David Paul Gaskin

From China and Argentina, from Italy and Germany, the UK and Mexico, and from many of these United States, the condolences and eulogies - keen and deeply felt - keep arriving. David Gaskin, who died peacefully at 84 in his sleep in hospital on January 28, would have been disconcerted by such attention.

David Paul Gaskin was born on a freezing autumn day in Grand Rapids, MI. The country was focused on the production of war materiel then, and his life seems to have been influenced forever by the energy that filled the air.

David brimmed with joy and thoughtfulness, with boundless curiosity and humanity, and it always faced outward. It was never about him, it was about others. It was a way of living that he shared for over half a century with his late husband, Phillip McPherson.

The truth of them both is that a novelist would dismiss their extraordinary lives as dubious fiction unless he (or she, David would add) knew them.

David began a mid-Western life in business management after graduation from Michigan State University in 1962. That career was soon up-ended by a call from a San Francisco company offering him employment, pending a Chicago interview with senior company manager, Phillip McPherson. All went well. David was hired and moved to San Francisco, where he and McPherson recognized they had more in common than employment.

That recognition was tested when McPherson was abruptly transferred to Europe. The separation was wrenching for them both, and Phillip soon called David with a proposal: resign and come live with him. David happily did both, joining Phil in his stunning home in Brussels. They were together fifty-two years, marrying in San Francisco in 2015, the first day same-sex marriage became legal in the US.

After a year in Europe, working and discovering their shared love of travel, they returned to San Francisco where David entered the residential real estate business until they opened Work Wonders, an innovative home furnishings store in the Castro district. David's management skills turned to the unique challenges of retail as the store became an immediate success with customers that included prominent interior designers.

Still, the world kept beckoning, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, caught their attention. In 1999, they bought a building that lay on a hillside above the town. With David keeping his management eye on the project, they transformed the building into Las Terrazas San Miguel, which was soon top-rated among the best inns in San Miguel.

But managing an inn was no career, and it diminished opportunities for the travel they relished. They sold Las Terrazas and returned to San Francisco. The next decades were blends of astute real estate investment and David's business skills in keeping projects and businesses on track, always with time for the travel that was their North star. Ultimately, David arranged explorations of - far more than off-the-shelf visits to - forty-six countries, often more than once, and many of the fifty US States.

But it was not all adventure. David threw himself fully into caring for victims of AIDS. Most, though not all, were strangers. It did not matter.

Years later, he was the same, tireless man, less than fully well himself, who cared for his beloved Phillip in his last, difficult years, in their beautiful home on a hidden lagoon in Alameda CA. It's tempting to believe that they are somewhere new and exciting even now.

David is survived by his sister, Neatie Krupp, of Grand Rapids MI, his three cats, Tiger, Harry and Sandy, and an array of family and friends who span the globe, including a small group of locals known as "The Usual Suspects", who know who they are, and who will miss David Gaskin forever.