Bill West, Shapell’s CEO, said Guerin declined to comment on her net worth.

Born in Poland in March 1922 as Natan Schapelski, Guerin’s father spent World War II in Buchenwald and Auschwitz. Most of his family members, including his mother, were executed, according to the program from his 2007 funeral.

In his memoir, “Witness to the Truth,” which was published in 1974, Shapell said he helped smuggle Jewish children out of the Targowa, Poland, ghetto in empty soup pots before he was sent to the concentration camps.

Porter Ranch

At Auschwitz, he met Max Webb, who would later marry his sister. They worked together after the war with his brother David to build housing in the Bavarian town of Munchberg for former concentration camp prisoners.

They immigrated to California in 1952, where the three worked with a Los Angeles construction company before splitting off in 1955 to form their own homebuilder. Under Nathan, the chairman and chief executive, the company handled land acquisition, zoning, financing, home design and building.

Shapell’s biggest project was the 1,300-acre Porter Ranch housing development north of Los Angeles, best known as the location of several scenes in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 movie “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.”

“He was an icon, a powerful person who just radiated power and was incredibly intimidating,” said Tim Freund, a Thousand Oaks, California, real estate broker, who worked as a sales rep for the company for 14 years and toured the company’s subdivisions alongside Shapell.

Girlfriend, Assistant

Guerin spends little time on day-to-day company activities, according to a former executive who asked not to be identified because the company is private. Outside of her service on the board, her most visible role is as vice chairman and chairman- elect of the board of directors of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She also produces musical theater, including “Tom Jones: The Musical.”