Andrew Romanoff, a Russian prince who gave up his royal title and made a new life for himself in the United States as a carpenter, entrepreneur and folk artist, died Nov. 28 at an assisted living center in San Anselmo after a long illness. He was 98.
Mr. Romanoff, who would have turned 99 in January, was the grandnephew of Russia’s last czar, Nicholas II, who was executed in 1918 along with his wife and their children.
The rest of the czar’s family, including Mr. Romanoff’s grandmother and father, were rescued from Russia by Britain’s King George V, who brought them by ship to England.
Mr. Romanoff, the third child and youngest son of Prince Andrei Alexandrovich and Princess Elizabeth Fabricievna, was born in London in 1923. His godfather was the future King Edward VIII. The Romanoffs lived in Frogmore Cottage on the grounds of Windsor Castle, where Mr. Romanoff spent an idyllic childhood.
In his 2007 autobiography, “The Boy Who Would Be Tsar: The Art of Prince Andrew Romanoff,” he painted a pretty picture of his boyhood surroundings.
“The Windsor grounds made for a fantastic playground, with vast lawns, curving paths along the River Thames, fish ponds, polo fields, greenhouses full of exotic plants,” he wrote.
But it was also a confusing, oddly insular, way for a young man to grow up.
“It was a strange atmosphere,” he recalled in a 2007 interview in the Independent Journal. “I didn’t know who the hell I was.”
In 1940, when he was 16 and away at school, his mother was killed when a Nazi bomb exploded near her family’s home. She was crushed when a ceiling beam fell on her.
In his book, Mr. Romanoff included a drawing titled “My Mother’s Death,” showing him praying over her coffin.
The book was illustrated with his whimsical folk art, miniature drawings done in a medium originally intended as a children’s toy called “Shrinky Dinks,” plastic sheets that shrink when baked in an oven.
Educated at the military Imperial Service College, Mr. Romanoff served in the British Navy during World War II and saw action in the D-Day invasion. After the war, he worked briefly on a farm in Kent, England, before sailing to the United States in 1949.
An American citizen since 1956, he dropped his royal title, His Serene Highness, when he came to the U.S.
In 1951, he married Elena Konstantinovna Dourneva in San Francisco. They had a son, Alex, before divorcing in 1959.
He had two more sons with the former Kathleen Norris, whom he married in 1961. Six years after they were married, when she was 33, she died unexpectedly from a virulent flu, leaving Mr. Romanoff a widower and single father.
In 1970, at the height of the hippie back-to-the-land movement, Mr. Romanoff moved to rural western Marin County and settled in Inverness to work as a carpenter, building houses with a Russian cousin.
He also started a company, Brass Menagerie, that manufactured jewelry and other items.
“People get absorbed in the preposterous nature of his story, the arc of his life,” said Griff Williams, an old friend and art gallery owner who encouraged Mr. Romanoff to write his autobiography and published it. “It’s an amazing tale.”
A former gymnast, Mr. Romanoff was fit and trim and had an elegant mustache and a head of wavy hair that turned silvery as he grew older. He cut a regal figure even in his customary blue jeans and black leather vest, an ever-present scarf worn dashingly around his neck.
Modest to the point of seeming shy, he spoke in an indistinguishable accent that came from growing up in London, speaking only Russian at home and then moving to one of the more hip outposts in America.
“We have royalty in our neighborhood, but he doesn’t act in any way like royalty,” Steve Costa, former owner of Point Reyes Books, once said about Mr. Romanoff. “Andrew is such a down-to-earth fellow. He has this presence about him that’s pretty wonderful.”
For many decades, he lived with his wife, artist Inez Storer, in a former Inverness hotel, a 1906 Victorian with 14 rooms, big enough to accommodate their blended brood of six kids: two of his sons and four of her young children from a previous marriage to former Marin County supervisor Tom Storer.
His stepdaughter, Elena Storer, remembered him as a mellow, calming spirit in a busy, bustling household.
“He was a lovely presence,” she recalled.
An expert mushroom hunter, Mr. Romanoff liked to take his sons on early morning jaunts to his favorite spots to find the coveted chanterelles that are a local delicacy. He kept his mushroom trail map a closely guarded secret.
An avid hiker, he spent many hours combing the beaches of Point Reyes, finding Native American artifacts — since donated to the Point Reyes National Seashore — and building castles out of driftwood and sand.
“He would build these fantastic structures on the beach, and by the end of the afternoon there would be a flag and a fire pit,” his son Peter recalled. “It was like magic.”
Mr. Romanoff’s life was celebrated in a private viewing and traditional Russian Orthodox funeral service at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in San Anselmo. Burial was at Olema Cemetery.
He is survived by his wife; three sons, Alex Romanoff of Oakland, Peter Romanoff of Point Reyes Station and Andrew Romanoff of Novato; two stepdaughters, Elena Storer of Santa Cruz and Lisa Storer of Haifa, Israel; two stepsons, Chris Storer of Athens, Georgia, and John Storer of San Francisco.
He is also survived by a half-sister, Olga Romanov of Kent, England, and three grandchildren, Mathew Nitzberg of Brooklyn, New York City, Sam Nitzberg of Santa Cruz and Natasha Romanoff of San Rafael.
