Dancing with the Smiths
Oil man’s illnesses may slow them down, but nothing can stop loving couple’s philanthropic bent
Lester and Sue Smith met in the early ’90s, when Cupid’s arrow struck in the form of a purple bikini.
“I’d taken up scuba diving and went on a dive trip with a group of people to Bonaire, which is off the coast of Venezuela,” Lester says. “She came out on the dock, and my friend, world champion Latin dancer Donnie Burns, says I was gobsmacked.”
Sue contends that they’d met before, but Lester just doesn’t remember.
Soon after they met, Lester hired the West Virginia-born interior designer to redecorate his office. Sue liked that the famed wildcatter was a great listener, showed genuine interest in what she had to say, and made her laugh.
But for Lester, it was that bikini. After a few years of dating, they decided to get married and immediately joined a dance studio on Woodway. The betrothed duo wanted to waltz during their wedding at the old Petroleum Club.
“We got hooked and were proficient enough that we went to Vienna on honeymoon, where we danced the Americanstyle Viennese waltz,” Lester says. “(It’s) different from the Viennese waltz. They do little quick turns — called French turns — and we did the long sweeping turning. So, we’d dance on the out(skirts) of the ballroom.”
They returned to Austria as newlyweds for the millennium and resumed the Viennese waltz at a Hofburg palace. “Sue had on this beautiful red gown, and rumor had it that (she) was a baroness … until she opened her mouth. We found that out a couple days later at another party,” Lester says with a chuckle.
For nearly nine years, their lives revolved around competitive dance. Two to four hours of daily practice, five days a week were not uncommon. Even on weekends, the Smiths frequented hot dance spots such as the now-shuttered Mercury Room.
But in 2003, they had to hang up their dancing shoes: Lester needed hipreplacement surgery, and Sue began designing their new home. Two years later, he got a diagnosis of bladder and prostate cancer.
“That was the first time Baylor-St. Luke’s saved my life,” Lester says. “I had this eight-hour surgery, they removed my bladder, threw it in the trash can and built a new one out of my large intestine.”
He recovered and was in the clear — though not out of the woods — for nearly a decade. In that time, the couple shifted focus to health care-based giving, establishing the Lester and Sue Smith Foundation. Their first initiative, the Honor Your Father Campaign for Prostate Cancer Research, raised $6.4 million and helped establish the Lester and Sue Smith Urologic Clinic at the Baylor College of Medicine.
As co-chairs of two consecutive Baylor galas, the Smiths reverted to their dancing roots with festive black-tie themes, including “Club Fever” and “Noche Caliente.” None, however, could top “Disco Legends” benefiting the Texas Children’s Cancer Center; with $32.26 million raised, the evening became the largest single fundraiser in Houston’s history.
Still, the clock was ticking. And no dollar amount could prevent the inevitable.
‘Fun couple’ setbacks
The Smith’s Mediterranean-style estate sits on more than 50,000 acres of bayoubacked land at the end of a gated cul-de-sac.
“We really built (the house) for entertaining and the ballroom. You know, for parties,” Sue says. And dancing.
She and Lester spent nearly nine years competing as amateur-level, senior-division ballroom dancers. “When we would have events here, we were in the dance business. So, we’d bring in the top world-class dancers.”
Within Houston’s oft-formal philanthropic circles, the Smiths are known as the “fun couple.” She’s easy to spot in a crowd, with her streaked dark coif and a penchant for bias-cut silhouettes over ballgowns. Her husband, despite being 74, is no stranger to sporting an Afro wig or double earrings for the right occasion. And they were always first to hit the dance floor.
“All of our friends were dance friends, we were so enthralled by it,” Sue says. “We lived and breathed it, and I think that everybody else thought we were terribly boring.”
It’s unlikely the pair has ever been called “boring.”
These days, though, the grounds at their home are quiet and guests are sparse. It’s been that way ever since Lester’s double-lung transplant last summer.
Lester has attempted to outpace his diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis, a type of lung disease, for eight years. There’s a Lester Smith Medical Research Institute in San Antonio, where biomedical engineers work exclusively on stem cell projects that he hoped would curtail his need for further surgery. He also funds the University of Miami’s mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) research programs.
For a time, MSC (embryonic connective tissue) injections improved his condition. Then in April 2016, just three months before Lester’s transplant operation, he and Sue presented a $10.2 milliondollar check to establish the Lung Institute at Baylor College of Medicine.
“What good is the money if you’re not around to spend it?” he says.
But, as the saying goes, money can’t buy happiness, or a clean bill of health.
Sue recalls summers in Aspen, Colo., where their family has a home, when Lester could no longer endure long hikes. He suddenly lacked the stamina.
By 2015, Lester wore an oxygen mask full time; that, he decided, was the last year they would spend in Colorado.
‘Strong as horseradish’
Lester doesn’t remember coming out of his lung-transplant surgery or regaining consciousness.
But he does recall the long recovery, a slow and incremental process that required him to stay in the hospital for more than 100 days.
Sue was by his side for all but one of those days.
“They couldn’t release him because he had a hard time making progress. Or, the progress was so miniscule that he’d be depressed because he couldn’t see it,” she says. “I found this doctor group, the River Oaks Doctors Group, that could care for him at home, so I set a date. Then he brightened up and started working harder.”
Lester was released on Nov. 2; Sue says that he smiled the entire ambulance ride home and hasn’t stopped since.
There’s now an ICUlike set-up in the Smiths’ master suite. It’s a far cry from their partyprep days, but they don’t mind. Lester can relax in his own chair and watch his own television. Most of his muscles have atrophied, so a personal trainer visits the house three times a week, and Lester exercises at the Houstonian on off days. He also has a speech therapist and occasionally goes into the office.
Most important, the spirited oil man has his life back. And a pair of 30-year-old lungs.
“I have an opportunity to be with my wife and do more philanthropic work,” he says. “I didn’t have any idea that she was that strong. Sue’s as strong as horseradish.”
And she’s not about to lose her husband. From here on out, the Smith household will run a little differently, even if that means less dancing.
“We’ve backed off of going to so many galas and will do more intimate entertaining. Lester wants to do some kind of high school reunion and is already calling people,” Sue says. “Our life will change, but I think that’s a good thing. It’s time.”