Paid Announcement: Anthony Lombardo, a retired designer and manufacturer of fine furniture and decorative wall paneling, died on October 20 at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, NY, after undergoing emergency gastrointestinal surgery. Mr. Lombardo, who lived on Shepherd’s Lane in Amagansett for more than 30 years, and later at Windmill Village, was 92.
Mr. Lombardo grew up and worked most of his life in New York City. He raised two daughters, Suzanne and Lisa, in Ardsley, New York, with his wife Jeanne who predeceased him in 2007. When they came to the east end of Long Island in 1975, the couple was immediately enchanted by the sea. It was at the home he designed and built for his family on Shepherd’s Lane where Mr. Lombardo pursued his passion for painting, cooking, cycling, antique autos, and entertaining.
Always more than a seasonal resident, and renowned for his welcoming, generous and giving spirit, Mr. Lombardo joyously opened his home to family, friends, and friends of friends the whole year round. He was everyone’s timeless “Uncle Tono.”
Mr. Lombardo was born on November 23, 1932, in Canicatti, Sicily. He grew up with his brother Joseph and sister Gina on the east side of Manhattan where he graduated from Seward Park High School and studied at The Student’s Art League. He was a draftsman for Curtis Wright Aviation and served in the US Army in Munich, Germany, during his two year enlistment from 1953-55. He combined an early love of classical music and design skills in the first of his many entrepreneurial ventures, manufacturing cabinetry for high fidelity equipment in the early 1960s. In 1972, he founded Architectural Paneling focusing on high quality room paneling and moulding in homage to classic French and Italian boiserie. Twenty years later he built a second company, Auffrance, which specialized in custom designed case goods and upholstered furniture. He held numerous patents.
The youngest of his siblings who predeceased him, Mr. Lombardo was especially close to his sister Gina during her lifetime. He was easy to spot chauffeuring her and his brother-in-law Lou around East Hampton in one of his many classic Cadillac convertibles. He even had a ragtop Corvair specially modified with a bench seat instead of buckets, so the three could sit side by side by side on their regular jaunts together to Cyril’s Fish House, Bostwick’s By The Sea, or Anthony’s Bird on the Roof and Gosman’s Clam Bar in Montauk. Thanks to his Pirandello-esque goatee and ever present Borsalino hats, he was impossible to miss--in town or on the beach—usually whistling a Puccini tune while sketching or painting.
A long-time Patron of the Metropolitan Opera and New York Philharmonic, Mr. Lombardo had a 1949 Cadillac limousine restored especially for his trips to Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. This was the vehicle of his idol, musician and conductor Arturo Toscanini.
In addition to his daughters and their husbands Rich and Dan, Mr. Lombardo is survived by five grandchildren, Brianna, Chris, Samantha, Patrick and Julia; a nephew Ernest, nieces Jacqueline, Natalie and her husband Fred, grand nieces and nephews Diane, Daniel, John, and Eric, and great nephews Victor and Andre. His nephew John, with whom he shared a birthday, predeceased him one year ago.
Mr. Lombardo’s family has suggested memorial contributions to the Metropolitan Opera at https://www. metopera.org/support/make-a-gift/support-extraordinary-opera/
