Peter Lewis is praised at his funeral for his drive, creativity and generosity

AX213_4507_9.JPG

Rabbi Richard Block speaks Tuesday at the funeral of insurance executive Peter B. Lewis, whose body rested in a simply pine casket with a black stetson "Lone Ranger" hat atop the lid.

(Lynn Ischay, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Bracketed by a live New Orleans brass band, speakers at the Tuesday funeral of Peter B. Lewis, the former chairman of Progressive Corp., celebrated his wit, generosity and drive at The Temple-Tifereth Israel in University Circle.

Lewis, who transformed Progressive from a tiny firm to the fourth-largest auto insurance company in the United States, died Saturday afternoon at age 80 of a heart attack at his home in Coconut Grove, Fla.

Under his leadership, Progressive created 26,000 jobs across the nation. Lewis amassed a fortune estimated at $1 billion at his death, and gave away $500 million to Princeton and Case Western Reserve universities, the American Civil Liberties Union and other causes.

His younger brother Dan, also of Coconut Grove, said in his remarks that on Saturday, Lewis slumped in a chair after working out for two hours, spending time with his grandchildren and getting ready to watch a football game in his “man cave.”

More than 500 people attended the funeral in the soaring main sanctuary of the Temple’s landmark 1924 building, which will be owned by CWRU in a cooperative arrangement with the congregation.

Rabbi Richard Block presided, and Cantor Kathryn Sebo sang prayers in Hebrew.

The setting symbolized two of Lewis’ many charitable causes – the Temple itself and CWRU. Following Jewish tradition, Lewis’ body lay in a simple pine box with a six-pointed star on the lid. The casket was placed before the bimah, the reader’s platform from which the Torah is read.

In a personal touch, Lewis’ black Stetson hat, a favorite accessory and a sign of his self-concept as the “Lone Ranger,” lay on the lid.

Attendees at the funeral included Progressive employees and a who’s who of philanthropy, education, medicine and the arts in Cleveland.

Community leaders in the pews included CWRU President Barbara Snyder; Cleveland Clinic President and CEO Toby Cosgrove; Kit Jensen, chief operating officer of Ideastream; Ronn Richard, president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation; and Marvin Krislov, president of Oberlin College.

Other notables included John Podesta, chairman of the Center for American Progress and a former White House chief of staff under President Clinton; and Robert Kerrey, a former governor and U.S. senator of Nebraska.

In addition to his brother, Lewis’ family members in attendance included Janet Rosel Lewis, with whom Lewis eloped in September after a decades-long relationship; his daughter, Ivy, of Princeton, N.J.; sons Adam Joseph, of Aspen, Colo., and Jonathan of Coconut Grove; his ex-wife, Toby Devan Lewis of Shaker Heights; and five grandchildren.

Lewis was remembered during the service as a loving father who never played favorites among his children, a generous philanthropist who remained deeply engaged with his causes after writing a check, and as a corporate leader so scrupulous about ethics that he once refused to hire his brother Dan, when he thought someone else was more qualified.

More than one speaker referred to Lewis’ disarming habit during meetings in recent years of removing the prosthetic leg he used after having lost the lower part of his left leg to a congenital circulatory disorder. It was an example, they suggested, of Lewis’ authenticity and honesty about himself.

And of course, there were many references to Lewis’ longtime love of marijuana, which inspired him to spend millions on legalization campaigns that succeeded recently in Washington and Colorado.

“Wherever he is at this moment, all I can say is, I hope there is a lot of pot around,” said Shirley Tilghman, president emerita of Princeton University.

Princeton, Lewis’ alma mater, was the largest beneficiary of his generosity, receiving $220 million for several large-scale projects, including a science library designed by his friend, the world-famous architect Frank Gehry of Los Angeles.

Tilghman made a point of saying that Lewis served for 14 years as a trustee of the university who “became impatient when he sensed the presence of complacency or incompetence."

Gehry reminisced about his friendship with Lewis, which began in the mid-1980s, when Lewis asked the architect to design a lavish house for him in Lyndhurst.

Frequently evoking laughter, Gehry recounted the oft-told story about how Lewis pulled the plug on the house project after five years, having enjoyed spending time egging Gehry to greater and greater heights – and costs.

Even so, Lewis donated scores of millions of dollars to build the Gehry-designed library at Princeton and the Peter B. Lewis Building for the Weatherhead School of Management at CWRU.

“What a generous guy, huh?” Gehry said. “This courageous business leader genius who changed the insurance industry made a big impact on my work, and I suppose because of that on architecture.”

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, extolled Lewis for his advocacy of liberal causes, as a man who refused to buckle even when 1,000 Progressive clients canceled their policies in a single day to protest the CEO’s political views.

Romero said that Lewis had “an insatiable appetite for all the good things that make life worth living. Beautiful art. Caviar. Champagne. Cutting through the Antarctic waters on the Lone Ranger [Lewis’ 250-foot yacht]. Spectacular specimens of the human form at all his parties. Sparkling, joyful spirited conversation.”

Jenny Frutchy, Lewis’ philanthropic adviser, described the demanding boss for whom she worked for 27 years as a man who “made things that seemed impossible and unthinkable happen.”

Progressive President and CEO Glenn Renwick, whom Lewis chose as his successor in 1999, fought back tears as he saluted the man he called his friend and mentor.

"What Peter and I shared was amazing," Renwick said, describing his weekly phone calls with Lewis. "Like most dumb guys, we never talked about what we meant to one another."

Using an expression in the argot of his native New Zealand that he said Lewis would have understood, Renwick said, "cheers mate, we'll talk on Sundays."

As the funeral concluded, the Mahogany Brass Band of New Orleans struck up a slow dirge with a regular, slow drumbeat as two pallbearers wheeled Lewis’ casket up the central aisle of the Temple and outside into the bitter cold of an approaching snowstorm. A procession was forming for the burial service at Mayfield Cemetery.

Once the casket was outside, the band picked up the tempo by playing “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

It was, as several attendees said, exactly what Lewis had wanted.