L. Gordon Hamersley Jr. of Southampton and Sorrento, Maine, died on July 28 in Ellsworth, Maine. He was 80.
Born January 14, 1928, in Manhattan, he spent his early years in New York City, Tuxedo Park, and Southampton. A graduate of St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Massachusetts, and Harvard, he served four years in the U.S. Marine Corps reserves. He also attended the American Institute of Banking, Babson College, Columbia Business School, and New York Business School.
His business career began with the First National Bank of New York, but after five years he changed to the advertising and public relations agency Doremus and Company, where he was a vice president of financial accounts. During that time, Mr. Hamersley lived in Irvington, where he was an active tennis player, a member of the Ardsley Curling Club and attended St. Barnabas Episcopal Church.
In 1971, he moved his family to the mid-Hudson region, living in Red Hook and then Hyde Park, continuing his career in public relations until becoming a real estate broker in 1975. He moved to Southampton in 1980 and was vice president of Douglas Elliman and a manager of its Hamptons real estate office. Later the company became part of Allan M. Schneider Associates Inc., where Mr. Hamersley maintained his license in retirement.
Always interested in community planning, he served on zoning and planning boards in both Westchester and Dutchess counties. He was also a consultant for Mid-Hudson Pattern for Progress and president of Hudson River Heritage, an organization concerned with preservation of historic river properties. In his later years, while he and his wife divided their time between homes in Southampton and Sorrento, Maine, he was a trustee for the South Fork-Shelter Island chapter of The Nature Conservancy and a member of the Frenchman Bay Conservancy in Maine.
He is survived by his wife, Madeline H. Hamersley; four children from his first marriage to Elsey Van Kleeck of Poughkeepsie, Nicholas B. Hamersley of Huntington, the Reverend Andrew C. Hamersley of New Jersey, L. Gordon Hamersley III of Maine, and Catherine V.K. Helman of Connecticut; a stepson, Joseph J. Mihok of Schenectady; five grandchildren, Samantha and James Hooper-Hamersley, Sophie Hamersley and Jake and Timothy Helman; and three step-grandchildren, Justin, Travis, and Stacie Mihok.
Services will be private.
In lieu of flowers, donations to Down East Family YMCA, P.O. Box 25, Ellsworth, ME 04605 or to an environmental or medical organization of choice would be appreciated by the family.
on Jul 29, 2008