A wealthy, banjo-playing financier who spent his life having fun and giving back to his community? It might sound like a script from a Hollywood movie.
But no. This was the life of Warren Hellman, a San Franciscan who passed away Sunday at age 77 after excelling in business, extreme sports and a love of folk music.
Hellman was the great-grandson of Isaias Hellman, a Jewish immigrant from Bavaria who went on to start and expand numerous banks in California, including Wells Fargo. The great-grandson could have just lived off that wealth, but instead, he helped grow it. His firm made its name taking Levi Strauss & Co. private in 1985, a $1.6 billion transaction, and was also a major investor in Nasdaq.
As a philanthropist, Hellman is perhaps best known for founding Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, an annual music festival that draws hundreds of thousands of people to Golden Gate Park each year. But there was much, much more. He funded the San Francisco Free Clinic, backed efforts to help the homeless, endowed a fellows program for University of California faculty and launched the Bay Citizen – a new media group that collaborates with the New York Times – among other endeavors.
Hellman's family says Hardly Strictly Bluegrass will live on, as will his legacy. San Francisco is renaming Speedway Meadow, the center of the festival, as Hellman Hollow.
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