Leroy M. Merritt, a commercial real estate developer and philanthropist who founded Merritt Properties as well as a popular chain of athletic clubs, died Monday of cancer at Pier Homes at Harborview, his Inner Harbor residence.

He was 79.

"Leroy Merritt is a man who started out digging ditches and dug his way to the top," said a 1980 profile in The Evening Sun.

Mr. Merritt, whose parents managed the old Thompson's Sea Girt House restaurant, was born in Dundalk.

After graduating from Dundalk High School in 1948, the Eagle Scout enrolled at Western Maryland College, now McDaniel College, where he played football, golfed and boxed.

Mr. Merritt's entrepreneurial spirit began during his college years.

As a scholarship student, he and a fellow student, Jack Molesworth,"sold late-night hot dogs, sandwiches and sodas to guys in the residence halls long after the dining room closed and women students had gone inside to meet their 10 p.m. curfew," said Joyce Muller, associate vice president of communications and marketing at the Westminster college.

During summers, Mr. Merritt earned tuition and learned about the construction business while working for several uncles who owned a masonry contracting business.

After graduating from college in 1952, Mr. Merritt taught seventh grade for two years in part to satisfy a requirement of the scholarship that sent him to Western Maryland College.

By the 1960s, Mr. Merritt went into the construction business and built more than 60 houses, many with his own hands and on spec, which he later described in a 2008 interview with The Hill, his college alumni magazine, as being "too nice."

"I never made very much money. I gave people more than they should have gotten. I'd say, 'Oh, you want the fireplace moved over? Sure, we can move it over,' " he said in the interview.

In 1969, Mr. Merritt's life changed when a black Buick pulled up to his construction site one day and out stepped Edward St. John Jr., a developer with an offer.

Mr. Merritt, wearing a nail apron, was approached by Mr. St. John, who said he needed a business partner he could trust and who was also a builder.

The two men instantly hit it off, and their first joint project was a 16,000-square-foot warehouse in Southwest Baltimore.

The partners specialized in building industrial commercial warehouses and then renting out the space. So successful was their partnership that within a couple of years, they were earning millions.

"He learned how to build, and I learned how to make money," Mr. Merritt explained in The Hill interview.

In 1971, the partners agreed to a friendly breakup, dividing their properties into two packages without interference from lawyers, accountants and appraisers.

They went their separate ways, while remaining friends and competitors. Mr. St. John established Maryland Industrial Properties in 1971, which later became St. John Properties Inc., while Mr. Merritt founded Merritt Properties, which has been based on Lord Baltimore Drive in Woodlawn since 1980.

Mr. Merritt's business life was changed by the racquetball phenomenon that swept the nation in the late 1970s.

He had never heard of the sport when a young racquetball fan persuaded him to fund and build several courts in one of his Towson warehouses.

On opening night in 1977, Mr. Merritt was astonished to see 900 racquetball fans trying to get court time at the Towson Court Club, his first athletic club.

"I loved it. Everybody loved it. I had to go over at 1:00 in the morning to play because it was so busy," he said in The Hill interview.

The Merritt Athletic Clubs eventually grew to nine - with racquetball and squash courts in five locations - across the Baltimore area.

"My concept," he said in The Evening Sun interview, "is not to appeal to the exclusive. I'm just looking for the moderate-income."

The newspaper described him as a "laid-back dude who likes to see things done right," adding that he "capitalized on a close attention to details."

The profile also said that Mr. Merritt "likes the good things in life - beautiful cars, a decent cocktail, and a top-flight place to play racquetball when the notion strikes him."

Today, Merritt Properties is the largest property management firm in the Baltimore-Washington area and is responsible for 14 million square feet of commercial real estate.

In 1997, Mr. Merritt stepped aside from the daily operation of the business but remained chairman of the company.

His cousin, Scott Dorsey, the son of one of the uncles who taught him the construction business, is now president of Merritt Properties, and Mr. Merritt's son, Robb Merritt, is vice president.

"We have nepotism at its finest," Mr. Merritt said in The Hill interview.

"He was cut from the old cloth and loved coming to work," said his son, who lives in Towson.

"I think my father was successful because of the way he treated people. He treated his employees, vendors, workers and customers equally and with respect," he said. "That's what made him and his company successful."

Mr. Merritt's philanthropy was as expansive as his commercial real estate portfolio.

In the region, his corporate philanthropy ranks fifth; he donated $3.8 million to nonprofit groups in 2008, according to the Baltimore Business Journal.

Mr. Merritt supported dozens of organizations, especially educational, including the University of Maryland, Jemicy School, House of Ruth, Maryland Food Bank, Boys Hope and Bea Gaddy.

Because of his generosity, McDaniel College named its fitness center after him several years ago.

In the alumni magazine interview, Mr. Merritt explained that his philanthropy wasn't totally altruistic.

"I'm buying my way into heaven," he said.

Mr. Merritt - who considered himself a "house-a-holic" - owned seven. He made headlines in 2005 when he purchased Guilford's historic Sherwood Mansion at auction.

The house, at 204 E. Highfield Road, which had been built in 1925 by local oil baron John W. Sherwood, sold for $2.52 million.

"He never lived there and sold the house several years ago," his son said.

Mr. Merritt enjoyed skiing in his younger days and liked to golf, travel and spend time at his Ocean City condominium.

His college sweetheart, the former Jean Curl, whom he married in 1952, died in 1996.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Grace Fellowship Church, 9505 Deereco Road in Timonium.

Also surviving are his wife of seven months, the former Gail Fitzpatrick; a daughter, Nancy Merritt Haigley of Stevenson; and five grandchildren.