René G. Lépine (born October 23, 1929 – April 18, 2012) was a Canadian real estate developer and philanthropist. Lépine was the chairman of Groupe Lépine, a real estate development and investment firm he founded in 1953. He is widely considered one of the most influential French Canadian real estate developers of his time. His companies developed over $5 billion of real estate in Canada and the United States since the 1960s. He also owned a portfolio of multifamily and retail properties in Montreal and Ottawa. Lépine developed many buildings considered landmarks in Montreal, including the Olympic Village and Le Sanctuaire du Mont-Royal. Lépine is also credited with having developed the first condominiums in Montreal in 1981. Early life and education Lépine was born and raised in Ville-Émard, a working-class neighborhood of Montreal, in a family of 10 children. His father was a hardware store clerk. Lépine started his first business at the age of 10, selling woodchips for fireplaces door-to-door at 10 cents a bag that he would pick up off the ground outside a timber factory in Lachine. At the age of 13, he dropped out of school to earn money for his family after his father became ill. He worked at a jewelry factory and also started a flooring business. At the age of 19, he had $4,000 in savings, borrowed $8,000 from his local credit union and built his first real estate project, a single family house in Côte Saint-Luc. He sold it to someone passing by on the street for $17,000. Lépine quickly built two more houses with his profits, and eventually incorporated his own construction company in 1953. Career In 1969, Lépine and his business partner Lorne Webster purchased the 140-unit apartment building Tour Horizon at 1212 Pine Avenue in Montreal for $3 million. The same year, they purchased the 181-unit apartment building Le Cartier Tower at 1115 Sherbrooke Street in Montreal from the Montreal Trust Company out of receivership for $6 million. Both buildings had high vacancies and were renovated extensively. In 1971, Lépine and Webster wanted to purchase the Van Horne Mansion, adjacent to Le Cartier, and were planning a $7 million office building development. By 1974, Lépine owned or controlled over 1,000 rental apartments in Montreal through various partnerships. In 1974, he, Joseph Zappia, Gerald Robinson and Andrew Gaty, were appointed by Jean Drapeau to build the Olympic Village for the