David Coats was a “renaissance man” and a kind and compassionate man, if ever there was one. Entrepreneur, builder, author, designer, and creative, he contributed to the fabric of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest for 50 years, bringing his English manners and grace to everything he touched. He passed away on April 22, 2025, in his home in Seattle after a three-year terminal illness, Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis.
Born in Somerset, England, on December 22, 1943, Christopher David Coats was the third of five children of John B.S. Coats and “Betsan” (Elizabeth Ann) Horlick Coats. During World War II, the Coats’s large country house was a refuge for people from all over the world who were displaced by the war, including many English children evacuated to the countryside during the terrifying London Blitz. John ("Jackie", as he was known) and Betsan, both from prominent merchant families (J&P Coats, Ltd. and Horlicks), used their resources to help others.
Soon after the war ended, Jackie and Betsan packed up their children and traveled in the United States for three years. As ambassadors and lecturers in the Theosophical Society, they were sought-after speakers in post-war America. Both were charismatic world travelers, keen observers, and brilliant students of comparative religion and philosophy. Their children’s upbringing was infused with a world-centric view and a commitment to brotherhood across all cultures, ensuring each had a deep sense of compassion for all beings. Raising their children as vegetarians in a time when that was well outside the norm, they would be pleased that David’s grandchildren are 4th-generation life-long vegetarians.
David began his formal education at Ashfold, an English boarding school, and later, as the family travelled the world lecturing, he attended local schools in India, South Africa, Germany, and Switzerland. He completed his upper schooling at the renowned Gordonstoun School in Elgin, Scotland, where King Charles III was educated. David built resilience, self-reliance, and a strong moral compass at Gordonstoun. David was closely guided by the school's founder and headmaster, Dr. Kurt Hahn, who later established the Outward Bound programs worldwide and advocated the educational benefits of outdoor adventure. David studied German at Schule Schloss Salem, a Kurt Hahn school in Germany, and went on to read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Oxford University (St. Catherine’s College), graduating in 1967 with a BA and receiving his MA in 1978. David’s classical education gave him the ability to solve problems with a curious mind and a love of figuring out how things work.
A group of David’s undergraduate friends at St. Catherine’s College formed a dining club, naming it DJARPOTT, an anagram of the first letters of their names. They continued to meet annually for 50 years. In 2001, they established the first of the DJARPOTT Foundation Scholarships, enabling students at St. Catherine’s who otherwise may not have had the means to attend. By the time of their 50th anniversary dinner, they had funded a fourth scholarship.
In Oxford, David met his wife, Peggy van Etten of Monticello, New York. She’d come from Carnegie Mellon University to study at Oxford’s Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art. They both quickly realized they’d met “the ONE,” kicking off their 62+ year adventure together.
David and Peggy lived in England before emigrating to Australia in 1968, where his mother, Betsan, had a seaside restaurant and hotel business on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, north of Brisbane. David worked at the Australian Broadcasting Company in Sydney while he and Peggy undertook the first of many house remodeling projects: their narrow but charming Paddington terrace house. Mercedes, their first daughter, was born in 1970. Wanderlust beckoned, and they moved to Altea, Spain, where they lived in a community of artists and writers for four years. Peggy painted while David, a lifelong potter and ceramicist, left his mark in Altea with his tile and ceramic work installed in swimming pools, house names and numbers, and tile placards around the town.
After a brief stint back in Australia, the family emigrated to the United States in 1975, arriving on Christmas Eve in Mazama, Washington, in the pristine Methow Valley in the North Cascades Mountains. John and Rayma Hayes, dear friends from Spain, had raved about the place's beauty during a phone call to David and Peggy in Australia. The old wanderlust again rose up, and David and Peggy bought 20-acres of riverfront land over the phone with John’s help. They rented the Sweet Tooth Saloon farmhouse and acquired a pony for Mercedes and two goats. David designed and built the turn-of-the-century style Duck Brand Building in Winthrop in 1978. Needing immediate income after their expensive commercial building project and with one shop space still unrented, they opened Timberline T-Shirts, printing old-west-themed T-shirts for tourists. Later, the Coatses opened The Duck Brand Delicatessen & Restaurant (now Jupiter), serving exotic items such as Starbucks coffee and Häagen-Dazs ice cream for the first time east of the Cascade Mountains. All manner of cheeses, imported beers, and even bagels, lox, and cream cheese were on the menu. In addition to all that, two more Coats babies arrived during these years — Eva Feliciana Coats, born in 1976, and James John van Etten Coats, born in 1978.
