Manuchehr Bashirrad

Manuchehr Bashirrad, 82, passed away at his home in Old Greenwich on December 23rd. He is survived by his two daughters Laleh and Avideh, two sons-in-law, four grandchildren, and his beloved wife of 52 years, Homa. The eldest of four, Manuchehr was born in Tehran, Iran to Mehdi and Moulook Bashirrad.

In 1960, with moxie and perseverance, he secured a student visa to attend university in the U.S. He worked to support himself, taking classes at Fresno, Berkeley and San Jose State, where he ultimately received his Bachelor’s degree in 1966 and Masters in Civil Engineering in 1968. His children would one day hear stories about those California years: Joan Baez playing guitar on campus steps, and a moment forever-etched in his mind, when a professor announced JFK had been shot. It was in these years that he found his lifelong friends–a group of big-hearted Iranian expats like himself.

In late 1968, Manuchehr returned to Tehran and worked as a project engineer at the National Iranian Oil Company where he fatefully befriended Bijan Bagheri. His courtship of Bijan’s younger sister, Homa, was brief. They wed in 1971 and what followed were blissful years of growth for his family, community, and career. Manuchehr joined the Construction Bank of Iran in 1975 where he oversaw real estate development projects, emblematic of the building boom and modernizing economy of Iran at the time. In 1978, Manuchehr took on a new endeavor with Iran France Hotel Investment Company, managing the investment and construction of a chain of hotels.

Uprooted by a violent revolution and subsequent war, the family moved to Riyadh in 1981, where Manuchehr secured a position as a project manager at GAC, a Shobokshi subsidiary handling construction of highways and residential projects. In 1985 they moved to the United States and Manuchehr joined New York City-based Carlyle Associates, a real estate investment and development company. Though moving to the U.S. was a big transition, Manuchehr and Homa felt strongly about the value of education and settled in Greenwich, drawn by the quality of the town’s schools.

Manuchehr spent the last stretch of his career in residential real estate development with Empire Homes. They built homes in Purchase/Harrison and later he designed and built his own dream house in Old Greenwich, where especially in retirement, he and Homa spent many joyful years with regular visits from their children and grandchildren. Even in his final years, Manuchehr held tenaciously to the pursuit of knowledge, reading as much as he could, playing backgammon, frequenting his favorite spots like The Perrot Library, always with a newspaper in hand. He loved this country and this town.

A memorial service will be held at Innis Arden on January 6th at 2:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the family invites donations in his name to the Alzheimer’s Association: act.alz.org/goto/manuchehr