Beyond Philanthropy, Lenfests Show Personal Commitment

Ducks · May 20, 2009

This story was in the Sunday edition of the "Philadelphia Inquirer" two weeks ago. I waffled about posting it because it's long... but it's really a good story. I think I would like the Lenfests.

By Peter Dobrin
Inquirer Culture Writer

When Gerry and Marguerite Lenfest sit still long enough to accept the Philadelphia Award this week, it will be entirely appropriate to fill the air with honorifics and superlatives:

The big cash behind the expansion of the Curtis Institute of Music. On track to become the most generous donors in the history of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

But the unseen hands of the Lenfests as civic catalysts have been every bit as deft as the ones signing checks.

"He does not give just for the sake of giving. He becomes involved in the things he gives to. He's a very smart fellow," said Ralph J. Roberts, a longtime friend and, as founder of Comcast Corp., former business rival.

"Gerry draws all his friends into his other philanthropic activities," said Columbia University president Lee C. Bollinger. "I feel like I've done more for the Curtis Institute of Music than I've done for any nonprofit institution other than Columbia."

It's hard to believe now, but the Lenfest name scarcely would have stirred the lust of fund-raisers a decade ago. Then, in 2000, the family's net worth jumped $1.2 billion when Harold FitzGerald "Gerry" Lenfest sold his cable business, the Philadelphia region's largest.

The couple have worn their wealth as if it's a temporary condition, which - at least in scale - it is: The Lenfests decided to distribute the vast majority of their proceeds to charity; now, nine years later, they are coming to the end of a spectacular philanthropic spree that has given away or committed nearly $800 million.
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The rich may not be like you and me, but somehow the Lenfests never got the message.

Recently Marguerite thrust a ceremonial shovel in the ground to mark construction of the Curtis Institute annex, then returned to the couple's condo on nearby Rittenhouse Square to wonder aloud about where to tote her vacuum cleaner for repairs.

She power washes their deck. When they fly to Florida, it's in coach. They don't have a maid or a cook. Most of the year they live in the same 2,800-square-foot house in a suburb north of Philadelphia that they bought in 1966 for $35,000.
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By the end of the '90s, the privately held Lenfest company had become the region's largest cable operator, with 1.2 million subscribers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, and its presence in Comcast's backyard made it an attractive prospect. In a series of complex negotiations, Lenfest Communications sold its controlling half of the company to AT&T - which already owned the other half - for $2.2 billion; AT&T, on the same day, dealt the company to Comcast.

What happened after the sale was one unusual decision after another.

Lenfest took $60 million and distributed half to rank-and-file staff and half to middle and top management. "They had built the company," he explained. "I've been very fortunate in life to have had people around me who are good at what they are doing."
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Similarly, the two share loyalty to a modest lifestyle. Yes, they have some toys - a yacht, a house in Florida. And they once made plans to move; 58 acres in Unionville were bought, an architect hired, a hole dug, and construction begun.

Then Lenfest asked his architect how big the house would be. "He said, 'Well, 13,000 square feet, before we fix up the basement.' I thought for a moment, and I said, 'You know what? Fill up the hole.' So I had the most expensive hole in Chester County. We didn't build the house."
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