he used to share dinners. She found a room in the Providence Horizon House in Midtown.

“I miss her terribly,” Jaen said. “She loved to hear my stories. I used to make her laugh.”

Where did the others go?

“I don’t know,” he said.

Where will he go?

“I don’t know.”

CHECKERED HISTORY

Anchorage developer Marc Marlow opened Marlow Manor Downtown in January 2007, after years of planning a McKinley Tower renaissance and no small amount of public assistance from government-backed loans and municipal tax breaks.

The latter was forthcoming partly because the long-empty MacKay Building, with its sickly-pink paint job, was regarded in the 1980s and ’90s as one of the city’s most notorious eyesores.

Erected in 1952 and christened the McKinley Building, the apartment tower was severely damaged a dozen years later by the Good Friday earthquake, which sent the top floor swaying about 10 feet side to side and made the foundation jump a foot.

Closed for repairs, the tower was repossessed, then sold at auction in the mid-1960s to the late Anchorage attorney Neil MacKay, who reopened it in the family name, moved into the top penthouse apartment, then added his own colorful chapter to the building’s checkered history.

(MacKay’s wife, Muriel Pfeil, was murdered in a downtown car bombing in 1976. No one was ever charged, but Pfeil’s brother thought MacKay was behind the killing and began to build a case against him. Nine years later, the brother was murdered too. MacKay was charged with hiring an Anchorage hit man to kill him. A Fairbanks jury found the attorney not guilty.)

In the meanwhile, however, his towering apartment complex fell into disrepair. In 1982 the city condemned it for fire code violations and shut it down. Two years later MacKay sold it to a New Jersey developer, who gutted the building with the intention of turning it into a luxury hotel. After the Anchorage real estate market collapsed in the mid-1980s, those plans fell apart and the building was repossessed once again.

SWEETENERS

Enter Marc Marlow.

In the late 1990s, the now 51-year-old electrical contractor/developer offered to buy and restore the old MacKay Building. Doing so, he said, would help revitalize an aging neighborhood. But first he needed some government help, and soon he found it.

Locally, the Anchorage Assembly agreed to (1) forgive Marlow’s first five years of property taxes, which were expected to total about $500,000, and (2) defer his second five years of taxes until he sold the building.

Federally, the Department of Housing and Urban Development agreed to guarantee repayment of up to $8 million Marlow would borrow to remodel the top 10 floors, which lowered the interest rate he paid. And thirdly, the state Alaska Housing Finance Corp. loaned Marlow $5.4 million to build a licensed, senior-assisted-living facility on the bottom four floors.

The assisted-living idea was not new to Marlow. He already owned the Marlow Manor residence for seniors in East Anchorage, along with other senior-housing projects statewide. He called the new one Marlow Manor Downtown and changed the building name back to McKinley.

PLUSES, MINUSES

One of the nicest things about living there the past year and a half has been the location, Jaen said. From his front door, it’s just a four-block walk to the Post Office Mall and seven to reach Town Square.

In spite of a skating accident, which left his back a bit bowed, he exercises faithfully three times a day and prefers walking to riding in a car. Nor does Jaen seem to mind the weather.

“I love this climate,” he said. “I’m like a little boy out there.”

As for Marlow Manor itself, he gives the residence mixed reviews.

The rooms are very small, he said, and they don’t have kitchen appliances. But his bathroom is spacious, and his needs are simple. He writes, reads and performs his morning calisthenics there. He jokes with the staff downstairs.

He gets along well with the Marlow Manor cook, whom he sometimes tips. And in return the cook sometimes responds with dinners of shrimp and wine and the light dishes he adores.

So why, with all those pluses, is Marlow Manor closing down?

Said Jaen: “I really don’t know.”

TOUGH SELL

Asked that same question by phone earlier this month, Marc Marlow declined to answer. “No comment,” he said.

Asked if he could discuss other aspects of Marlow Manor, his reply remained the same. “No comment.”

State and city authorities, however, voiced concern about the impending closure. Alaska long-term care ombudsman Bob Dreyer said he first heard the news a month ago when he tried to move a resident to Marlow Manor and was told it was closing down for lack of customers.

“I was kind of surprised it never really took off,” he said. “They did a pretty good job of remodeling the place. It’s basically like a hotel, pretty well appointed.”

Marlow Manor property manager Theresa Panchot later told him that some tenants there said the rooms were too small, with armoires instead of closets, Dreyer said. To make ends meet, they ultimately had to open the doors to federally sponsored indigents in need of temporary housing.

The 90-day eviction notice the regular tenants received was sufficient — state law only requires a 30-day notice, Dreyer said. But the displaced seniors will probably miss Marlow Manor’s close proximity to downtown amenities.

“It’s kind of a shame,” he said. “The town is losing a real asset there.”

TROUBLE CIRCLING

Will Marlow, in turn, lose his tax-free status?

Probably not, said Sharon Weddleton, the city’s chief fiscal officer.

The assembly members’ only expectation was that Marlow build “quality housing,” not senior housing, Weddleton said.

“In my opinion the tax exemption and deferral are not at risk.”

But Sherrie Simmonds, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., suggested there’s some concern at the agency about repayment of its $5.4 million loan for the assisted-living remodel.

“They’ve been having difficult times just trying to fill it up,” Simmonds said. “So we’ve been working with them to see what options they have. … One of the things we don’t want to do is foreclose on buildings if we can help it.”

Working in Marlow’s favor is the success he’s had leasing out much of the top floors of the McKinley Tower, she said.

Working against him are lawsuits involving alleged debts — one to Anchorage attorney Charles Tulin, another to ex-Anchorage lobbyist Bill Bobrick — now making their way through the court system.

Bobrick, who earlier this year completed a five-month prison sentence for pleading guilty to bribing former Anchorage Rep. Tom Anderson, says Marlow owes him $67,500 for lobbying the city on his behalf. Marlow, in a counter-claim filed by his attorney, says that debt should be forgiven on grounds he’s suffered more than $100,000 in damages by having his name “now associated with … a crook.”

FINDING A HOME

As for Jaen, life at Marlow Manor continues as is — for a few more days.

Before him on the dining room table a week ago were about a dozen black-and-white photocopies of portraits he drew in earlier years. Among them were the likes of former British prime ministers Neville Chamberlain and Harold Macmillan , who once sat for their portraits.

An article from a Spanish-language magazine commemorated the “Notable Trabajo” (remarkable work) of South American painter Augusto Jaen, featuring his portrait of a beautiful Brazilian socialite.

These days, however, the only real work he accomplishes is his hour-long walk downtown, Jaen said. “I go outdoors and I say, 'Augusto, from 4 o’clock to 5 o’clock you’re walking.’ ”

He’ll just have to find a new place to walk to when they get around to evicting him, he said. “I’m worried, but I’m not desperate. There must be a place that will take me.”

Finally, there is, a senior health official said Friday. The Medicaid waiver he recently received will allow Jaen to move into Providence Horizon House, where his friend ended up, said Lois Salontai, the care coordinator assigned to look after Jaen’s welfare.

Said Jaen: “That sounds pretty good.”

Find George Bryson online at adn.com/contact/gbryson or call 257-4318.

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