Ramon Zambrano

1935 - 2025

Ramon Zambrano
03/11/1935 - 09/17/2025
Ramon Zambrano, a 62-year resident of Mill Valley, CA, died on September 17 at age 90.
Born in New York City on March 11, 1935, he grew up in the nearby city of Mt. Vernon. Following graduation from high school-where he was a varsity athlete and president of his senior class-Ramon received an ROTC Naval scholarship to attend Tulane University, graduating in 1957 with a degree in Architecture.
He loved his student years in New Orleans, where his parents had first met as college students. Ramon's father, a commercial artist from Honduras, inspired in him a deep pride in his heritage. He remained close to his extended family there and was instrumental in helping protect the Mayan Copan ruins, now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
After college, Ramon's Naval commission took him to Kyoto, Japan. To his delight, he spent several months working on a Navy project. That experience profoundly shaped his aesthetic, later reflected in many of his architectural designs.
Following his service, he moved to San Francisco, where he met and married his first wife, Sally Soukup. They settled in Mill Valley, where their daughter Mia was born.
In the early years of his career, he worked for Hugh Stubbins and Associates, a prestigious firm with projects across the country and abroad. One assignment took him and his young family to Boston for two years, where he contributed to the Master Plan for Boston City Hospital-a complex, long-term project that merged two major hospitals into what would become Boston Medical Center.
After returning to the Bay Area, he made the leap to work independently, taking on major redesign projects of commercial, industrial, and office buildings in San Francisco. Ramon's favorite work from that era is the chapel at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, which blends elements of Brutalist architecture with the proportions and quiet mystery of medieval European churches-a sacred space both striking and serene.
In 1981, Ramon met Patience Moore at a political fundraiser in San Francisco. Their professional interests overlapped, and he soon began working alongside her. Patience, an accomplished small-scale developer and single mother of two young boys, Nicholas and Andrew Pribuss, shared his vision for thoughtful design and community-oriented development.
Together, they created and designed multiple projects across the Bay Area and beyond, with Ramon serving as both architect and developer. Recognizing the need for a hotel in Mill Valley, he and Patience, along with their partners, brought to life The Mill Valley Inn, the Acqua Hotel, and the Water's Edge in Tiburon. Each bears his architectural signature-the Mill Valley Inn blending gracefully into the village center, while the Acqua Hotel opens its rooms to the tranquil water and wetlands of Richardson Bay.
Of all his work, Ramon most cherished the family home situated on a ridge of Mount Tamalpais in Mill Valley. His architect stepson who grew up in the house describes it as Ramon's purest example of excellent design. The house's Japanese-inspired minimalism and seamless harmony with the landscape reflect his belief that architecture should evoke both serenity and warmth. Ramon and Patience were married there in 1985.
He was an adventurer at heart and an avid sailor, piloting his boat across San Francisco Bay and captaining countless bareboat charters in the Caribbean. Ramon also found joy in scuba diving, tennis, fly fishing, backpacking in the Sierras, and traveling through Africa. He filled his 90 years with more passion, curiosity, and experience than most could imagine.
He is survived by his wife, Patience; daughter, Mia; granddaughter, Emelia; stepsons, Nick and Andrew; and their four children.
In lieu of flowers the family requests donations in Ramon's memory to the Nature Conservancy at Silver Creek Preserve in Idaho.