The District Chronicles

Issue date: 2/7/10 Section: Cover

Media Credit: Freddie Allen

It's hard to know what to expect when you meet a Forbes 'lister'. Someone literally so wealthy, so successful that we're forced to pluck them once a year from office suites, stages, and basketball courts and rank them by the zeroes in their bank accounts. Names like Oprah and Magic and Bob and Sheila Johnson float to the top. Now we can add Washington native R. Donahue Peebles to that list.

Don't expect to find Peebles, a real estate titan with a portfolio worth $4 billion, hiding behind designer shades or spinning in a tornado of security and Blackberry-wielding Ivy-league assistants. If you don't mind, he'll introduce himself. It's barely above freezing in the Nation's Capital and he's dressed comfortably in a deep navy, pinstriped, suit tailored to his slim 6'3" frame. He smiles and says he's used to the weather. By the way, you can call him 'Don'.

Last year, Forbes Magazine named Peebles the "Eighth Wealthiest African American". From his swank downtown D.C. office just two blocks from Macy's, Peebles shared his story of grit and determination that propelled him from a humble working class upbringing into the world of self-made millionaires.

"I am a big believer that anything is possible," he said. Warm hues and photos taken with President Obama and former President Bill Clinton and portraits of his wife and children splash the walls. "The only limitations for us are those we allow society to impose on us."

That is the story Peebles wants every Black boy and girl, man and woman in the District to know - a story of how to succeed against the odds. He has captured his success principles in a book that bears his name: "The Peebles Principles: Tales and Tactics from an Entrepreneur's Life of Winning Deals, Succeeding in Business, and creating a Fortune from Scratch."

"It's at the top of my reading list," said City of Alexandria Mayor William D. Euille, one of Peebles' admirers.

This book should be on every aspiring businessperson's bookshelf to be read again and again, said Robert L. Johnson, BET founder and Charlotte Bobcats owner.

Born in 1960 at Freedman's Hospital, now Howard University Hospital, Peebles grew up on 9th Street in Northwest. Peebles' parents divorced when he was five. Though his mother raised him, and his grandfather and uncles played key roles in molding him, he adopted his father's work ethic.

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