Chester Bowles Jr.

1928 - 2023

Chester Bowles, Jr.
August 7, 1928 - February 9, 2023
Chester Bowles Jr. passed peacefully on February 9, 2023 at his home in Geyserville, California. He was 94.
Chester was an architect by profession, iconoclast in spirit: An avid bird watcher, skilled small boat sailor and wonderful storyteller. He marked his teenage years, much against his mother's wishes, by sailing his 18-foot open boat Thistle the 70-odd miles of the Atlantic from Woods Hole to the Connecticut River.
Financing his University of Chicago study in part by work in an Indiana steel mill, Chester followed 1948 graduation with two years building steel pre-fab houses in Connecticut, a mass-production project to bring decent housing to all Americans, more or less as Detroit had done for transport. After a masters from Yale School of Architecture ('54), Chester and young family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1955, working with the John Lyon Reid firm, Joseph Esherick, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and others.
Chester took time out in 1959-60 to design and build his family's home on the Tiburon ridge with a vista from Mt. Tamalpais to downtown San Francisco. While his two older sons were by then past the age of Santa Claus, Chester kept their imaginations at work by convincing claims that as Bart Bowles, All-American he'd once not only been catcher for the Detroit Tigers but running back for the Lions. Later investigation established he had never been to Michigan in his life.
Chester's partnership with Richard Marshall (1964-1976) became known for open, flexible plan schools. Among many others in Northern California, Chester was the architect for the Monroe and Cabrillo elementary schools in San Francisco and the Moraga and Piedmont middle schools in the East Bay.
Chester also designed the Belvedere Tennis Club and Clement Hurd home in Mill Valley, his lifelong friend Donald Mattern contractor for each.
With work published in Architectural Record, Progressive Architecture, and Architectural Press – including two homes he designed and built in 1960s on Martha's Vineyard, MA – Chester was elected an American Institute of Architects Fellow in Design in 1980, the jury noting:
"In his practice this nominee does what most architects aspire to be and do, but most [cannot]: He is both architect and craftsman, building where feasible (as in houses) with his own hands the projects he designs."
Chester designed and with his family, large and small, built by hand their Geyserville house in the early 70s, recognized by an AIA Honor Award in 1978. The place has become the family's center, the site of weddings, holidays and hard labor over the 50 years since. The 1980 AIA jury also noted:
"The house … epitomizes Chester Bowles' design approach in its simplicity in concept, directness of solution, compact efficiency, precise detailing, and in the elegance of its overall design. As true of his schools and commercial buildings as it is of his houses, this approach represents a return to simplicity which should give courage to those in architecture who have felt a need for directness and clarity but have seldom found either in recent years …
"The implementation of the design concept is inherent in the design process of this architect, as are economy of material and labor, so that achievement of completed buildings within budget – something of a miracle in these times – is assured."
Chester's first wife Holly Taylor and second wife Mary Phelan predeceased him. Chester is survived by sons Timothy, Nathaniel, Harry and Michael; his step-children Amanda and Henry Outten and Suzanne Tipton; 12 grandchildren and four greatgrandkids; and siblings Jock Winchester, Samuel Bowles and Cynthia Aguilar.