John H. Fitzpatrick, 88

07/23/2011

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — John Hitchcock "Jack" Fitzpatrick, 88, politician, businessman and cultural philanthropist, died peacefully at his Stockbridge home on Saturday, July 23, 2011. A former state senator and bulwark of the Republican Party in the Berkshires, he and his wife of 66 years, the former Jane Hayes Pratt, were the founders of Country Curtains and the Red Lion Inn. Born in Quincy on April 5, 1923, son of Clarence E. and Clara Hitchcock Fitzpatrick, his father died when he was a year old and his mother took him and his older sister, Joanne, to Rome for four years. His mother married lawyer and later Vermont Attorney General Lawrence Jones of Rutland. Mr. Fitzpatrick attended Rutland High School and graduated from Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. He attended Williams College for a year before entering the service and later graduated from Middlebury (Vt.) College and, in 1951, he received his law degree from Boston University. An Army veteran of World War II, he spent three years in the 102nd Infantry Division in the European theater, and was awarded a Bronze Star in 1945. Mr. Fitzpatrick, like his father, a department store owners, entered the drygoods business with the Lincoln Stores in Quincy. He was later transferred to Pittsfield and he and his wife bought a large house on Main Street in Stockbridge to host the mail-order curtain business they started in 1956. Country Curtains was the country's first specialty mail-order curtain company and its success marked the Fitzpatricks as pioneers and role models in the catalog industry. The company has grown expononentially, outgrowing a number of spaces, including The Red Lion Inn and its subsequent additions. It now has 26 stores in 13 states, two curtain factories and employs hundreds. His family said he felt enormous affection for and gratitude toward the employees who were partners in his success. The Fitzpatricks bought the inn in May 1969, saving it from demolition and transforming it into a touchstone of life in the bucolic Berkshires, and a gathering place for the culturally and politically connected. He founded the Housatonic Curtain Co. in 1974 and, in 1980, the couple purchased the decaying Blantyre Castle estate and restored it into a hotel. The inns have been left in his daughters' hands: Ann Fitzpatrick Brown owns and operates Blantyre and Nancy Jane Fitzpatrick owns and operates The Red Lion Inn. Mr. Fitzpatrick was a "diehard" Republican who ran unsuccessfully for state senator in 1972 against Andrea Nuciforo but won the special election the following year to fill his seat when Nuciforo became a judge. He served the 1st Berkshire District in the State House for seven years. In 1974, he was chosen as one of four Legislators of the Year by the Massachusetts League of Cities and Towns. He made many lasting friendships on both sides of the aisle. Active in the community, he started skiing and skating programs for youngsters, was a president of the Stockbridge Golf Club and a corporator of the Trustees of Reservations, and played Santa Claus for 25 years at The Red Lion Inn. He started the Red Lion Inn Pro Am Invitational Golf Tournament (later the Norman Rockwell Red Lion Inn Tournament) and was avid fan of the New England teams. The Laurel Hill Association bestowed its first Community Service Award to Mr. Fitzpatrick in 1989. He received many citations from the state, including the Golden Dome Citation for distinguished service, and received honorary doctorates from North Adams State College (now Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts), Green Mountain College (his mother's alma mater) and Westfield State University. In August 2010, the town green adjacent to The Red Lion Inn was named for the couple. The Fitzpatricks were widely known for their philanthropy, supporting the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Berkshire Theatre Festival, the Norman Rockwell Museum, Jacob's Pillow, Shakespeare & Company, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts, the Mahaiwe Performing Art Center, the Colonial Theatre and the United Way among others. Mr. Fitzpatrick was proudest, however, of creating hundreds of jobs here in the Berkshires at Country Curtains and the inns, in 26 Country Curtains stores in 13 states, and at curtain factories in Housatonic and in West Hartford, Conn. He and his wife, whom he first dated at Rutland High, were married on Sept. 7, 1944, at The Little Church Around the Corner in New York City. In addition to his wife and daughters, he leaves two grandsons, Casey M. Rothstein-Fitzpatrick and Alexander John F. Brown; three stepchildren, Sarah Eustis, Michael Rothstein and Morgan Russell and husband, Lincoln; and nieces and nephews. FUNERAL NOTICE — A memorial service celebrating the life of Mr. Fitzpatrick will be held Monday, Aug. 8, at 3 p.m. at First Congregational Church on Main Street in Stockbridge.

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John H. Fitzpatrick, 88

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