An architect, expert sailor, and environmental steward, Nik died peacefully Oct. 23, 2014, at home in Port Townsend, Wash. In May 2015 he was honored posthumously with a Jefferson County Heart of Service award as a “tireless” volunteer with the Peninsula Trails Coalition and “insightful contributor to other nonprofits.”
Valedictorian at Lakeside School in Seattle, Nik studied architecture at Princeton. He was manager of the lightweight crew, a member of WPRB and Cloister Inn, and roomed with John Clum. For a thesis he designed a small art gallery in Princeton.
After earning a degree in architecture at MIT in 1965, he worked for small firms in Washington State and Norway, including five years with famed architect Fred Bassetti. Then came a long-term affiliation with Jones & Jones, a Seattle firm dedicated to projects enhancing sense of place in natural landscape.
Nik and his wife, Elizabeth, lived on a sailboat for a while and once took a sabbatical to sail the Inside Passage to Glacier Bay. In our 50th yearbook, he stressed his current delight in “sailing a small open boat on local waters with other similarly obsessed curmudgeons.”
Also surviving are sons Seth, Michael, and Peter, and his first wife, Macy. The class shares their sadness.