Ogden M Phipps

Mr. Phipps was the central figure in a family dynasty built on steel, investment banking and the breeding and racing of horses. He was the grandson of Henry Phipps, the partner of the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie; the son of Henry Carnegie Phipps and Gladys Livingston Mills Phipps (his mother owned the Wheatley Stable); and the father of Ogden Mills Phipps, known as Dinny, who succeeded him as chairman of the Jockey Club and master of the Phipps racing stable. He graduated from St. Paul's in New Hampshire and then Harvard in 1931. During World War II, he was a Navy officer, rising to the rank of commander. In the investment banking business, he rose to become a partner in Smith Barney, and from 1958 to 1978 he was chairman of the Bessemer Trust Company, the private bank that held the family fortune. The Bessemer Trust Company was founded in 1907 with the proceeds of the sale of United States Steel. For its first 68 years, Bessemer handled only the accounts of the descendants of Henry Phipps. In a 1995 study of Bessemer, The American Banker said that by 1975 the Phipps family assets in the company were worth $1 billion. In 1937 he married Lillian Bostwick, an equestrienne who also drove trotting horses. Her brother, Pete Bostwick, was an outstanding steeplechase jockey and polo player. Another brother, Dunbar, was her partner in owning trotters, and together they raced the legendary Noble Hanover. Lillian Phipps died in 1987. Mr. Phipps is survived by two sons, Robert L. Phipps, of Ridgeland, S.C., and Ogden Mills Phipps, of Palm Beach; a daughter, Cynthia Phipps, of New York; seven grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and a sister, Sonia Seherr-Thoss of Litchfield, Conn.