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COPYRIGHT 2002 Fairchild Publications, Inc.
Will the real Lynn Forester de Rothschild please stand up? A pretty blonde with flawless skin who looks younger than her 48 years, she radiates a bubbly charm that might make you think she's a miraculously preserved cheerleader, or frankly, a bit of a ditz, But then a second later, switching to entrepreneur mode, she authoritatively recounts how she became the first person in the U.S. to apply for broadband local common carrier licenses at 18 GHz and begins throwing out such topics as the electromagnetic spectrum, T-1/E-1 equivalent lines and bundled IT solutions until your head swivels.
During the Nineties, Rothschild made a fortune through various telecom ventures, doubtless helped by her ability to both enchant and annihilate, each at the appropriate times. "In her personal life she is fun, charming and cheerful," says her longtime friend Henry Kissinger, who has also sat on the board of one of her companies. "In business, she is hard as nails and focused. It's a rare combination."
Alas, after two major successes, Rothschild's most recent enterprise went the way of all dot-coins. But Rothschild, who had everything but love during the go-go Nineties, has now found wedded bliss--which came with a tide, to boot. Since her marriage 18 months ago to Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, that's Lady de Rothschild to you. But here's the most envy-provoking part: She also has acquired what has been called the most beautiful apartment in New York.
Sitting down with her on a recent afternoon in the new pad--an 18th-floor duplex in River House that was previously owned by Carter Burden and Libet Johnson--it's hard to begrudge her the excess of good fortune, thanks to her affability and occasional self-deprecations. (The Chateau Lafitte she pours--"the family wine," as she calls it--and the heaping bowl of beluga don't hurt, either.)
Brought up in an all-American, middle-class family in white-picket-fence Oradell, New Jersey, Rothschild built an impressive resume quickly: Pomona College; a job in Washington with Daniel Patrick Moynihan; Columbia Law; an associateship at the white-shoe firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett In 1983 Rothschild married New York City politico Andrew Stein, with whom she has two boys, Jake and Ben, now 14 and 16, but the marriage ended after 10 years.
Rothschild moved to the business world in 1984, when she became executive vice president for development at John Kluge's Metromedia. On the front line of the nascent cellular communications business, she watched closely as Kluge, pre-Bill Gates, made himself the richest man in America. "John wasn't just budding a company, he was building an industry," says Rothschild.
After...
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