As told to Jeannette Batz Cooperman
Photograph by Mark Gilliland
He was a hippie whose real first name was Milton; an aesthete who was unequivocally heterosexual; an art collector who loathed formality. He had a knack for turning junk—crumbling gargoyles, derelict buildings, questionable antiques—into something everybody wanted. His flashes of temper hid a painful sensitivity: He knew what it was like to screw up. So he’d help anybody—and he’d hold a grudge forever. Now he owns half the city, he’s fallen in love with his wife all over again, and the ultimate contradiction has settled upon him. Pete Rothschild has mellowed.
Anything I still feel guilty about? You bet. Everything from teasing other kids in childhood to dumping girlfriends to taking money from lousy poker players.
My childhood ambition was to be a psychiatrist. God must have thought I said, “See a psychiatrist.”
My worst job ever? Assistant manager at Burger King on Brentwood. After my one-hour orientation, I found out that the assistant manager’s job consisted of peeling a 50-pound sack of onions.
My favorite job was my first—and last—day as a shopping-center Santa Claus. I got caught making out with Santa’s helper.
What did I realize when I grew up? That it only happened on the outside.
I start the day by kissing my wife and I end the day by kissing my wife. Even if we hate each other at that moment, I count my blessings.
Don’t jump into marriage—and don’t jump out of it.
My definition of power is being able to make positive changes—because almost anyone has the power to make negative changes.
Once in your life, travel overseas alone.
What I know now that I didn’t know at 20? The repercussions of small acts.
You know you’ve made the right choice when no one says a word.
Now I’ve got all these young people working for me, and I have an obligation to show them how to be. It’s made me into something different, something better.
The most underrated virtue is empathy. People get wound up in themselves.
The best decisions I’ve ever made have been decisions not to do something—and until I was 30, I don’t think I ever made one.
All the things I’m saying are right are things I’ve only learned by doing them wrong.
People who are mild get saddened by things. I get angered. Arrogance angers me.
The little segment of St. Louis where I feel comfortable and accepted is not the Civic Progress folks.
As people who are younger come into positions where they have something to say, we are becoming less of a racist city.
There’s no way a group of kids today would think it was fun to go beat up somebody who was gay or homeless—and when I was young, I saw that happen.
When I was a kid, you walked down the street with hair down your back and somebody would roll down the window and yell, “Cut your hair, you goddamned hippie!”
The edges of people’s differences are getting rounded off, to the point that it’s just a little bit more fun to live here.
When I started out in the antiques business, it was an adventure in commerce. I figured people my age would need a table and chair. Then I realized I got pleasure, as well as money, out of being able to buy something I liked and have someone else agree with me.
My mind is a devil’s advocate mind—I’m always thinking of the other side of the story—which can be good and can be bad.