On July 24, 1980, on a short trip to Seattle, the family suffered a tragic car crash, and Eva, aged 4, was killed. Peggy suffered significant burns across her body, while David and baby James escaped with only scratches. People in the Methow Valley rallied around them for months while Peggy recovered at Seattle’s Harborview Hospital, tending their businesses, filling a freezer with home-cooked meals, and watching over Mercedes, who, miraculously, had not been on the trip. Led by David and Peggy’s resilience, compassion, and connection to life’s deeper purpose, the tragedy of Eva’s death brought the Coats family even closer together, and they remain eternally grateful to their strong community for its gracious and compassionate support.
John and Rayma Hayes were David’s soul-mates and pillars of the Methow Valley community. Rayma’s passion for children and Maria Montessori's teaching principles, initially explored in Spain as Mercedes’ first teacher, led her to create Little Star Montessori School. David’s architect brother, Callum Coats, designed it and drew up the plans, and Doug Potter refined it for John to finance and build. Along with many devoted friends and colleagues, David helped realize Rayma’s dream, making its temporary first home possible, a Coats-owned house in Winthrop. In 1982, James Coats was a member of its inaugural kindergarten class.
David loved the arts. He was a staple of the Methow Valley Theater, performing leading roles including Scrooge in an epic production of A Christmas Carol (1980), Bellomy in The Fantasticks (1980), the Mayor in The Music Man (1982), and Benjamin Ballon in A Shot in the Dark (1984). He passed his passion for acting on to his daughter, Mercedes, who majored in theater in college. Peggy always valued David as her best critic for her paintings, especially her graphic memoir, The Oxford University Asparagus Society, co-written and co-illustrated with Jane Lake Birt and published in 2024.
In 1984, after selling the Duck Brand Building and Mazama property, David, Peggy, and the family moved to Seattle. David was busy writing a book. His long-time activism and compassion for animals compelled him to write Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm, to expose the horrific truths about agribusiness’s factory farming of animals raised for food in the U.S. Published by Continuum in 1989. Dr. Michael Fox, best-selling author of more than 30 books and essays on animal health, behavior, ethology, and bioethics, wrote in his foreword, “A more enlightened, compassionate humanity will look back upon these times of widespread abuse of the earth and cruelty toward animals with disbelief and sorrow.“ David continued his animal rights activism with PETA and other Seattle animal rights organizations, donning his “Santa Paws” costume every Christmas season to take holiday photos with companion animals. David’s most uncomfortable photo session was with two ferrets!
In Seattle, David combined his passions for construction, entrepreneurship, and creativity. He rebuilt and sold several houses while also tapping into his acting roots, playing Colonel Pickering in the Civic Light Opera’s production of My Fair Lady and becoming an AFTRA member, doing voice-over and commercial work. He volunteered as a dialect coach for Ruben van Kempen’s Roosevelt High School drama department, teaching regional British and foreign accents. David was a natural linguist who spoke fluent French, German, and Spanish, and had a passable command of Italian.
In 1992, he and Peggy founded Bucky Products, Inc., with Tom and Lee Robinson, to manufacture innovative natural buckwheat-hull comfort pillows. Buckwheat pillows have been used in Japan and other Asian countries for centuries, but were new to Americans, and Bucky was the first company to introduce a “U”-shaped buckwheat travel pillow to the mass market. Carried by leading retailers in the US, England, France, Germany, and Japan, “Bond with your Bucky” became the mantra of devoted customers. During the Bucky years, David served on the board of the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. The company was sold in 2006 and continues the founders’ mission to bring more comfort to the world.
In 2007, David and his son, James, launched NEST Design Build, LLC in Columbia City, Seattle — a design/build company focused on custom residential design and construction. Their love of and expertise in design-driven, craft-focused spaces remain central to NEST’s mission today. David retired from NEST in 2021, with James and his wife, Ashley, continuing NEST’s commitment to a deeply holistic approach to the work of both architecture and construction.
David exemplified the classic English saying, “Keep calm and carry on”. His wife, Peggy, Mercedes and husband Hiro Shimozato, James and wife Ashley DuCharme, and five grandchildren keep his bright light shining. David’s extended family and friends around the world will never forget their beloved Popi, their true-blue friend, their kind uncle, their loving cousin, their playful mate, their collegial partner, and their wise and patient ally.
Family and friends will be notified about a celebration of David’s life to be held in April 2026.
