Longtime Riverhead car dealer Irwin Garsten died Tuesday in Florida. He was 86.
Mr. Garsten of Shoreham opened Garsten Motors in 1959, which became Apple Honda in 1996.
He won Time Magazine’s Quality Dealer Award in 2006, an honor given annually to successful car dealers in the nation who also demonstrate long-standing commitment to effective community service.
In an interview Wednesday, Linda Hulse, assistant to Apple Honda’s general manager, described Mr. Garsten’s death as sudden.
“We were getting emails from him last night and were waiting for him to come back for the opening of the new showroom,” she said. “He’s missed very much.”
Mr. Garsten was a member of many local organizations, including the Riverhead Rotary Club, Riverhead Chamber of Commerce, Boy Scouts of America, Eastern Long Island United Way and Peconic Bay Medical Center Foundation.
“You can be a great dealer and not bring to the table what Irwin does,” Riverhead Town Justice Allen Smith told the News-Review in a 2006 profile of Mr. Garsten. “He’s beyond being someone who simply sells cars.”
The family will receive visitors at Tuthill-Mangano Funeral Home in Riverhead Saturday, Feb. 11, from 1 to 4 p.m.
Funeral services will be held 11 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 12, at Temple Israel in Riverhead. Interment will follow at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Port Jefferson.
File photo: Irwin Garsten at Apple Honda in Riverhead. (Credit: Barbaraellen Koch)
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