Larry LeJeune, businessman and philanthropist, dies at 85

Laurence "Larry" LeJeune was a college dropout who built and sold two businesses over a long career.

LeJeune, of Wayzata, also a generous supporter of schools and nonprofits, died Aug. 12 at the age of 85.

"I think the key to his success was that he was a genuinely nice guy with a great sense of humor who was coincidentally a great businessman," said his son, Mike LeJeune, also a business owner.

In the mid-1950s, Larry LeJeune joined his father at a shop started in a Robbinsdale garage to fabricate playground equipment. In 1967, Larry and his brother, Tom, bought the business, by then based in Minneapolis, from their father.

"I was in charge of sales — $900,000 a year when we took over — and Tom ran the shop," LeJeune once told a University of St. Thomas publication.

"We started going after schools and churches. We were the upstarts, and we took away business from more established companies."

LeJeune Steel fabricated steel for the Minneapolis Convention Center, downtown skyways and other buildings. Larry bought out his brother in 1977.

In 1989, Larry sold what had grown to be a two-plant, 200-employee, $40 million-in-yearly-revenue business to Twin Cities-based API Group, which still operates the LeJeune plants.

By then, LeJeune was having more fun with Carousel Autos, which he acquired in the early 1980s.

"The auto business is simple compared to the steel business, with much less risk," LeJeune said years ago. "In the steel business, if I bid $20 million [for a project] and should have bid $30 million, I lose everything. If I make a mistake on a used car and lose a couple of thousand dollars, that's not the end of the world."

And Carousel, which grew to four dealerships, proved more profitable. LeJeune sold it at a healthy profit to the Pohlad family in 2012.

After that, he increasingly focused on family, friends and philanthropy.

LeJeune, a graduate of DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis, met his wife of 65 years, Jean, an Edison High grad, when they were 16. Mike LeJeune remembered them as friendly, fun people, who learned to ski in their 40s and took their five children, spouses and grandchildren to ski in Colorado every year as well as on occasional vacations around the world.

LeJeune also enjoyed hosting duck-hunting outings with friends at his cabin.

Larry and Jean supported DeLaSalle High, the University of St. Thomas and Lundstrom Performing Arts in Minneapolis, where Jean had danced as a girl when the North Side nonprofit was based in Ascension Catholic School.

"Lundstrom was barely making it and Dad got involved on the board and was the secret [large] donor at every fundraising event," Mike LeJeune recalled. "He wasn't public about his giving. But he believed in Lundstrom, DeLaSalle and the University of St. Thomas."

Mike Dougherty, a retired business owner who served on the St. Thomas board with LeJeune, told the St. Thomas publication that LeJeune was "an extremely good businessman" and "his values are impeccable."

In addition to his wife, Jean, and his son, Mike, LeJeune is survived by four daughters, Lisa LeJeune, Laura LeJeune, Renee Hallberg and Amy Krane; a brother, Tom, of Scottsdale, Ariz.; two sisters, Rita Engelbrecht of Edina and D'Ann Avery of Ocala, Fla.; 13 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

A celebration of life will be held at 4 p.m. Sept. 6 at the Wayzata Country Club.

Neal St. Anthony • 612-673-7144