‘She was truly a caring and remarkable woman’

Helen Frey, one of the best and most popular real estate agents in Rockville Centre, died on Oct. 31 following a quiet, two-year-long battle with cancer. She was 58.

Frey was known for being one of the go-to realtors in the village to get a home sold. She was named one of Rockville Centre’s leading sales agents from 2009 through 2013 while working as an associate broker for Coach Realtors.

“Anytime anybody asks me what Helen’s secret was, I’d say she’d do real estate 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Carol O’Leary, the branch manager for Coach Realtors, where Frey worked. “She was always on top of it. Nothing fell through the cracks.”

Frey was born to Lola and Kurt Rosner in New York City in 1957. She grew up in Middle Village, Queens, and graduated from Forest Hills High School. She then attended the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she graduated from in 1978.

Though she was known in Rockville Centre for her real estate sales, Frey began her adult life as a sweater buyer for Alexander’s Department Store and Majestic International, where she worked from 1978 through 1989.

A year after she graduated college, Frey married her longtime sweetheart, Brad Frey. The two met when they were kids at Camp Boiberik, a Jewish cultural camp in Rhineback, N.Y.

“She was my sister Sharon’s bunk mate and best friend since 1965,” Brad said, “and by my sisters Sweet 16 in 1972, she had decided we would be together.” The two were married in 1979.

In 1981, the couple moved to Rockville Centre, where they have lived ever since. Frey and her husband raised their two children, Alana and Jake, in their home on Linden Street, later moving to a different home in town in 2002.

“Her world revolved around Alana and Jake, as theirs did around her,” Brad said. “The simple joys in her life brought her the most happiness.”

In her job for Alexander’s, Frey traveled the world. In doing so, she came to have a deep appreciation for Rockville Centre and how special the community was, Brad said. It was that love of the town that got her into the real estate business — a business that she excelled at.