Especially deep thanks go to Dr. Ganesh Raghu, eminent UW Professor and Director at the Center for Interstitial Lung Diseases, and his team, who so expertly and compassionately treated and guided David through his illness. Donations are welcome at The Center for Interstitial Lung Disease UWMC Fund. https://give.uwmedicine.org/give/?quickAdd=FND-124462
David was a great lover of delicious food, especially sharing a meal around a table with family, friends, and strangers. His family thanks you for any honors made in David’s name to support feeding those in need around the world. An excellent organization we support is Chef José Andrés’s World Central Kitchen. https://donate.wck.org
Born in Somerset, England, on December 22, 1943, Christopher David Coats was the third of five children of John B.S. Coats and “Betsan” (Elizabeth Ann) Horlick Coats. During World War II, the Coats’s large country house was a refuge for people from all over the world who were displaced by the war, including many English children evacuated to the countryside during the terrifying London Blitz. John ("Jackie", as he was known) and Betsan, both from prominent merchant families (J&P Coats, Ltd. and Horlicks), used their resources to help others.
Soon after the war ended, Jackie and Betsan packed up their children and traveled in the United States for three years. As ambassadors and lecturers in the Theosophical Society, they were sought-after speakers in post-war America. Both were charismatic world travelers, keen observers, and brilliant students of comparative religion and philosophy. Their children’s upbringing was infused with a world-centric view and a commitment to brotherhood across all cultures, ensuring each had a deep sense of compassion for all beings. Raising their children as vegetarians in a time when that was well outside the norm, they would be pleased that David’s grandchildren are 4th-generation life-long vegetarians.
David began his formal education at Ashfold, an English boarding school, and later, as the family travelled the world lecturing, he attended local schools in India, South Africa, Germany, and Switzerland. He completed his upper schooling at the renowned Gordonstoun School in Elgin, Scotland, where King Charles III was educated. David built resilience, self-reliance, and a strong moral compass at Gordonstoun. David was closely guided by the school's founder and headmaster, Dr. Kurt Hahn, who later established the Outward Bound programs worldwide and advocated the educational benefits of outdoor adventure. David studied German at Schule Schloss Salem, a Kurt Hahn school in Germany, and went on to read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Oxford University (St. Catherine’s College), graduating in 1967 with a BA and receiving his MA in 1978. David’s classical education gave him the ability to solve problems with a curious mind and a love of figuring out how things work.
A group of David’s undergraduate friends at St. Catherine’s College formed a dining club, naming it DJARPOTT, an anagram of the first letters of their names. They continued to meet annually for 50 years. In 2001, they established the first of the DJARPOTT Foundation Scholarships, enabling students at St. Catherine’s who otherwise may not have had the means to attend. By the time of their 50th anniversary dinner, they had funded a fourth scholarship.
In Oxford, David met his wife, Peggy van Etten of Monticello, New York. She’d come from Carnegie Mellon University to study at Oxford’s Ruskin School of Drawing & Fine Art. They both quickly realized they’d met “the ONE,” kicking off their 62+ year adventure together.
David and Peggy lived in England before emigrating to Australia in 1968, where his mother, Betsan, had a seaside restaurant and hotel business on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, north of Brisbane. David worked at the Australian Broadcasting Company in Sydney while he and Peggy undertook the first of many house remodeling projects: their narrow but charming Paddington terrace house. Mercedes, their first daughter, was born in 1970. Wanderlust beckoned, and they moved to Altea, Spain, where they lived in a community of artists and writers for four years. Peggy painted while David, a lifelong potter and ceramicist, left his mark in Altea with his tile and ceramic work installed in swimming pools, house names and numbers, and tile placards around the town.
After a brief stint back in Australia, the family emigrated to the United States in 1975, arriving on Christmas Eve in Mazama, Washington, in the pristine Methow Valley in the North Cascades Mountains. John and Rayma Hayes, dear friends from Spain, had raved about the place's beauty during a phone call to David and Peggy in Australia. The old wanderlust again rose up, and David and Peggy bought 20-acres of riverfront land over the phone with John’s help. They rented the Sweet Tooth Saloon farmhouse and acquired a pony for Mercedes and two goats. David designed and built the turn-of-the-century style Duck Brand Building in Winthrop in 1978. Needing immediate income after their expensive commercial building project and with one shop space still unrented, they opened Timberline T-Shirts, printing old-west-themed T-shirts for tourists. Later, the Coatses opened The Duck Brand Delicatessen & Restaurant (now Jupiter), serving exotic items such as Starbucks coffee and Häagen-Dazs ice cream for the first time east of the Cascade Mountains. All manner of cheeses, imported beers, and even bagels, lox, and cream cheese were on the menu. In addition to all that, two more Coats babies arrived during these years — Eva Feliciana Coats, born in 1976, and James John van Etten Coats, born in 1978.
On July 24, 1980, on a short trip to Seattle, the family suffered a tragic car crash, and Eva, aged 4, was killed. Peggy suffered significant burns across her body, while David and baby James escaped with only scratches. People in the Methow Valley rallied around them for months while Peggy recovered at Seattle’s Harborview Hospital, tending their businesses, filling a freezer with home-cooked meals, and watching over Mercedes, who, miraculously, had not been on the trip. Led by David and Peggy’s resilience, compassion, and connection to life’s deeper purpose, the tragedy of Eva’s death brought the Coats family even closer together, and they remain eternally grateful to their strong community for its gracious and compassionate support.
