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HomeNewsLocal newsEntrepreneur, Author, Athlete, Leo Barbel Departs His Beloved Island Home

Entrepreneur, Author, Athlete, Leo Barbel Departs His Beloved Island Home

Shown here in a 2014 photo in his St. Thomas Barbel Enterprises office, Leopold “Leo” Barbel combined business aplomb with a well-honed sense of humor. (Source file photo)

One of the more accomplished players in the development of St. Thomas and the wider Caribbean during the past century has passed away at the age of 90.

Leopold “Leo” Barbel died Jan. 12, 2023. A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday at Turnbull’s Funeral Home.

Friends and relatives remembered him this week as a loving family man, caring friend, engaging story-teller, a savvy albeit low-key businessman, a master poker player, and a man devoted to his island home.

“Everybody knew who Leo Barbel was,” said restaurateur Randolph Maynard.

They got to know each other when Barbel became a regular lunch customer. Soon he also was stopping by after work downtown at Maynard’s Amalie Café.

Although decades apart in age, the two became close friends.

“He was an older figure, like my dad,” Maynard said. “We spent many hours talking politics” and other topics. “He shared a lot of interesting information about his life. … He told me about the history (of the Virgin Islands). … We’d just chat for hours.”

After Barbel finally retired late in life and wasn’t coming downtown regularly, they still kept in touch, calling one another a couple of times a week.

Maynard said Barbel often repeated a bit of wisdom that sticks with him: “You can never afford an enemy.”

The older man was unpretentious, but Maynard said he knows Barbel was actually a highly successful and influential man.

“He had an international reach,” Maynard said. “Real power on the political scene, real power on the financial scene, was not far from him.”

In the 1980s, Eric Matthews partnered with Barbel on a proposal to build a theme park on St. Thomas. “Carifest” never came to life, but he said Barbel believed in it as a way to bring economic opportunity to the territory, especially to youth.

They traveled together to New York, Miami, and Los Angles, looking for investors. Matthews, whose background is in the arts and film, relied on Barbel’s business sense.

“Of all the people I’ve known in my life — and I’m in my early 80’s now, so that’s a lot of people — I feel I learned more from that man than from any other man.”

He said Barbel had a bright wit, loved telling stories, and loved young people.

Michael Kelleher met Barbel through business but, like so many others, became a friend.

“We just started playing cards together,” Kelleher said. Around that table, Barbel was known as a curmudgeon. And as a very skilled player.

“He would tell us stories from 50 years ago,” Kelleher recalled, adding that Barbel was a highly skilled player.

“He was a great card player,” he said. “He was happy to take my money all the time.” On a more serious note, Kelleher called Barbel “a great man.”

The son of Leopold Barbel Sr. and Ella Blanche Lockhart Barbel, he was also the grandson of Alfred Harris Lockhart, at one time one of the largest property owners in the Virgin Islands.

Family connections aside, Barbel made his own way in the world of business and development.

Born and raised on St. Thomas, Barbel attended Sts. Peter and Paul School through ninth grade (the highest offered at the school at that time) and then boarding school in Puerto Rico. He got his degree from St. John’s University in Minnesota in 1953 and served in the U.S. Army before returning to the territory.

In his youth, Barbel distinguished himself in a wide range of sports, but tennis became an overwhelming passion that he maintained virtually all of his life. He was proud of having been part of a successful team playing around the Caribbean and, with his doubles partner, the late Victor Ebbesen, Sr., being the first Virgin Islanders to play in the U.S. Open.

His business ventures were varied. Soon after he returned home, with his sister, Elin Barbel Steele, he ran the Oasis Restaurant on Main Street. Then he opened the first coin-operated laundry on St. Thomas. He also established dry cleaning businesses on St. Thomas and on several other islands. Over the years, and across the Caribbean, he dabbled in fabrics, oil exploration, communication towers, plywood manufacturing, and more.

In 1965, with a partner, the late Herbert Levine, he developed one of the first shopping centers on St. Thomas, the strip mall across from Charlotte Amalie, Barbel Plaza.

Late in life, Barbel combined two of his love of cards with his love of story-telling, to write and publish a novel called “Paradise Rush,” which recounted the adventures of some colorful poker players. He told the Source at that time that the book was about 40 percent based on fact.

His parents and his four siblings, Joseph, Rita, Elin, and Pearl, preceded him in death.

He is survived by his wife of 27 years, Ann, his son Leopold Barbel III, his daughter Joan Barbel Sibilly (Freddy), as well as numerous nieces and nephews and other family members.

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