Samuel Irving “Si” Newhouse, Jr., the media mogul who published periodicals ranging from glossy magazines such as The New Yorker to the original Long Island Press daily newspaper, died Sunday. He was 89.
The Manhattan resident and his brother, Donald, inherited their father’s business, the New York City-based Advance Publications, which owns dozens of newspapers nationwide and Condé Nast, the media group that publishes Vanity Fair, Vogue, Glamour and Wired, among many other well-read magazines.
“I flounder when people ask me, ‘What would you do?’” Newhouse once told The New York Times. “We try to hire people with intelligence and energy…Then they start to edit, and the magazine comes out in ways that are a total surpise to everyone.”
Throughout their career, Si and his brother built Advance Publications into one of the largest privately held companies in the nation. It’s worth a reported $12 billion.
After the Staten Island Advance, among the first local newspapers that the Newhouse family purchased was the Long Island Daily Press. But after a recession and standoff with its union, the family shut the Press down in 1977, two years before Si Newhouse Sr. died. The title was revived as an alternative newsweekly in 2003 and last month was relaunched as a monthly news and lifestyle magazine.
Si, also a renowned art collector, is survived by his wife, Victoria Newhouse, his brother, Donald Newhouse, two children, Samuel I. Newhouse III and Pamela Mensch, and five grandchildren. He was predeceased by his son, Wynn Newhouse.
The Newhouse family will hold a private service and this week and a memorial service will be scheduled at a future date. The family asks that contributions in his honor be made to the Association for Frontotemperal Degeneration, Radnor Station Building 2, Suite 320, 290 King of Prussia Road, Radnor, PA 19087.