John and Rayma Hayes were David’s soul-mates and pillars of the Methow Valley community. Rayma’s passion for children and Maria Montessori's teaching principles, initially explored in Spain as Mercedes’ first teacher, led her to create Little Star Montessori School. David’s architect brother, Callum Coats, designed it and drew up the plans, and Doug Potter refined it for John to finance and build. Along with many devoted friends and colleagues, David helped realize Rayma’s dream, making its temporary first home possible, a Coats-owned house in Winthrop. In 1982, James Coats was a member of its inaugural kindergarten class.
David loved the arts. He was a staple of the Methow Valley Theater, performing leading roles including Scrooge in an epic production of A Christmas Carol (1980), Bellomy in The Fantasticks (1980), the Mayor in The Music Man (1982), and Benjamin Ballon in A Shot in the Dark (1984). He passed his passion for acting on to his daughter, Mercedes, who majored in theater in college. Peggy always valued David as her best critic for her paintings, especially her graphic memoir, The Oxford University Asparagus Society, co-written and co-illustrated with Jane Lake Birt and published in 2024.
In 1984, after selling the Duck Brand Building and Mazama property, David, Peggy, and the family moved to Seattle. David was busy writing a book. His long-time activism and compassion for animals compelled him to write Old MacDonald’s Factory Farm, to expose the horrific truths about agribusiness’s factory farming of animals raised for food in the U.S. Published by Continuum in 1989. Dr. Michael Fox, best-selling author of more than 30 books and essays on animal health, behavior, ethology, and bioethics, wrote in his foreword, “A more enlightened, compassionate humanity will look back upon these times of widespread abuse of the earth and cruelty toward animals with disbelief and sorrow.“ David continued his animal rights activism with PETA and other Seattle animal rights organizations, donning his “Santa Paws” costume every Christmas season to take holiday photos with companion animals. David’s most uncomfortable photo session was with two ferrets!
In Seattle, David combined his passions for construction, entrepreneurship, and creativity. He rebuilt and sold several houses while also tapping into his acting roots, playing Colonel Pickering in the Civic Light Opera’s production of My Fair Lady and becoming an AFTRA member, doing voice-over and commercial work. He volunteered as a dialect coach for Ruben van Kempen’s Roosevelt High School drama department, teaching regional British and foreign accents. David was a natural linguist who spoke fluent French, German, and Spanish, and had a passable command of Italian.
In 1992, he and Peggy founded Bucky Products, Inc., with Tom and Lee Robinson, to manufacture innovative natural buckwheat-hull comfort pillows. Buckwheat pillows have been used in Japan and other Asian countries for centuries, but were new to Americans, and Bucky was the first company to introduce a “U”-shaped buckwheat travel pillow to the mass market. Carried by leading retailers in the US, England, France, Germany, and Japan, “Bond with your Bucky” became the mantra of devoted customers. During the Bucky years, David served on the board of the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. The company was sold in 2006 and continues the founders’ mission to bring more comfort to the world.
In 2007, David and his son, James, launched NEST Design Build, LLC in Columbia City, Seattle — a design/build company focused on custom residential design and construction. Their love of and expertise in design-driven, craft-focused spaces remain central to NEST’s mission today. David retired from NEST in 2021, with James and his wife, Ashley, continuing NEST’s commitment to a deeply holistic approach to the work of both architecture and construction.
David exemplified the classic English saying, “Keep calm and carry on”. His wife, Peggy, Mercedes and husband Hiro Shimozato, James and wife Ashley DuCharme, and five grandchildren keep his bright light shining. David’s extended family and friends around the world will never forget their beloved Popi, their true-blue friend, their kind uncle, their loving cousin, their playful mate, their collegial partner, and their wise and patient ally.
Family and friends will be notified about a celebration of David’s life to be held in April 2026.
Especially deep thanks go to Dr. Ganesh Raghu, eminent UW Professor and Director at the Center for Interstitial Lung Diseases, and his team, who so expertly and compassionately treated and guided David through his illness. Donations are welcome at The Center for Interstitial Lung Disease UWMC Fund. https://give.uwmedicine.org/give/?quickAdd=FND-124462
David was a great lover of delicious food, especially sharing a meal around a table with family, friends, and strangers. His family thanks you for any honors made in David’s name to support feeding those in need around the world. An excellent organization we support is Chef José Andrés’s World Central Kitchen. https://donate.wck.org
To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of C. David Coats, please visit our flower store.
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