(Bloomberg) — Thomas H. Lee started his senior yr of Harvard organising a desk with an indication: “Meet Tom Lee.”
That was his novel presence at registration day for extracurricular golf equipment like chess, Shakespeare and astrophysics. Lee, in line with household lore, was in search of a girlfriend (and, the story goes, discovered one). Inevitably, he additionally put himself on the market to assemble fascinating and individuals — the sort who’d strategy such a sales space with optimistic curiosity — into his orbit.
All of it got here to startling finish final week when he shot himself within the rest room of his household workplace. Lee, as open as he was all through his life, didn’t depart a be aware.
Mates, household, colleagues and friends, together with Invoice and Hillary Clinton, Izzy Englander and Edgar Bronfman, gathered Monday for a service in Manhattan on the Lincoln Heart for the Performing Arts to pay tribute to the personal fairness pioneer. They, and others from afar, are left to marvel what would drive somebody who was rich, had a household and, by all accounts, at all times loved life, to finish it in such a stunning method at age 78.
Learn extra: Thomas Lee’s Agency Thrust Into Highlight After Founder’s Dying
The tales pour out throughout interviews of greater than a dozen individuals in his universe. They inform of the methods Lee shared the fortune he constructed and made others really feel vital in his eyes.
Massive Tipper
Lee usually stated he began life on third base, rising up in Boston within the Nineteen Fifties with well-to-do mother and father. He labored onerous, and appreciated others who did the identical. Among the many most recurring reminiscences of these near him: He wasn’t stingy together with his cash or his time.
He virtually compulsively handed out suggestions, even when circumstances fell far outdoors standard rituals — to a neighbor’s garden crew for a yard he loved, or to the peanut peddler in Central Park, the place he’d stroll on a sunny afternoon.
Lee grew to become a well-regarded philanthropist, following within the footsteps of his mother and father and others in Boston. He served on boards of the Whitney Museum of American Artwork, Lincoln Heart, NYU Langone Well being and Brandeis College. He developed into an avid artwork collector, proudly owning works by artists together with Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.
However flaunting his huge wealth for private achieve was by no means a lot his type.
“He was by no means a man who appeared that interested by cash for cash’s sake,” stated Peter Solomon, founding father of funding financial institution Solomon Companions.
Final Connector
This stance partially displays how he maneuvered all through his profession; he appreciated the concepts, the educational, the individuals. It additionally reveals how his Boston roots made him totally different from his Wall Avenue counterparts.
In his 30s, after beginning his personal firm, Lee purchased a Rolex watch. However he decided it was too showy for Boston, so he bought it to his greatest good friend, Lewis Henkind, who was dwelling in New York on the time. That sort of social intelligence, evident all through his life, led him to as soon as joke a couple of years in the past that individuals come to him for “wealthy classes.”
Lee schmoozed with tailors and bartenders, his tennis professional and chef, and, in fact, these on Wall Avenue. Some have been richer with greater companies, some a lot much less so. Both method, the bond from being pioneers within the business was sturdy.
Lee embraced the function of host with gusto, whether or not in his Manhattan condo, showcasing his pal, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, or on the porch of his East Hampton house for the Milken Institute’s annual late-summer occasions.
“He was the one which introduced the chairs out, he wished to ensure everybody may hear,” stated Michael Milken, the billionaire junk-bond-king-turned-philanthropist. He’d additionally spend time at his tennis courtroom beaming as he watched his son Jesse play in Milken’s Prostate Most cancers Basis match.
No Reply
Milken, who knew Lee for some 40 years, and Henkind, who knew him for 63 years since assembly on a teen journey to Israel, have no reply for why Lee would take his life. That they had talked with him earlier this month, pissed off they’d be lacking one another of their travels. Lee went to Los Angeles for the Grammys weekend, whereas Milken headed to Palm Seashore and Miami for the Florida model of his dialogues.
“I’m having a tough time understanding this,” Milken stated. “It’s onerous to reconcile. He was profitable at enterprise as a result of he was profitable at life.”
Bob Kraft, whose late spouse Myra was a childhood good friend of Lee’s, was equally as perplexed, given his upbeat demeanor.
“I’ve received to inform you this: my full data of Tommy was at all times smiling or saying one thing good, or making an attempt to do one thing good, and bringing individuals collectively,” he stated. “I by no means heard him say a nasty phrase about anybody.”
That doesn’t imply he wasn’t dealing with the truth of growing older, of slowing down, of seeing his kids have kids. He went on diets all through his life, together with dropping roughly 30 kilos over the previous few years.
Wanting Ahead
But he was at all times trying ahead: he had tee occasions set on his calendar for the approaching days. Only a few weeks in the past, he met with an architect to go over the main points of a renovation in East Hampton. Kraft and others had noticed Lee on his lengthy walks round Palm Seashore.
Lee was additionally somebody who would type lifelong bonds with these near him.
Nearly 10 years in the past, Lee Fairness associate Doug Schreiber had a stroke at age 39. Lee and the entire agency instantly rallied round Doug, his spouse Amy and their youngsters.
With their dad nonetheless in a hospital mattress after 10 months, Amy stated she was decided to arrange one thing enjoyable for Jordan and Jackson, ages 4 and seven, in New York. Lee summoned them to satisfy at his helicopter. He rode with the youngsters, exhibiting them the Statue of Liberty and the remainder of town from above.
Lee finally satisfied Amy, her mother and father and the youngsters to take a trip he organized at his house on the Breakers in Palm Seashore. When it grew to become an annual spring break ritual, he frolicked with them day by day within the cabana he’d reserved, which he made positive was full of toys, kid-friendly meals and cartoons enjoying on TV. He’d supply Amy a break, watching the youngsters himself.
As the youngsters received taller, their friendship with Lee grew. He insisted on giving Jackson his first driving classes — on a golf cart — and walked across the Breakers holding Jordan’s hand. She finally received a driving lesson, too.
Final yr, Jackson had turned 15, and Jordan 12. Lee determined the crew was prepared for a brand new journey.
“Tom stated: ‘Amy, the youngsters are going to be bored on the Breakers sitting by the pool,” Amy Schreiber stated. “Take them someplace new.”
To contact the writer of this story:
Amanda L Gordon in New York at [email protected]