NEWS
Elmendorf owner Lampton dies at 94
Posted: Sunday, September 28, 2008 8:53 PM
by Myra Lewyn
Dinwiddie Lampton Jr., an insurance company executive who owned historic Elmendorf Farm, died at his home in Lexington on Thursday. He was 94.
Lampton, was president of Louisville-based American Life and Accident Co., which purchased Elmendorf in 1997 for $5-million. He also owned Hardscuffle Farm in Prospect, Kentucky, site of the prestigious Hardscuffle Steeplechase until 1996. Lampton, who was passionate about land conservation, also owned Beechdale Farm in Pennsylvania.
Lampton spent a lifetime involved with horses, from showing Saddlebreds and playing polo in his youth to riding steeplechasers and competing in amateur races at Churchill Downs before becoming an aficionado of coaching and pleasure driving for three decades.
Often described as the quintessential Southern gentleman, Lampton had zest for life and a flair for the dramatic. His personal motto was “Whip and kick and don’t give up, you’ve got an eternity to rest.”
Lampton also was passionate about politics and set his sites on Kentucky’s highest office in 1987, but he was unsuccessful as a candidate in the Democratic primary. Four years earlier, he was the driver of the four-horse coach that carried newly elected Governor Martha Layne Collins and her entourage in the inaugural parade in Frankfort in 1983.
Lampton is survived by his sons, Dinwiddie III and Mason, and by a daughter, Nana Lampton. His second wife, Elizabeth Whitcomb Lampton, died earlier this year due to injuries sustained in a carriage accident at Elmendorf.
A funeral service for Lampton will be held at 1 p.m. EDT on Monday at The Olmsted at the Masonic Home, 3701 Frankfort Avenue, Louisville. Burial will follow in Cave Hill Cemetery. Visitation will be on Monday from 11:30 a.m. until time of service. Pearson Funeral Home, 149 Breckenridge Lane, in charge of arrangements.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Salvation Army, Culver Military Academy, the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, or the Carriage Museum of America at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.
Myra Lewyn is a Thoroughbred Times TODAY editor
