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His day, when he is home in Manhattan, begins at 7:45, when he steps into his 1959 Cadillac limousine. "Long Island City, John," he says to his chauffeur, or "Jamaica, John"—and off they go. There is little variance to his rounds. Mondays and Tuesdays are spent in and around his various New York fiefs, with one lunch reserved for Iva Patcévitch, president of Condé Nast; Tuesdays take Sam to Syracuse by overnight train, and home again by air on Wednesdays; every other Thursday he takes a plane to St. Louis; every other Friday a plane to Harrisburg.
Casual as the routine may seem, it is by no means perfunctory. "I remember the first time he came to Portland," says Oregonian Managing Editor Robert C. Notson. "I made a statement about our circulation in Clark County, Wash. Newhouse asked me for the exact figures. As I stalled for time, he said, 'Never mind. Here's what the facts are.' And recited them out of his head." In Syracuse, if the weather is good, Newhouse walks through the heart of town, attended by respectful aides, as he makes his way from the Her aid-Journal to the Post-Standard. "How is retail business going?" he asks. "What is being., built on that site over there? That vacant store—what kind of business moved out?" By the time he enters the Post-Standard building, Newhouse has deftly and accurately taken the city's business pulse.
Not Gregarious. Newhouse has long since lost interest in accumulating wealth. The $350,000 annual salary that he pays himself could be met solely by the profits of his first paper, the Staten Island Advance (circ. 52,120). And, as is the case with so many wealthy men, Newhouse's tastes are not extravagant. Besides the Park Avenue apartment, whose gold-and-beige decor has been described as "nouveau-avfesome," he owns "Greenlands," a comfortable country house on 140 acres in Harbourton, N.J., where he takes pleasure in informing first-time visitors that the father of the previous owner of the estate invented the flush toilet. The years have treated him kindly. His curly hair is running to grey, but his pink face is unlined and glowing with health. He walks briskly, like a man 15 years his junior. He watches his weight ("Our family has a tendency to blow up"): steaks, fruits and nonfattening desserts dominate his diet, but he is unmindful of the caloric content of Scotch on the rocks.
Sometimes he plays nine holes of golf at the Green Acres Country Club near Harbourton—but usually alone, because companions upset him and throw him off his game. The Newhouses are inveterate Broadway first nighters, and, in season, they go to the opera every Monday. Although Mitzi schedules three or four social evenings a month, her husband is not gregarious. One of his closest friends is Gossip Columnist Leonard Lyons—but Lyons is under gentle order never to mention Newhouse in print.
But diffident as he is, behind a facade of poised and