Robert
Kittredge
1910-2003
Robert Yates Kittredge, 93, a pioneer
resident of Oak Creek Canyon for 74 years, died Sept. 28.
Born in Cairo, Egypt, Mr. Kittredge was the son of a playwright and a
newspaper foreign correspondent and spent most of his childhood in New
York City. His artistic career began at age 14 as a sculptor's
apprentice, and he went on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in
Munich, Germany.
In 1930, Mr. Kittredge, at age 19, along with his brother, Dan, settled
in Oak Creek Canyon and built the "log house" at Forest Houses
Resort, their "citadel in the woods." Mr. Kittredge met and,
in 1938, married Mary Byrd of Upper Brandon, Va. He won a number of
sculpting commissions through the U.S. Government's "1% for
Arts" program, and in 1939, he returned to the East to work first
for Pratt and Whitney and then Sikorsky Helicopter Corporation during
World War II.
After the war, Mr. Kittredge returned to Oak Creek Canyon and, in 1946,
built the "rock house," the first of 16 hand-hewn houses that
would become Forest Houses Resort.
His first manuscript was published in 1958, and in 1961, he took a break
from writing and building, bought a 38-foot sailboat and, for the next
six years, along with Mary, sailed around the world. His 1970 treatise,
"Self-Taught Navigation", is still in print.
During the late 1960s, he operated his School of Celestial Navigation in
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., but the lure of the West brought him back to Oak
Creek Canyon and to more building.
In 1980, he was the recipient of the first Joseph Wood Krutch Award from
The Nature Conservancy for his donation of the Hartwell Canyon Preserve
located near Loy Butte, west of Sedona.
Mr. Kittredge was, in every way, a self-made man, acquiring the
knowledge and skills as he needed them. Once he had decided on a course
of action, little blocked his path. At times, hard and demanding, at
others, understanding and insightful, he was always powerful, never
passive. He seized his opportunities and made the most of them.
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