Mayfair Charities

Mayfair Charities

Mayfair Charities was established in 1968 as the philanthropic arm of the Freshwater family, whose wealth was built through Daejan Holdings, one of the UK's largest private property companies. The charity's corpus is anchored by a portfolio of direct London real estate, including the residential asset at Dean Bradley House in Westminster and the commercial property at 27-29 Albert Embankment. The Freshwater family's multi-generational control of Daejan Holdings — a FTSE 250 constituent until its 2017 privatization — provides the underlying asset base that funds the charity's grant-making activity. The charity generates income from a mix of direct UK property holdings and a broader global investment portfolio with exposure to the United States. Its real estate strategy concentrates on London, with holdings spanning residential, commercial, and mixed-use assets such as the property at 190-194 Eltham High Street. The charity does not operate as a grant-making foundation in the conventional sense — it maintains its own balance sheet of income-producing assets, functioning more like an endowed institution with a permanent capital base. The income funds grants, donations, and loans primarily directed toward educational institutions and poverty relief within the Orthodox Jewish community. Benzion Shalom Eliezer Freshwater and Solomon Israel Freshwater serve as the charity's trustees, maintaining direct oversight of both the investment portfolio and the grant distribution. The charity operates with a lean governance structure, tightly integrated with the family's broader property operations through Daejan Holdings. The philanthropic focus centers on the Bobov-45 community, a Hasidic sect for which the charity supports educational infrastructure both in the United Kingdom and abroad. The Freshwater family's deep involvement in London's Orthodox Jewish community places Mayfair Charities at the intersection of faith-based philanthropy and institutional-quality property asset management. Mayfair Charities is structurally distinct from most UK foundations due to its direct ownership of operational real estate rather than a liquid endowment portfolio managed by external managers. The charity holds physical property titles on its own balance sheet, generating income through rents and capital appreciation — a structure mirroring the family's Daejan Holdings vehicle but applied to charitable purposes. This real-estate-centric model couples grant-making capacity to London property market performance, creating a durable income stream tied to a specific geographic and asset-class concentration.