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Lawrence Clinton Phipps III September 2, 2016 Colorado Community Media Sept. 22, 2016  The eclectic
life of Lawrence C Phipps III - realtor, rancher, horseman andflamenco guitarist - ended on Friday, September 2, in Denver at the age of 82. Born in Denver on October 28, 1933 to Lawrence C Phipps, Jr. and his second wife Bertha "Tooney" Richmond, he spent his early childhood years growing up in Denver and then at Highlands Ranch in Douglas County. Following his parents divorce in 1938, he moved with his mother to Wyoming, living his teenage years working on cattle and sheep ranches near Sheridan and Buffalo. Lawrence attended Pomfret School in Connecticut and then Princeton University, where he focused on Russian and Turkish language studies. After graduating in 1955, he served in Army Intelligence, stationed primarily in Frankfurt, Germany and additionally working as a translator during the 1958 Lebanon crisis. He was a natural polyglot, with a knack for languages throughout his life, speaking German, Spanish, and French with
proficiency, in addition to Russian, Turkish and Arabic. He was a lifelong
student of history, which developed his gifts for
storytelling. Following his service in the Army, Lawrence returned to
Denver to begin his career as a realtor and pursue other entrepreneurial
ventures. He eventually started his eponymous brokerage, Lawrence Phipps Real
Estate, specializing in commercial real estate, and worked more recently as a broker for Rocky Mountain Realty. He encountered flamenco music during his college years and it quickly became one of his many lifelong passions. He
studied guitar under gypsy prodigy Rene Heredia for 25 years in Denver. In
this era, he travelled to Spain annually to seek out flamenco artists and collect guitars. As a patron of the flamenco arts, Lawrence hosted travelling flamenco guitarists, singers and dancers at his Victorian house in Capitol Hill across the 1970s and1980s. These years are remembered for lively
Wednesday night parties every week, attended by people from all walks of
life, where flamenco jam sessions would spontaneously fire up in the early
hours of the morning. Lawrence was committed to the life of a horseman since his teenage years. He was appointed in 1968 as Joint Master of the
Arapahoe Hunt, a fox hunt revitalized by his father at Highlands Ranch and
then relocated to Lowry Bombing Range. Polo was another of his pursuits. He
played for the Cheyenne Polo Club, one of the earliest teams on the Front
Range, as well as for other local clubs. In both the fox hunt and polo
communities, he is remembered for introducing and welcoming an abundance of new members to the clubs. He moved in the 1980s to the Quarter Circle Bell ranch in Elbert County, where he raised Limousin cattle until his death.
At the ranch, he and his wife Marie resumed the tradition of weekly events by
hosting Tuesday evening dinner parties for friends and neighbors over the last 12 years. He owned and operated the Red Ram Restaurant and Saloon in
historic Georgetown, CO in the 1980s. A man of many hobbies, he was an
avid photographer and restored classic cars, notably Lancias, a Citroën
Traction Avant, along with Diamond T and International trucks. He was a
member of multiple social clubs, including the Denver Club, where he played
squash, the University Club and the Alliance Française. Lawrence is survived by his second wife, Marie-Pascale Foucault, a stained glass painter and conservateur from France to whom he was married for the last twenty years
of his life, and his only son, Lawrence IV, from his first marriage to
Suzanne Newton. He is remembered by many extended social circles of
friends and family for his sharp wit, animated spirit, and gift for telling
stories. Most of all, he possessed a cultivated curiosity about other
people’s lives, continually making new friends by engaging any recent
acquaintance with his inquisitive sense of humor. |
