One way of looking at Norman Sturner is that he’s a Bronx-born boy who made it big in Manhattan. Another way is that he’s a tax accountant who made big bucks selling mutual funds. Still another way – and one that reflects his professional life for the last 35 years – is that Mr. Sturner is a founder and principal of Murray Hill Properties, one of the biggest names in commercial real estate in New York.

He’s had the Midas touch.

“Almost everything we’ve bought has turned to gold,” Mr. Sturner said over lunch. “We’ve worked steadily, finding properties before the rest of the world knew about them, properties that were below the radar screen. And now, quietly, 35 years have gone by. It’s been a wonderful time – and it’s not over.”

Since 1992, his company – which, he says, was also built on the “wisdom” of partners Neil Siderow and Michael Green – has bought 16 properties in Manhattan, including iconic buildings such as 44 Wall St., 30 Broad St., and 22 Cortland St.

The last two years have been especially good, Mr. Sturner said. He has bought 1.7 million square feet of commercial space: seven buildings worth more than $450 million.

“The Manhattan market really started to explode in 2004,” Mr. Sturner said. “Money from China, South America, the Middle East, institutional money – it all started coming in. The Europeans were buying because of the decline in the dollar.”

Among his own acquisitions have been 225 Fifth Ave., with 400,000 square feet; 135 W. 50th St., with 900,000 square feet; and 1412 Broadway, with 400,000 square feet.

And now, Mr. Sturner said, “we’ve pulled a coup in this city again. “We’ve signed a contract for a trophy building – it has a million square feet,” he said.

Where was this building?

Mr. Sturner smiled conspiratorially, but declined to divulge the location.

So what explains his success?

“My stick-to-it-iveness,” Mr. Sturner said. “I work 18-hour days. I just love the action, of being in the midst of understanding the market.”

Then he revealed one of his secrets.

“Before I buy any building, I walk around the block, I do my visuals,” he said. “I stand across the street from the building and stare at it. I want to get its ‘curb appeal.’ It’s a bit like hunting – you stalk your quarry first.”

Mr. Sturner has been using that technique since 1972, when he bought 469 W. 57th St., a building with 31 apartments, for $140,000. He and Mr. Siderow raised $300,000 by persuading investors to cough up $14,000 each.

“The city was going through rough times,” Mr. Sturner said. “They were giving away the city.”

A succession of acquisitions followed: a building with 600 apartments in Queens; several properties in Manhattan. Mr. Sturner was not quite fulltime then in the real-estate business; he was still selling mutual funds.

“My partner, Neil, asked, ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling stocks?'” Mr. Sturner recalled. Mr. Siderow was selling insurance at the time. That’s when they formed Murray Hill Properties.

And how did they choose the name?

“We were sitting in an office at 130 Madison Ave., a building we’d acquired, and I was looking out of the window when all of a sudden it occurred to me that we should call the company Murray Hill Properties,” Mr. Sturner said.

Such moments of epiphany have marked his professional life since he graduated from St. John’s University, where he majored in accounting; he enrolled when he was just 16. The son of Polish immigrants, Mr. Sturner met his wife Harriet just before he started school, and they were married before he graduated. He had to work at night to support his family. He joined Horwath, a major accounting firm. He was given several intriguing accounts to handle, including the 21 Club, Longchamps, Judy Garland, and Barbara Walters. Ms. Walters, he said, memorably screamed at him for a perceived gaffe on his part.

He tells entertaining anecdotes from those early days of his career as an accountant. When his first child, a son, was born, and Mr. Sturner was handing out cigars at the office, his supervisor, a mercurial man, offered no congratulations and yelled at him over a minor matter. That’s when Mr. Sturner walked out.

He became a part-time salesman of mutual funds, and then expanded his business in such a way that in three years he became the biggest dealer in Dreyfus funds. He also opened a private tax practice. Sometime during this period, he met Mr. Siderow.

“We had instant rapport,” Mr. Sturner said of the man who was to become his partner in business.

As Murray Hill Properties developed, it became what Mr. Sturner calls an “opportunistic purchaser of real estate.”

The company’s Web site says: “We create value by locating and actively repositioning, renovating and/or recapitalizing under-performing or under-utilized assets. Our investment objective is to identify Class ‘B/B+’ office buildings, greater than 100,000 square feet, located on a main thoroughfare in Manhattan. This type of asset caters to a broad base of tenants and typically provides for a significant rental rate advantage over Class ‘A’ buildings. With intensive management and leasing focus, such buildings can be extremely attractive to the astute investor and can produce superior investment returns (20+%) during a typical holding period between 30 and 60 months.”

The high rate of return has attracted a number of investing partners, such as ING Realty Partners, Credit Suisse First Boston, Olympus Realty Partners, Blackacre Capital Management LLC, General Electric, and Seavest LLC.

These partners have heard legendary stories of Mr. Sturner’s integrity. Before a man named Joseph Morningstar introduced him to Andrew Stone, then of Credit Suisse-First Boston, he said to Mr. Sturner, “I’m told that you’re a handshake kind of guy.”

Mr. Stone ensured that CSFB put up 90% of the money in Murray Hill’s acquisitions; Murray Hill and its partners provided 10%.

“We’ve never taken a loss,” Mr. Sturner said. “I’ve learned my trade very well.”

A significant part of that learning process has been the cultivation of potential investors.

“I know every major investment banker in town,” Mr. Sturner said. “I believe in building strong relationships. People will invest with you only if they trust you.”

He’s formed a “high net-worth fund” for which he’s already raised more than $21 million. Another fund raised $45 million. His next fund, Mr. Sturner said, will aim for $150 million.

“We will spread our wings beyond New York to Boston, New Jersey, and Washington,” he said.

But his love remains New York.

“This is the center of the world,” he said. “There’s simply no other place like it. The vibrancy of the city, the action, the life – where else can you find the spirit of New York? I live in New Jersey, but come Sunday evening, I just can’t wait for Monday morning. I just can’t wait to get back into New York.”