 |
|
Lambda Alpha International
NEWS
|
|
|
Just as the landscape of our city is changing, so is the landscape of our family at Lambda Alpha International, Golden Gate. It is with this thought that I sadly inform you of the recent passing of some of our instrumental members at LAI. Please pause with me to remember the significant contributions that these three members made to our city and our LAI family.
Sincerely,
Paul Woolford
President, LAI Golden Gate Chapter
Damon Raike
Damon Raike passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by family and friends on Sunday, January 29, 2017, at the age of 89.
Born in Chicago, Illinois to Damon and Regina Raike, he graduated from the Latin School of Chicago before joining the Navy during WWll. He proudly served his country while learning how to fly and graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. in Psychology.
In 1952, he moved to San Francisco where he found his true professional calling, selling and leasing industrial and commercial real estate. In the late 1950's he founded Damon Raike & Company.
Damon hired, mentored and trained some of the most successful real estate brokers and developers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The company was sold in 1997 to what is now a part of Cushman & Wakefield.
Damon's passions were many and varied. He piloted airplanes, drove tractors, Model A's and a fire engine. He traveled worldwide to enjoy parades, ate chocolate with abandon and loved Costco. Until his 88th year, he rode his bicycle from San Francisco to Sausalito on Fridays at 5:15 am with The Lucky Ones, a biking group he founded. Seeing the sunrise over the East Bay hills while crossing the Golden Gate Bridge inspired the group's name.
He loved his family very much and was fiercely protective of them. He leaves his loving wife of 59 years, Marjorie, his devoted daughters Jennifer (LAI Golden Gate Chapter member) and Diane, son Andrew, daughter-in-law Debra and sister Barbara Jarrow. His son, Thomas, predeceased him.
Walter Cohen
From his wife Allison Williams (LAI Golden Gate Chapter member):
I am Allison Williams, Walter's wife. It is with immeasurable sadness that I am sharing this news
(Sunday's SF Chronicle attached). Walter lived for his family, the pursuit, the debate, the strategy
and the partnership and friendship with all of you....and for basketball. Until the end he was
involved in making real estate deals, more behind the scenes and in an advisory role, but
still super-charged, fiery, and impactful. He enjoyed this platform and the relationships he
maintained through it. Our sons, Selby and Nathan, and I thank you for being in his life.
I am so honored to have them, the greatest gift he gave me.
John Field
John Field, an architect and self-described "urban choreographer" who strove to humanize
shopping centers in the Bay Area and elsewhere, died of cancer at his home in San Francisco
on Feb. 21. He was 87.
Rather than reshape the skyline, Mr. Field won notice in his profession by focusing on mostly
suburban shopping centers - trying to turn staid lines of functional shops into community
hubs. His pedestrian-friendly updates a generation ago to such complexes as Stanford
Shopping Center in Palo Alto and Broadway Plaza in Walnut Creek spawned imitations
across the nation, including his firm's Paseo Nuevo in Santa Barbara.
At the same time, Mr. Field cared passionately about the city that he called home for
60 years. In his early career, he helped reconceive at least one decrepit warehouse in
Jackson Square. In the mid-'90s, his firm brought new life to 1000 Van Ness,
a former Cadillac dealership converted into a mix of movie theaters, restaurant space
and housing.
Whatever the setting, Mr. Field's gift was that he understood that individual works of
architecture are part of a larger civic fabric.
"John taught all of us to think about the places between buildings," said Rob Anderson, a
principal at Field Paoli, the firm founded in 1986 by Mr. Field and David Paoli. "He'd tell us
that what we do isn't about precious objects. It's about the things that happen around them."
Born in Minnesota, Mr. Field earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in architecture at Yale University, then "got in the car and drove as far as I could drive," he told an interviewer in 2005. In San Francisco, he was hired by the local office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
He opened his own firm in 1959; his first job was a home for friends. But in 1965, Mr. Field joined with three peers to form Bull Field Volkmann Stockwell. "One day over lunch, we realized that every client interviewed all four of us," he said in 2005, the year after officially retiring from Field Paoli. "So we got together."
Retail became Mr. Field's forte as the firm expanded. Increasingly, he sought to conjure up some of the atmosphere of the small cities that he and his wife, Carol, would visit in Italy, where the pleasure of wandering structure-lined byways was an attraction in itself.
"John was about the ideas - 'I want to see more romance, I want more energy,'" recalled Mark Schatz, who worked for Mr. Field at Bull Field Volkmann Stockwell and then Field Paoli. "He inspired us through his thinking rather than his sketching."
His wife, Carol, a noted novelist and cookbook author, passed away three weeks after John. They were married for 56 years. Mr. and Mrs. Field are survived by his son, Matt (LAI Golden Gate Chapter member), of San Francisco and daughter Alison of Chestnut Hill, Mass.; and three grandchildren.
A celebration of Life was held at the Presidio Golden Gate Club on Friday, March 10th. Donations in his memory can be made to the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and San Francisco Ballet.
Our LAI family is large and far reaching. If you know of a members passing that we have not highlighted, please let us know by e-mailing our Operations Manager, Anne Jacobs at [email protected]
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
