PASSINGS: Leon Zanger

LEON ZANGER, 93, founder of the Walker Zanger luxury-surfaces stone brand, on Jan. 11 of complications from COVID-19.

Leon ZangerZanger founded his namesake company in 1952 with Marvin Walker, initially importing stone from Portugal to the United States. The company began with marble for furniture tabletops and, according to Zanger, ended up with $1 million in the bank at the end of that year.

Walker Zanger grew to an all-encompassing selection of premium stone, tile and glass, now offered in 14 showrooms in California, Georgia, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Texas.

“He founded Walker Zanger almost 70 years ago, “ said his son, Jonathan Zanger, and his daughter, Claudia Springer, “and although the great love of his life was our mother, Hanna, and his family, his second love was the company he built, the people he employed and the friendships he made among clients and suppliers, around the world.

“He always told us that his proudest achievement was that the company that bears his name supported countless hundreds, and even thousands, of families, over the decades.”

Zanger was born on Nov. 3, 1927, in Antwerp, Belgium. In 1940, just days before the German invasion of Belgium, Zanger’s family – he, his sister, and his mother and father – escaped south to France, then to Spain and Portugal. Eventually, the family moved to Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique) before finally emigrating to the United States in 1944.

During the journey, he showed a capacity for languages – Spriger noted, in a New York Times obituary, that he spoke eight – that led him to a unique place when he joined the U.S. Army in 1945. Zanger became a translator for the U.S. Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, during the postwar occupation.

Zanger put himself through New York University after returning from military service. He met Hannah Loewe, rescued from her native Germany by the prewar Kindertransport and also a Holocaust survivor, in New York; they married in 1951. She preceded him in death in 2017.

In addition to his son and daughter, Zanger is survived by two grandchildren, Ethan Springer and Zachary Zanger.

No memorial events are currently scheduled.