John Dennis Foley OBITUARY

JOHN DENNIS (JACK) FOLEY Friends and family mourn the loss of Jack Foley who died of heart failure on July 19th in Oakland’s Kaiser Hospital at the age of 74. An architect, artist and native of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Jack lived in the Bay Area since 1954. During his long battle with chronic pulmonary illness, Jack never lost his zest for life and remained a great teacher and supporter of his friend’s artistic endeavors. After serving in the navy at 18 as an air crewman, he studied at the University of New Mexico, completing his degree in architecture and planning at UC Berkeley. As an architect and designer, he worked in the Bay Area and Napa on such projects as Marine World in Redwood City, Oakland’s Portobello Estuary Complex and the Bahia Mar recreational center in Petaluma. An indefatigable reader and passionate intellect, Jack loved conversing with friends about literature, jazz, politics, world history and military strategy, which he studied with scholarly zeal. His fond childhood memories of hiking and hunting in the Sangre de Christo mountains influenced his aesthetic sense of color and form as well as his disdain for much of the contemporary urban landscape. Architecture, he once lamented, was about chopping down green, covering ground, and eternally depriving the earth of sunlight. His wit, understanding and devotion to his friends and loved ones will be sorely missed. He is survived by his brother, James H. Foley of Alburquerque.