Dwight Schar, founder of home builder NVR and an owner of the Washington Redskins, hands out food to families for Thanksgiving in 2006. (TWP)

Inova’s plan to develop a medical campus dedicated to cancer research, genomics and personalized medicine is getting a major boost from someone who knows a thing or two about building.

Dwight C. Schar, founder and chairman of homebuilding and mortgage giant NVR, and his wife Martha are giving the hospital system $50 million to develop a cancer research institute that will bear their names as part of a 117-acre medical campus in Merrifield.

Schar’s company, based in Reston, is one of the largest home builders by revenue in the country. He has been a longtime philanthropic supporter of Inova, George Mason University and a host of other Northern Virginia institutions, but said the $50 million gift is his largest single donation to any cause.

Cancer, Schar said, is a disease that has “touched us all.” He said the proposed cancer center, to be named the Inova Dwight and Martha Schar Cancer Institute, “really has the potential for revolutionizing genomic medicine.”

[Inova plans medical research complex in Fairfax]

Along with a $10 million donation from the family foundation of developer Milton V. Peterson, the Schar donation gives a head start to Inova as it plans to rework a corporate campus of Exxon-Mobil into a complex dedicated to cancer treatment, genomics research and incubation of biotech companies.

Founder and chairman of homebuilding and mortgage giant NVR, Dwight C. Schar, and his wife Martha have donated $50 million to the Inova hospital system to help develop a cancer research institute that will bear their names. (WUSA9)

Ionva has recruited two premiere names in cancer treatment and translational medicine to open centers there: Doctors Donald L. Trump, former chief of a cancer institute in Buffalo, and John Niederhuber, a former director of the National Cancer Institute.

J. Knox Singleton, Inova’s chief executive, has worked closely with Schar in growing Inova. He called the $50 million the largest gift “by a meaningful margin” Inova had ever received.

In addition to the financial gift, Schar has been working behind the scenes for about two years to help Inova secure the Exxon-Mobil property, even playing a role in negotiations with senior Exxon leadership. He said he reached out to Inova, not the other way around: “They didn’t have to twist my arm.”

Singleton said he told Schar that “the difference between a vision and a reality is usually private giving and private support”

“It’s not enough to hypothesize what outstanding people like Dr. Trump or Dr. Niederhuber can do. The reality is that you can’t fuel that vision without private investment.”

The total amount of private money needed to be raised for the project hasn’t been finalized, Singleton said. He estimated the physical costs of turning one of the four office buildings on campus into a cancer institute of about 240,000-square-feet at $250-300 million.

[In Northern Virginia, a disconnect over genomics research]

The Schars’ $50 million donation will go toward recruiting cancer specialists and affording them the equipment and facilities needed to advance their treatments and research. Dr. Trump said the institute, scheduled to open in 2018, would also provide a central hub for Inova’s cancer care from locations around Northern Virginia.

“The goal of the institute is to bring together what is often widespread sites for care. That then provides opportunity for care for patients throughout the system,” he said.

Schar, who rarely speaks to media, said he was attracted by the opportunity to build from scratch a medical organization aimed at a major health problem and in the process create an institution that could become an economic anchor for the Washington area.

Ever the real estate man, he said the location is what first caught his attention. The site is well situated to serve the densely populated region, the campus sits across from Inova’s flagship hospital in Fairfax and the operation should benefit from its proximity to the corridors of power in the nation’s capital.

“This obviously will be a plus for the area.”

Schar said he also considered the gift a chance to repay a community that filled so many of the homes built by his company. Schar started NVHomes in 1980, acquired his former employer Ryan Homes seven years later and became wealthy enough to be a part owner of the Washington Redskins.

He is also a former finance chairman for the Republican National Committee, owner of a posh ocean estate in Palm Beach, Fla. and, in some years, a member of Forbes Magazine’s list of billionaires.

“This region has been very good to us,” said Schar, whose firm still derives 40 percent of its business from the Washington-Baltimore area. “I’ve been the beneficiary of a lot of good luck in Northern Virginia.”

Staff writer Dan Beyers contributed.

Follow Jonathan O’Connell on Twitter: @oconnellpostbiz