Arthur K. Bosley Sr., a custom home builder, died Tuesday of aortic stenosis and chronic pulmonary obstructive disease at his longtime Ruxton home. He was 88.
Over three decades he built houses in Baltimore County, including the Ruxton, Towson and Green Spring Valley areas. After he stopped building houses for others, he constructed several homes on property he owned in Ruxton and remodeled homes and buildings. Among his projects was turning the former Lutherville School, which he bought in 1963, into apartments, which he managed.
He grew up on his family's Upperco farm and attended public schools. He worked on the farm before turning to construction, learning the building trades as he worked.
He met his wife, the former Jean Kerr, on a blind date, and they married before he entered the Army.
He enlisted in the Army in 1941 and served in the 751st Tank Battalion in Africa and Europe. Two years into his tour of duty, he was wounded in North Africa. He was awarded the Purple Heart. The remainder of his service was at Fort Sill, Okla. He was honorably discharged as a sergeant in 1945.
He returned to the Baltimore area, where he took architecture and building-related courses at Maryland Institute College of Art while working in construction.
In 1948, he started a business, Arthur K. Bosley, Builder, and over the years received several awards for construction. He stopped building custom homes in 1973 and built on his own property for a few years before closing his construction operation in 1977.
He owned rental property in several locations, including Ruxton and Ocean City, which he managed until his death.
In 1976, he bought and remodeled a home in Royal Oak on the Eastern Shore, where he pursued his pastimes of boating, fishing and hunting. The next year he planted a 50-tree orchard of apple, peach, pear and fig trees, and grew vegetables there.
"He had a work ethic like you wouldn't believe," said his daughter Bettie J. Dunkin of Ruxton.
He was a member of Hunt's Memorial United Methodist Church in Riderwood and was a Mason.
He enjoyed boating and fishing on the Chesapeake Bay, goose and deer hunting locally, and bear hunting in Canada. At the age of 82, he went fishing with his sons in Alaska, and although he brought home salmon he had caught, he did not eat it, preferring rockfish.
He attended his Army battalion's reunions and planned one in Hunt Valley in the 1990s.
A funeral service was held Saturday.
In addition to his wife of 65 years and his daughter, he is survived by three sons, Arthur K. Bosley Jr. of Annapolis, David E. Bosley of Detroit and John Dwight Bosley of Ellicott City; another daughter, Dixcy Bosley-Smith of Washington; seven grandchildren; and five step-grandchildren.
andrea.siegel@baltsun.com