Lizabeth Leigh Barnes Ponvert

Leigh Barnes Ponvert, a former Dutchess County area resident and founder of Leigh Ponvert Real Estate in Millbrook, N.Y. died on July 15th in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina from complications related to myelofibrosis. A private sunrise service will be held this month on Kiawah Island, S.C.  Arrangements by J. HENRY STUHR MOUNT PLEASANT CHAPEL. Leigh graduated from Kent Place School in Summit, N.J. in 1947 and Bennett Junior College in Millbrook in 1949 with honors, and trained in design and architecture at Parsons The New School for Design.  She lived and traveled extensively abroad, including North Africa, in her thirties and forties, and established lasting friendships wherever she went.  Leigh had universally acknowledged superb taste and a tremendous sense of style and proportion.  She was also a gifted entrepreneur.  During her successful professional career she was a magazine editor�the youngest in the nation at the time�a designer of men's clothing, an interior designer and a broker of country estates, forming her own real estate firm in 1989. She loved the Millbrook countryside. Among her other favorite places in the world were Morocco, Antigua, Port Antonio (Jamaica), and the N.J. shore where she enjoyed some of her happiest times. Leigh retired to Charleston, S.C. in 2000 and immediately set to work designing new homes, including "Pig Walk" on Broad Street and a cottage in Aiken, S.C.  She also enjoyed Kiawah Island.  Leigh is survived by her brother Nicholas Chappell Barnes of Mt. Pleasant, S.C.; three daughters, Justin Chappell Day Bell of London, England, Sarah Chappell Mullen Luke of Pine Plains, N.Y. and Joslyn Barnes of New York City; a granddaughter, Tatiana Victoria Bell, also of London; a niece, Charlotte Barnes of Greenwich, Conn.; a nephew Nicholas Barnes, Jr. of New York City; and two grand-nieces Alexandra Sickles and Grace Sickles, also of Greenwich. In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting those who wish to extend their sympathies to make a donation to the Hospice of Charleston Foundation, 676 Wando Park Blvd., Mt. Pleasant, SC  29464 or to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 434 West 33^rd Street, New York, NY  10001.