Fedder cultivated passion for the environment

Joel Fedder spent his career in Baltimore as an estate, trust and real estate lawyer and, later, a real estate developer, but his true passion was the environment.

“He didn’t just know common names of the plant, but he knew the botanical names of every plant well too,” Fedder’s wife, Ellen, said.

Fedder, a philanthropist and avid supporter of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, died April 18. He was 83.

Fedder began work with Selby in 1995, after moving to the Key, and served on its board of trustees from 1998 to 2003.

“He was certainly very generous to Selby Gardens,” Selby President and CEO Jennifer Rominiecki said. “He made repeated gifts to support science lectures at the garden, and he had a personal interest in the garden and delivered a lecture about global warming in 2014.”

Born in Baltimore, Fedder graduated in 1950 from the Friends School in Baltimore and received his bachelor’s degree in 1954 from Goddard College. He began his law career in 1958 after graduating from the University of Maryland School of Law. 

He practiced law until 1985, when he decided to become a real estate developer.

“He kept reinventing himself,” said Lenny Landau, Fedder’s neighbor and friend. “He was a lawyer and then got into real estate and became very successful at that. He became an advocate for the arts and a climate-change scholar.”

Fedder supported the University of Maryland School of Law and founded the Fedder Environmental Fund. Last year, the Fedders donated $1 million to the school to provide more funding for the Fedder Scholars Program and the Fedder Environmental Law Lecture and Dinner. 

“Instead of giving parts of a fund, we decided we wanted to do something that really made a difference, so we set up the endowment,” Ellen Fedder said.

At the couple’s Baltimore home, Fedder tended to a greenhouse; his love for botany continued on the Key. He was especially passionate about the garden at their home, which was inspired by the serene Japanese and Balinese gardens, complete with Buddha statues and bonsai trees.

 “He wanted this from the time we moved in, and it was only finished about four to five months ago. Every time I walk outside, it brings tears to my eyes because he got to see it before he passed away,” Ellen Fedder said.

Fedder also served on the board of the Sarasota Opera.

“The official definition of a Renaissance Man, I believe, was my husband,” Ellen Fedder said. 

Fedder is survived by his wife of 58 years, Ellen; children Michael, of Bedford, N.H., and Amy, of Baltimore; sister, Sue; and four grandchildren.