Harlow Carpenter

CARPENTER, Harlow Co-founder and Vice President of the Sugarbush Ski Area and Sugarbush Golf Club in Warren, Vermont and grandson of Harlow E. Bundy, founder of the Bundy Time Recording Company which later became IBM, died on March 13, 2009 in Exeter, NH, where he lived. He was 82 years old. The cause was lung failure. Born in Los Angeles on October 20, 1926, Carpenter was a noted Modernist sculptor and architect. He received a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in 1956. At his suggestion, his parents, Alfred and Helen Bundy Carpenter, donated the building known as the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts in 1961 to Harvard University, which is to this day the only building in the United States designed by the Swiss-French Modernist architect, Le Corbusier. In the late 1950s, Carpenter moved to Vermont where he became the largest financial investor of the founding team for the Sugarbush Ski Area and Sugarbush Golf Club in Warren, Vermont. With his strong vision for bringing the arts to rural Vermont, he later founded, designed and curated for the Bundy Art Gallery in 1962 in Waitsfield. In addition to housing his private Modern and contemporary art collection, the Gallery promoted the work of younger artists as well as provided the venue for the Vermont Symphony's summer concert series. The Bundy also served as a small, experimental school for K-6th graders during the academic year. Carpenter's early commitment to the environment was evidenced by the installation of the area's first wind generator, built on the Gallery's property. Carpenter was a renowned Modernist sculptor in New England, the subject of two television documentaries whose work was exhibited in numerous shows and exhibitions. His medium of choice was welded metal, composed mostly from used farm equipment. Carpenter served in the US Army during World War II where he was based in the Marshall Islands at the time of first atomic bomb tests. He was an avid horseman, founding the Sugarbush Polo Club in Vermont as well as the Green Mountain Hounds Fox Hunt. Later when he moved to Massachusetts and New Hampshire, he was an active participant in the Myopia Hunt and Myopia Polo in Hamilton, MA as well as several hunts in the Orange, VA area. He is survived, loved and missed by his wife, Barbara Carpenter, his stepson Nicholas Parker, his son Sebastian Carpenter, daughter Julia Carpenter, and three grandchildren. He is also survived by stepdaughter Lily Minas and stepson Matthew Esmiol. A celebration of his life will take place at his farm in Kensington, NH on April 26th at 1 pm. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to OdysseyNH.