Shouky Shaheen, Atlanta developer, art collector and donor, dies at 97

With four boys in their home, Shouky Shaheen’s parents would never let them have a dog, no matter how often they asked.

So when he moved into his Buckhead house in 1966, he purchased the largest dog he could find, a Saint Bernard, and he delighted in walking his pooch, greeting friends and neighbors.

“It was a health thing to walk, but it was also a social outlet,” said his son William Shaheen. “He knew most of the neighbors in Kingswood and spoke to all of them.”

The second son of Azeez and Saleemah Shaheen, Shouky Saheen become a successful Atlanta businessman and philanthropist. Born in Chicago, he died of cancer on Oct. 4 at his Atlanta home. He was 97.

Shaheen’s father, Azeez Shaheen, had immigrated in 1913 from Ramallah, Palestine, to Brooklyn when he was 16. He met and married his wife there and the couple made their way to Chicago, where his uncle lived. His father made a living importing Persian rugs.

In the early 1950s, Azeez Shaheen moved to Dalton to own and operate a carpet mill. In 1953, after earning a bachelor’s degree in art and an MBA from the University of Chicago, Shouky Shaheen joined his father and brothers in Dalton. He later operated shopping centers and a textile mill in Cartersville, where his bookkeeper introduced him to Doris Bradshaw, the woman who became his wife.

Shaheen and his older brother didn’t want to compete against each other. They tossed a coin to see who would stay in north Georgia and who would leave. Shaheen and his family moved to Atlanta, his son said, and he started working in industrial development. Unlike others who focused on large warehouses, Shaheen & Co. developed its own niche, offering smaller, single-bay warehouses of 2,000 to 10,000 square feet.

“He helped literally hundreds of people,” William said. “He loved the spirit of entrepreneurship.”

A decade after landing in Atlanta, the Shaheens started buying art, eventually amassing a large collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings, including ones by Monet, Renoir, Matisse and Pissarro, as well as Andrew and Jamie Wyeth. The couple gave the collection to the High Museum in Atlanta and to the Flagler Museum in Florida in 2019.

Shouky enjoyed playing golf and tennis, but his big passion was snow skiing, which he learned in his 40s. He loved to ski in Montana at the Big Sky Resort, said William, who owns “a very simple, rustic cabin” in the Gallatin Valley.

His father wanted to visit it, even though William warned him that he wouldn’t like it because it wasn’t up to his standards. Shouky favored Brooks Brothers shirts, neckties and Gucci loafers.

When his father arrived at the cabin, William said, his dad stared at it a few seconds and then said, “I hope you didn’t pay a lot of money for that.”

His son laughed and then drove him 15 miles to the nearest hotel.

Shouky Shaheen donated to many different causes, his son said, “but he made sure they were putting his money to good use.”

When Doris Shaheen was treated for breast cancer at Piedmont in 1990, “the doctors were great, but the equipment was outdated and they were housed in the basement. With no windows,” his son said.

The Shaheens donated money so the doctors could buy “the best equipment they could find,” William Shaheen said, and move the treatment center out of the basement. Today, Piedmont operates the Doris Shaheen Breast Health Center, which opened in 2004.

After Shouky’s mother died, his father Azeez moved back to Ramallah “because he felt that people in the U.S. didn’t respect older people as they did in Palestine,” William said. “Younger people came to (Azeez) for advice and he could walk everywhere.”

Shouky Shaheen donated money to several causes in Palestine: Birzeit University, the Ramallah Friends School, the Ramallah Hospital, and the Azeez Shaheen Senior Center in Ramallah.

In addition to Doris and his three brothers, Shaheen is predeceased by a grandson, Michael Rourke Shaheen. Survivors include his son William (Caroline), daughter Gay Shaheen Slesar (Oliver) and two grandsons.