Lawrence Lewis Jr.

Lewis died on April 3, 1995 at his home in Richmond, Virginia at the age of 76. He was honored posthumously by the State of Florida as a Great Floridian in 2000. Lewis Auditorium and Lewis House at Flagler College are named in his honor. The Lewis Chair of Architecture at the University of Virginia and the Lawrence Lewis Jr. Park in Charles City, Virginia also bear his name.

In 1963 administrators at Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachusetts approached Lewis about buying the Ponce Hotel to open a women’s college in St. Augustine; Lewis agreed to the sale on the condition that the school be called Flagler College. The first iteration of the college failed, but was reorganized in 1968 and still operates today.

Lewis attended Woodberry Forest School in Orange, Virginia and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He studied architecture and was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and secret society Eli Banana. He withdrew from college in 1941 and enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was initially stationed at Fort Hood in Texas and actively served in Italy where he was wounded. He received three battle stars and two Purple Hearts for his service.

Lawrence Lewis Jr. (1918-1995) was an American businessman, hotelier, philanthropist, and benefactor remembered for his role in founding Flagler College.

Lawrence Lewis Jr. was born on July 6, 1918, in Wilmington, North Carolina to Louise Wise Lewis Francis and Lawrence Lewis Sr. When Lewis was an infant, his family moved to St. Augustine, Florida and lived at Kirkside, Henry Flagler’s former home, which Lewis’s mother had inherited as Flagler’s niece.