Pocantico's Pride

Steven and Kimberly Rockefeller

Still in their tender twenties, Steven and Kimberly Rockefeller have already emerged as the Prince and Princess Charming of the charityfund-raising world. At their first major event, the Rockefeller University Founders Ball in 1985, their fresh-faced, Nordic good looks detonated scores of flashbulbs as photographers voted with their shutters and left the likes of Pat Buckley and Anne Bass in the shadows.

"Mr. Rockefeller Jr. was a great philanthropist and set a fine example for those who came after," Steven attests, using a personal nickname for his greatgrandfather. Far from lounging in the shade of their majestic family tree, Steven and Kimberly keep up a pace on the charity circuit that might have exhausted their forerunners. In less than a year, Steven has M.C.'d the Creo Society's Albert Schweitzer Music Award ceremony, co-chaired with Kimberly the all-jumor committee of Creo's extravagant Karl Lagerfeld party, and helped found the Damrosch Society, which provides scholarships to the Mannes College of Music. At the moment he lends a hand to Sleepy Hollow Restorations, a favorite charity which restores Hudson Valley homes, most near the Rockefeller family seat at Pocantico Hills.

Kimberly, the other half of this dynamic duet, represented the American Cancer Society at September's SFA/USA Fashion Show, and will join Steven on the committee of this month's Casita Maria Fiesta. When Kimberly jokes that she sometimes joins a benefit because it has a "good committee," Steven notes that he and his wife sincerely believe in their causes. "I am not a hired name."

"I certainly haven't made any great contributions to any institutions," he adds. "I've just gone along with people." But Rockefeller men are leaders, not followers. As Steven speaks, one recalls the infectious grin of his grandfather Nelson when he claimed that he wasn't running for office.

Louise Duncan