Heinz son absent from campaign trail

OTTSVILLE, Pa. -- Teresa Heinz Kerry once hinted at tensions with her first-born son, a 37-year-old blacksmith who seeks an anonymous life with his wife and child in rural Pennsylvania.

But if H. John Heinz IV is noticeably absent from stepfather John F. Kerry's presidential campaign, his activist interests -- the environment, youth, local programs -- mirror much of the focus of his family's $1.5 billion Heinz Endowment charities.

Heinz Kerry's eldest son lives with his physician wife, Kristann, on a wooded 163-acre farm near Philadelphia, refusing all inquiries about Kerry's campaign, the Heinz foundation, or his own work and ambitions.

He operates a small Buddhist high school for troubled teens nearby, and makes reproduction ironwork in a studio on his secluded property, land he has conserved so it can never be developed.

On a much larger scale, his mother has steered money to the environment, education, and local art and cultural groups as chairwoman of the Pittsburgh-based Heinz Endowments.

Heinz Kerry told the Washington Post in a 2002 profile that John started ''hating her" after his daughter, Astrid, her only grandchild, was born in 2000. She did not elaborate. But her son continues to serve with her on the board of one of the foundation's charities.

Heinz surfaced briefly in the news at a 2001 cocktail gala for a Heinz enrichment program for Pittsburgh children, warranting a small notice in a newspaper, but he generally asks friends and family to help guard his privacy. Heinz Kerry plans to honor that request throughout the campaign, a spokeswoman said.

Heinz, a lean man with closely cropped dark hair, declined an interview for this story.

''We're just a little community school, and obviously it doesn't do us any favors if people find out about it," said Peter Ryan, who with Heinz cofounded Tinicum Art and Science, a Buddhist alternative school, in Bucks County about five years ago.

Several districts send students to the school, which mixes a classic liberal arts curriculum with Zen precepts on ''mindfulness," or self-awareness, and electives ranging from martial arts to yoga to metalwork.

Former neighbor Michael Carr, a lawyer, represented Heinz when he sought township approval for the school.

''My recollection was that he had done some . . . work for the family foundation and that he was interested in trying to get involved in some hands-on educational programs," Carr said.

The hangar-like school, a former woodworking factory, sits on an undeveloped field with giant sunflowers at the entrance. Inside, meditative music plays, and a sign asks visitors to remove their shoes. ''They've never caused a bit of trouble," said neighbor Glenna Higgins, 84.

In Boston last month, Heinz skipped the family photo opportunity at the Democratic National Convention, leaving his two brothers, Andre and Chris, to share the stage with stepsisters Alexandra and Vanessa Kerry. He has no announced plans to join the campaign. ''He's a very serious person, and he does not like his privacy meddled with," his mother has said.

Heinz was 24 when his father, US Senator H. John Heinz III, a Republican, died in April 1991 along with six others when a small plane and a helicopter collided above a suburban Philadelphia elementary school. Already a trained blacksmith, Heinz soon afterward moved to Virginia, where he worked for a year as a volunteer blacksmith in Colonial Williamsburg.

''He's a great guy," said shop master Ken Schwarz, who remains a Heinz friend. Heinz sells his ironwork though a website.

Many people in Ottsville, population 3,645, seem unaware a Heinz heir lives among them. ''We've been here 10 or 12 years, and we've never heard of him," said John Roberts, who owns the Ottsville Inn.

That's not unusual in Bucks County, a longtime haven for writers, artists, and others seeking a retreat from New York, about an hour away, or Philadelphia. The area's full- or part-time residents have included authors James Michener and Pearl Buck and activist Abbie Hoffman.

''We have lots and lots of people that are famous or very prosperous or in some ways notable," said R. Foster Winans, director of The Writers Room of Bucks County, which has received small donations from John Heinz and the Heinz Family Foundation.

Like most people who know Heinz, Winans declined to discuss him.

''They could live in Princeton, they could live in the Hamptons, but they live here because we leave them alone," he said.