Tuesday, November 13, 2007

His Travels

Italy and/or Greece; hiking with his Dad in the Dolomites; visiting his brothers in Seattle...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I knew Peter for 15 years as one of his lighting manufacturers representatives and assisted him with his lighting applications. I knew that he liked to hike in Italy in the Piedmont in summer but I did not know he actually did rapelling. I am deeply shocked and saddened by this news and will miss him dearly. I saw him last Weds. What Peter and I shared was a deep love for Italy as does his friend and business partner Michael Webb. Often I would e-mail along articles about Italy to Peter. He offered to let me show my paintings in his art gallery though I have not made a new one in years. He offered to host a book signing party for my friend Dario Castagno author of "Too Much Tuscan Sun." The Peter I knew would slip out of a boring corporate party with me to buy a bottle of Nonnino Grappa to share instead. He was a kind and beautiful person.

Posted sfgate.com 11/13/2007 9:26:35 PM

Anonymous said...

I regret not having travelled to Italy with my dear sweet friend Peter. But after we graduated from SCI-Arc, we went along with our friend Kostas to Tijuana, and gleefully left the main tourist drag to explore the back streets. In and out of seedy bars, watching las luchas wrestle, feasting in the glorious food stands.

I so enjoyed the company of Peter, whether working or playing together, riding Critical Mass, hiking the Ventana Wilderness - his lust for life was infectious, and unparalleled. And most of all, he was a true friend with whom I could be completely myself. We'll miss you.

Anonymous said...

I met and enjoyed Peter's company while in architecture school at Cornell.
As often happens distance alienated us since we each took our own paths, mine far away in Greece.
The sad news was nevertheless a shock. In the older photo of Peter, in Milan, I easily recognized the youth I knew; The newer ones and the short descriptions picturing the recent Peter which I regret not knowing. Especially since it seems he evolved to meet great expectations of what the Peter I knew back then promised.
Gallery? History? Wine or Grappa? Kindness and Warmth? Energy and wackiness? and Poetry? I would have expected as much from Peter.

Geia Sou!

Anonymous said...

I also met Peter while studying in Florence 23 years ago (he made a lasting impression even then). I, unfortunately, really didn't keep in close touch with him after he moved to SF from LA. I would see him once a year or so when he came into town. However, when I would see him, it was simply picking up where we left off the last time we met, as if we had seen each other the week before.

One wonderful memory I have of Peter was from our time in Italy. For one of the school breaks, a small group of us hopped on a train (then a boat) to Greece and Crete for a week. On the overnight ferry to Greece we camped out on the deck and drank wine we had brought in our packs...The dollar was strong and wine was very cheap at this time, but even then, Peter was buying wine based on taste, while the rest of us bought by volume… remember we were 21! Of course, Peter tried to change our ways, offering his wine, which we certainly preferred...but not enough to spend the equivalent of $3.00 or $4.00 when a bottle could be had for a buck. Anyway, eventually, a few of us ended up jumping and climbing on the net that covered the empty swimming pool, that is, until we heard some one (or thought we did) and ran back to our place on the deck giggling. Once we arrived on Crete the adventure really began. For the next 4 days we circled the island visiting tiny fishing towns and ancient ruins. Peter inevitably knew the mythology associated with the various sites and could be found playing the Minotaur with pointed fingers on either side of his head as he rushed us acting out the story. We rented motorcycles and vespas. Peter dumped his 10' up the driveway of our Hostel ripping a hole in his shirt. Asked if he wanted to change his shirt before we left, he replied “what, and ruin another one”. He soon got the hang of it and we spent a day driving around the island off-road as well as on. One evening we built a giant wind block on a deserted rocky beach and contemplated sleeping there…that is, until the sun went down, the temperature dropped, and we thought better of the idea.

Woven throughout this trip was Peter’s monologue; insightful, knowledgeable, passionate, silly, profound and almost always funny. That has never changed. Certainly not his zest for life and all of the wonderful things in it that he held, appreciated and savored more than anyone I have known. Whether food, wine, art, literature, music, a sunrise, a wind twisted tree, the smell of a good cigar or the sound of garlic roasting in a pan, Peter embraced it and took ownership...but only so he would be able to share it with his friends. We’ll miss you Peter.

Anonymous said...

I worked with Peter at SOM. Once in a very great while, someone will say something to you in a casual conversation that for whatever reason will stay so vividly in your memory and resurface occasionally for no apparent reason other than it just feels good to remember it.

What Peter said to me was 'all I want to do is work until I get old enough to retire and move to the Amalfi (a beautiful Italian hillside village on the sea) and be a sun shriveled old man tending to my olive and lemon orchards and sipping wine all day at the local cafe.'

It wasn't until a few years later that I actually visited Amalfi that I truly understood what he meant. From then on I could not seperate this vision from Peter and loved his idea of utopia so much I have adopted it as my own.

Peter, I know you are now tending those olives and lemons and sipping grapppa under the warm mediterranean sun.

Anonymous said...

I am still in shock of how this could happen in this time of instant telecommunications and transport! I wish there was someone or something to put the blame on...
Although I can't say I knew Peter that well, we had spent four summers together in Greece, either in our home or in various holiday locations, with my husmband Kostas who he knew Peter from SciARc,
the kids at various ages and a pregnancy. Whenever he came again it was like he had never left at ll - such an easy person to reconnect with, always in a good modd, with a sense of humor even about the most boring situations, knowledgable about almost anything I could think of apart from architecture and lighting, medicine, child-rearing, always with an original view and intelligent comments that correspinded so closely with our preoccupations - definitely one of the three or four most intelligent people I have ever known. Our lives were so different, and so far away from each other, yet he was a true kindred soul. Although at an everyday life nothing much will change, his is a loss of a spiritual and intellectual dimension of our lives, and of a connection to greater things.