After more than a century of selling luxury homes, R.M. Bradley & Co. closed its residential brokerage last week.

Founded in 1889 when William McKinley was in the White House, the legendary Boston firm boasted some of the city’s top selling agents who fetched top dollar for Back Bay penthouses and Beacon Hill brownstones.

“It’s very sad,” said Peter Maglia, a broker who has been with the company since 2004. “This office was like a family and people in the neighborhood thought of us that way, too, because we’ve been here so long. It was a great agency and we all feel terrible.”

The closing, first reported on Banker & Tradesman’s Web site last week, comes nearly three months after Ronald R. Dion, 61, the firm’s chairman and chief executive, died of a heart attack.

Maglia insisted that the closing had nothing to do with the region’s failing residential real estate market. He said the firm, which has offices at 73 Tremont St. and 283 Dartmouth St., still has about a dozen listings priced from $439,000 to $1.1 million.

“Ron was jogging and dropped dead of a heart attack,” Maglia said. “His son had been working here but didn’t want to take over.”

Tracy Campion, a former office manager and longtime broker, said the agency closed, in part, due to lack of business.

“They weren’t getting any listings,” she said. “I feel very bad. I worked there for more than two decades.”

Jeannemarie Conley, managing director of R.M. Bradley Residential, said in an e-mail to Banker & Tradesman last Monday that “R.M. Bradley was on track for another successful year. It was the family’s decision to discontinue the residential brokerage business.”

Conley disputed assertions that the company lacked listings. She said that 10 properties priced from $450,000 to more than $10 million were transferred to another company.

Beth Dickerson, principal of Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty and a former R.M. Bradley broker, said the closing means there will be one less boutique real estate company in Boston.

“Tracy Campion was the force behind R.M Bradley’s success and when she left, most of us wondered how much longer it would last,” said Dickerson.

Donald Campbell, the firm’s executive vice president, did not return repeated calls seeking comment.

A company spokesman said while the residential side of the business is closing, the commercial division and the R.M. Bradley name are for sale. A sale agreement is “imminent,” he said.