Professor vs. tycoon, Part 2

First, his attempts to use his (wife’s) fortune to convert a gorgeous Back Bay condominium building into one of the city’s most glorious single-owner residences have been thwarted by the 82-year-old professor on the fourth floor who has been reluctant to sell the unit where he’s lived for 32 years.

Then a judge came down on Kettenbach like a ton of bricks for leaving the professor, Jerome Wodinsky, and his 67-year-old wife, Bernadette, to negotiate four flights of steep stairs for eight months and counting, while Kettenbach slowly replaces an elevator that he chose to remove. Likewise, the judge didn’t appreciate that Kettenbach unilaterally installed a new heating system for the building, a new electrical system, a new roof, and new skylights, and then told the Wodinskys they owed more than $209,000 for their portion of the work.

And now comes a new setback for Kettenbach and his ham-handed attempts to push the Wodinskys from 303 Commonwealth Ave.: John Walsh.

Readers may remember Walsh. He is the owner and CEO of Elizabeth Grady Cos., a self-made millionaire who grew up in a Somerville housing project, dropped out of college, and emerged as a force in Boston business.

In 2006, Walsh ran into his own housing conflict. When he and his wife tried to buy into a Beacon Hill cooperative building, the bluebloods upstairs looked at him like he was from another planet, telling him in a rejection letter that he “would not reasonably coalesce as a member of this cooperative community.’’ The chairman of that board was Jonathan Winthrop, a descendant of the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The fight, chronicled by my friend and former colleague Steve Bailey, led to a settlement: Winthrop et al. paid Walsh $2.2 million not to live with them.

When I wrote about Jerry and Bernadette Wodinsky a few weeks ago, Walsh immediately e-mailed, asking to meet them. The next day, he climbed all those stairs and offered his help.

“I want to help from a legal, financial, and emotional perspective,’’ Walsh said yesterday. When I asked what that meant, he responded pointedly, “Whatever it takes.’’ The only contingency: Jerry Wodinsky has to quit smoking, which he said he has done.

It gets better. Walsh called it “unconscionable’’ that Wodinsky, who has stents in his legs and respiratory problems, would be forced to constantly negotiate four flights of stairs. Of Kettenbach, he said, “He wouldn’t want someone to do this to his parents.’’

The Wodinskys are, according to their lawyer Don Sweeney, ecstatic to have Walsh’s help. The couple can’t afford the Kettenbachs’ champagne tastes - or years of legal fees. He still teaches at Brandeis; she works in a department store credit department.

For Kettenbach, money came easier. He married into the Demoulas supermarket family.

He and his wife, Frances, bought their first unit at 303 Commonwealth Ave. in 1996. They have since bought three more units - one from a longtime owner who testified that she felt forced to sell. As 80 percent owners of the building, they control all decisions, and seemed eager to use their deep pockets to bully the Wodinskys out of the 2,000-square-foot condo they’ve lived in since the 1970s.

Walsh said yesterday that he would encourage a settlement.

“Mr. Kettenbach has to have a good place in his heart,’’ Walsh said. “I ask that he come forward, pay the fair value, own the whole building, and put this behind him.’’

Kettenbach responded to me with an e-mailed statement yesterday saying, “We have never wanted to fight with our neighbors, the Wodinskys. Nor will we seek to settle this matter through the pages of the Boston Globe.’’

He can settle it wherever he wants. Just end this absurdity before an old man falls down the stairs.

Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com.