Phyllis R. Schlagman | Real estate developer, 68

Phyllis R. Schlagman, 68, of Blue Bell, a real estate developer, died Sunday of ovarian cancer at home.

Mrs. Schlagman moved from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Swarthmore in 1978 when her husband, Herbert S. Schlagman, became a law professor at Widener University. She went to work as a real estate agent for Century 21 and extensively renovated her home.

In the late 1980s, she and a partner, Steve Rossi, renovated two rowhouses in Philadelphia below South Street, west of Broad, and later constructed a four-unit building in the area using innovative materials. In the 1990s, they built 18 homes in Delaware County. Recently she had been a consultant for her son Eric, a real estate developer in Tribeca in Manhattan.

Mrs. Schlagman earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in education from Brooklyn College. She taught English in New York before moving to Swarthmore.

She loved Broadway plays, her son Adam said, and was a patron of the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. She served on the board of the Preservation Coalition of Greater Philadelphia and chaired fund-raising events including a murder-mystery party at a historic mansion. She was a garden enthusiast and was ordering plants last week.

Mrs. Schlagman's husband of 37 years died in 1996. In addition to her sons, she is survived by a sister; a granddaughter, and her companion, Stanley Miezio.

The funeral will be at 11 a.m. today at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael-Sacks Memorial Chapel, 310 S. Second Street Pike, Southampton. Burial will be in Shalom Memorial Park, Philadelphia.