Charles E. McKenney, Attorney and Golfer

Charles Emerson McKenney, 84, a Wainscott resident since the late 1970s who had a long career as a patent lawyer with the Manhattan firm of Pennie & Edmunds, died on March 1 at Palm Beach Hospice in Florida after a weeklong illness.

Mr. McKenney joined the law firm, of which he became a partner, soon after graduating from the University of Virginia Law School in 1959. He had already served for three years as a Naval officer and had earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Yale University in 1954. 

He was born on Feb. 28, 1932, in Summit, N.J., to Maurice McKenney and the former Florence Bishop. Growing up in New Jersey, he attended the Pingry School in Basking Ridge.

Mr. McKenney and Helaine (Bobo) Hobby were married in 1962 and settled in Darien, Conn., where they maintained a residence into the 1990s. The family began summering on the East End in the 1960s  in a rented cottage on Flying Point Road in Water Mill before buying a house on Main Street in Wainscott in the 1970s.

While the family loved spending the day at the beach, Mr. McKenney’s recreation was golf. He would join the family briefly at the ocean, then it was off to the links. He was a longtime member of the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club and, before that, of the Bridgehampton Club, where he played golf and the couple entertained guests.

Hobby Coudert recalled yesterday that her parents loved to entertain during the summer, and that she grew up in an atmosphere of music, dancing, and fine food. “Everybody who has written and called has told me he was known for his hospitality and his sense of humor,” Ms. Coudert said. “There were lots of happy times in our house,” she said. He was a superb dancer, she said. The music was usually Big Band style, though every Fourth of July, Mr. McKenney would bring in a Dixieland jazz band. The couple later joined the Devon Yacht Club in Amagansett, not to sail but to entertain. They loved dining with their guests on the club’s deck and watching the sunset, Ms. Hobby said.

After Mr. McKenney retired from his law practice, at the beginning of the new century, the McKenneys decided to “re-shuffle,” selling the house on Main Street and buying one on Sachem’s Path in Wainscott, as well as another in West Palm Beach. They subsequently divided their time between them. 

In addition to his wife of 53 years and his daughter Hobby Coudert, who lives in New York City and Stonington, Conn., Mr. McKenney is survived by two other children, Wensley McKenney of Bedford, N.Y., and Westhampton Beach and Phillip McKenney of West Palm Beach, and by four grandchildren.

 Mr. McKenney was a member of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Bridgehampton as well as Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Palm Beach, and he was buried in the Wainscott Cemetery following a family graveside service led by the Rev. Timothy Lewis. The family plans a memorial service here this summer. 

Memorial contributions have been suggested to Palm Beach Hospice, c/o Trustbridge, 5300 East Avenue, West Palm Beach, Fla. 33407.