Lawrence Schmidlapp, longtime mayor of Centre Island who 'everybody loved,' dies at 80

Lawrence Schmidlapp, the longtime mayor of the Village of Centre Island and a tireless environmental advocate, died Saturday after a battle with cholangiocarcinoma, his wife said. He was 80.

"Everybody loved Larry," his wife, Carol Schmidlapp said. "He had a big personality. He always had everybody else’s interests at heart."

Schmidlapp had served as mayor of the village of about 400 people since 2009, but his dedication to public service dates back decades.

In a statement, Billy Joel and his wife Alexis said: "Mayor Schmidlapp was a wonderful man and member of our community. He made our time with him on the island so pleasant. Our work with the village was always a collaboration and was solution-oriented. We will miss him and we send our condolences to his family and all the residents he touched on Centre Island."

Schmidlapp was a founding member of Friends of the Bay, a nonprofit launched in 1987 dedicated to protecting and preserving the Oyster Bay/Cold Spring Harbor estuary and watershed. Schmidlapp, who remained a member of the group’s advisory board until his death, was motivated by his love of the water, said Beth Costello, president emerita of Friends of the Bay, in an interview.

"He was somebody who would stop to look. He would stop to admire and kind of take it in, soak it in," Costello said. "He was one of those people that picked up his head and looked, to see and appreciate what was out there and what a treasure it was. And I think he felt a very strong commitment to preserving it."

Schmidlapp was also a member of the North Shore Land Alliance’s board of trustees.

He was born Feb. 5, 1945 in Brigham City, Utah, where he lived before his family moved to Centre Island when he was 4. Schmidlapp graduated from Millbrook School, a boarding school in Dutchess County, in 1963 and from Kenyon College in Ohio in 1967 with a bachelor’s degree in economics. He then served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

He was working as a bond dealer at Merrill Lynch in 1983 when he was profiled in the book "America’s Richest Bachelors: Who They Are — How to Reach Them."

"You have so many of the good things in life and no one to share them with," Schmidlapp, then 38, told Newsday at the time.

He soon started dating Carol, whom he married in November 1984. They raised their children Charlotte, Lawrence and Carl in Centre Island, next door to the house in which he grew up.

Schmidlapp served as a vice president at JPMorgan Chase from 1992 until his retirement in 2008. The following year, he was elected mayor. Three years into his time in office, Centre Island was hit hard by Superstorm Sandy. Schmidlapp went from home to home with a chain saw, clearing his residents’ driveways of fallen trees, said John Taylor, a former trustee of the neighboring village of Bayville, in an interview.

Indeed, he was a hands-on mayor. During the winter, Schmidlapp was known to plow driveways, and throughout the year he would manually mark pot holes for road service to fix. 

"It’s a sad day for Centre Island," Taylor said. "He was a very good mayor who did his best for the community."

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) said Schmidlapp was an "exceptional person” whom he had known for nearly 30 years, dating back to when Suozzi was mayor of Glen Cove.

“He was an old school public servant who just wanted to try and help people,” Suozzi said. “He will be very missed.”

Schmidlapp won re-election in June after a legal challenge from candidate Andrew Woodstock, who mounted an unsuccessful write-in campaign after being disqualified from the ballot by the village. He told Newsday after the election he would not run again.

Schmidlapp was "happiest in or around the water," his son Lawrence M. Schmidlapp said in an emailed statement.

"His favorite spot in the world was looking out over Oyster Bay harbor," his son said. "The same spot where he lived his last days."

Besides his wife and son, Schmidlapp is also survived by his other children; Charlotte E. Schmidlapp, and Carl J. Schmidlapp IV; his two grandchildren and his siblings Carl J. Schmidlapp III, Barbara S. Dembergh, and J. Alison Douglas. He was preceded in death by his brother, Allan C. Schmidlapp.

By Joshua Needelman

joshua.needelman@newsday.com

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.