Robert M. Lee, 88

Robert M. Lee, renowned automobile and antique arms collector, explorer and conservationist, has died at age 88.

Mr. Lee owned Cromwell Island on Flathead Lake and Windy Water Ranch in Ennis.

Robert Morton Lee passed away Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Reno, Nevada, surrounded by friends and his devoted and beloved wife, Anne Brockinton Lee.

 Mr. Lee was born in Woodmere, Long Island, New York, on Oct. 2, 1927. He was taught a love of nature and the great outdoors by his parents, Dr. William F. Lee and Sally W. Lee.

 He graduated from Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, New York, and attended Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, majoring in engineering and business.

He served in the U.S. Army before the Korean War and was stationed in Alaska.

 Mr. Lee was a “Renaissance man” who presented a multi-faceted talent to the world. He turned his hand to many things and rarely failed. He was a premier fly-tyer; successful builder/developer; excellent rifle shot; dedicated fly fisherman; safari outfitter and professional hunter in Africa; brilliant designer and manufacturer of a multitude of outdoor equipment, fine luggage and clothing (Hunting World); a patron of the arts; a merchandiser par excellence and marketing wiz; an author (of many books); an explorer and natural scientist with museum accreditation; and a classic car and antique gun collector nonpareil. During his life, his inquisitive nature, keen intelligence and sense of fearless daring carried him ever further, pushing back horizons and challenging the new or unthinkable.

 At age 14, Bob Lee designed a unique telescopic sighting tool, called the Lee Mount and at age 17 designed and manufactured a range of several ultra-high-velocity rifle cartridges, such as the .358 Lee Magnum and the .424 Lee Magnum — each notably listed in Volume 1 of P.O. Ackley’s, “Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders.”

 Lee was one of the first Americans to have a hunting concession in Africa (Lee Expeditions, Ltd.) and the first professional hunter to open Portuguese Angola to foreign hunters. He was a conservationist long before it became fashionable. While living in Angola in the early 1960s, he was instrumental in obtaining government protection for the lion, cheetah, black rhino and their habitats. He designed the first ecologically sound wildlife management program in Africa with the (then) Portuguese provincial government (Angola) to counteract the decimation of the big game population by over-hunting and poaching. The result: there was more game there when he left than when he arrived! This was a cause Mr. Lee championed around the world during his lifetime.

To quote Mr. Lee from his first book, ”Safari Today” (1960): “It is the hunter who loves the game, for the game is his life and sport, and since the Middle Ages and before, it has been the hunter who has saved the game and fought those who would destroy it — whenever and wherever he could.”

 In 1965, with the outbreak of the civil war in Angola, Lee returned to New York and founded Hunting World — a luxury luggage, leather goods, outdoor clothing and sporting specialties company. His products were designed to his exacting specifications and mercilessly field-tested. He developed a nearly indestructible lightweight material, impervious to heat and cold, which he called “Battue.”

Between 1980 and 1984, after six years of negotiations with the government of the People’s Republic of China, Mr. Lee became the first Westerner to gain access to and lead three scientific expeditions into the rugged Tien Shan mountains and Chinese Pamirs — known as “The Roof of the World” — where he rediscovered the fabled Marco Polo sheep, Ovis ammon poli, on Chinese soil and documented their migration. He was successful in convincing the Xinjiang Provincial government to institute protection for many of its wonderful species and his reports were responsible for the creation of the Tashkurgan Wildlife Reserve in the Pamirs. These expeditions and conservation achievements are memorialized in his second book, “China Safari” (1988).

 Bob Lee was a Fellow of Exploration in The Explorers Club; a member of the Boone and Crockett Club founded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1887; a life member of the National Rifle Association; a member of the Visiting Committee of the Arms and Armor Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; a research associate in mammalogy, Museum of Natural History, at the University of Kansas; and an affiliate professor of management at the University of Montana, where he lectured to graduate students about the problems involved in saving our ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest, clear-cutting and lack of regrowth in the Rocky Mountain states and the responsibilities of business and industry with respect to the environment.

In 1988, Lee created an endowment for graduate studies in wildlife management at the University of Montana. His gift was the largest single donation ever received and resulted in three scientific expeditions to the Qinghai Province of China, on the Tibetan Plateau, to study increased population management for wild yak and musk deer. He also created a scholarship for Native Americans to attend the College of Forestry and Conservation at UM.

In 1999, Lee was presented with the C.J. McElroy Award from Safari Club International for his contributions to hunting and conservation.

The Robert M. Lee Foundation has awarded large sums to various conservation organizations and other efforts to control subdivided development of pristine areas.

In 1991, he funded the endowment of the Robert M. Lee Gallery of American Arms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He also supported the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno and many animal rescue societies.

Mr. Lee was a collector of antique Colts, Winchesters, European arms and armor and modern sporting guns, selections of which are featured in his book series, “The Art of the Gun” (2002-2003) and “Magnificent Colts” (2011). An exhibition of his many collections was held at Sotheby’s New York in June 2013.

An avid car collector, Lee won the coveted Best of Show award at Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the world’s premier automobile competition, in 2006 and again in 2009; Best of Show at The Quail: A Motorsports Gathering, in 2006 and 2012; and Best of Show at Amelia Island Concours in 2014.

As a collector, he considered himself the responsible custodian of remarkable artifacts of history.

Bob Lee is survived by his wife, Anne Rutledge Brockinton Lee; a sister-in-law, Alta Maree Brockinton, of New York City; and a niece, Alta Hagan Thorne, of London, England.

He was predeceased by his parents and his in-laws, Alta Maree Massey Brockinton and David Arthur Brockinton Jr., a prominent trial lawyer, formerly of Charleston, South Carolina.

Online condolences may be shared at the website www.waltonsfuneralhomes.com.