Nion Robert "Bob" Thieriot, a dedicated conservationist and a great-grandson of Chronicle co- founder Michael H. de Young, died yesterday at a hospital near his home in Massachusetts after a five- month battle with brain cancer.
Mr. Thieriot, 52, had a lifelong passion for the outdoors and for working with his hands, leading many efforts over the years to preserve open space and woodlands in Massachusetts and California.
He cultivated vegetables for sale on his 200-acre Tall Pine Farm in Monterey, Mass., living there in a historic 275-year-old farmhouse and specializing in craftsmanship with antique hand tools. He also maintained a sawmill, and was so skilled in traditional He also maintained a sawmill, and was so skilled in traditional carpentry that when he built a vegetable stand on his farm a decade ago he did the whole thing from scratch, handcrafting the boards out of trees and constructing the sturdy stand with pegs instead of nails and screws. "From a young age, he was enamored of the forest and wild spaces," said his brother, Peter E. Thieriot of San Francisco. In his conservation work, "he tried to move strategically just in advance of the developers" to preserve as much open land as possible.
This effort was so successful that through the Berkshire Natural Resources Council in Pittsfield, Mass., alone, Mr. Thieriot bought and either donated or restricted for preservation more than 4,500 acres of land. Mr. Thieriot was a director of the council as well as a founding member of the Monterey (Mass.) Preservation Land Trust. Through his estate, 3,600 more acres of land will be preserved, including his Tall Pine Farm.
Mr. Thieriot also helped create the Sonoma Land Trust in Sonoma County, dedicated to preserving open land and forests in the county. He ran a vegetable farm on more than 300 acres there, in Cazadero, in the 1970s. When it burned in a forest fire in 1978, he donated the land to the land trust.
Mr. Thieriot was born in San Mateo to Ferdinand "Peter" and Frances Dade Thieriot, prominent figures in San Francisco business and society. His father was an executive at The Chronicle and his mother was featured on the cover of Life magazine.
Mr. Thieriot's parents died in 1956 on the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria when it sank after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm off Nantucket, Mass., and their children were reared by relatives. The young Nion was raised in the Bay Area by his aunt and uncle, Yvonne and Ferdinand Stent.
He attended Canterbury School in New Milford, Conn., and graduated in 1969 from Stanford University. He married Peggy Wilson the year he graduated from Stanford; the two were divorced in the mid- 1980s.
After his Cazadero farm burned down, Mr. Thieriot moved his family to Massachusetts, founding his Tall Pine Farm and becoming vigorously involved with land-preservation efforts. He became an proponent of "gentle forestry," a timber-management approach allowing limited lumber harvesting to preserve forests for wildlife, aesthetics and wetlands. Much of his philanthropy and conservation work was done anonymously,
His brother, Peter, said that at the time of his death, Mr. Thieriot was halfway through negotiating, in conjunction with the Berkshire council, for the preservation of a 430-acre milk farm in north Berkshire County. His family and the council intend to continue the negotiations, to buy development rights ensuring the farmland will have logging restrictions and protection from subdivision.
Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci presented Mr. Thieriot with the Governor's Award for Open Space Protection in October.
Mr. Thieriot also had a keen interest in youth issues, founding Janet's Fund with the Berkshire-Taconic Community Foundation to encourage education excellence in the South Berkshire Regional School District. He created the fund in honor of his daughter, Janet Thieriot, who died of cancer in 1989 at the age of 18.
Mr. Thieriot is survived by three sons, William L. Thieriot of New York City and James M. and Michael A. Thieriot, both of Monterey, Mass.; a daughter, Amanda M. Thieriot of Monterey, Mass.; three brothers, Peter, John Dade and George Cameron Thieriot, all of San Francisco; and several nieces and nephews.
The family will receive friends for calling hours on Sunday between 4 and 7 p.m. at the Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home, Great Barrington, Mass. Services will be at 11 a.m. Monday at First Congregational Church, Great Barrington, with burial to follow in Corashire Cemetery in Monterey, Mass.
Donations in Mr. Thieriot's name may be made to Janet's Fund or to the Berkshire Natural Resources Council, sent in care of Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home, 426 Main St., Great Barrington, Mass. 01230. Donors may also arrange, through the funeral home, to have a tree planted in Mr. Thieriot's name.
Mr. Thieriot, 52, had a lifelong passion for the outdoors and for working with his hands, leading many efforts over the years to preserve open space and woodlands in Massachusetts and California.
He cultivated vegetables for sale on his 200-acre Tall Pine Farm in Monterey, Mass., living there in a historic 275-year-old farmhouse and specializing in craftsmanship with antique hand tools. He also maintained a sawmill, and was so skilled in traditional He also maintained a sawmill, and was so skilled in traditional carpentry that when he built a vegetable stand on his farm a decade ago he did the whole thing from scratch, handcrafting the boards out of trees and constructing the sturdy stand with pegs instead of nails and screws. "From a young age, he was enamored of the forest and wild spaces," said his brother, Peter E. Thieriot of San Francisco. In his conservation work, "he tried to move strategically just in advance of the developers" to preserve as much open land as possible.
This effort was so successful that through the Berkshire Natural Resources Council in Pittsfield, Mass., alone, Mr. Thieriot bought and either donated or restricted for preservation more than 4,500 acres of land. Mr. Thieriot was a director of the council as well as a founding member of the Monterey (Mass.) Preservation Land Trust. Through his estate, 3,600 more acres of land will be preserved, including his Tall Pine Farm.
Mr. Thieriot also helped create the Sonoma Land Trust in Sonoma County, dedicated to preserving open land and forests in the county. He ran a vegetable farm on more than 300 acres there, in Cazadero, in the 1970s. When it burned in a forest fire in 1978, he donated the land to the land trust.
Mr. Thieriot was born in San Mateo to Ferdinand "Peter" and Frances Dade Thieriot, prominent figures in San Francisco business and society. His father was an executive at The Chronicle and his mother was featured on the cover of Life magazine.
Mr. Thieriot's parents died in 1956 on the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria when it sank after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm off Nantucket, Mass., and their children were reared by relatives. The young Nion was raised in the Bay Area by his aunt and uncle, Yvonne and Ferdinand Stent.
He attended Canterbury School in New Milford, Conn., and graduated in 1969 from Stanford University. He married Peggy Wilson the year he graduated from Stanford; the two were divorced in the mid- 1980s.
After his Cazadero farm burned down, Mr. Thieriot moved his family to Massachusetts, founding his Tall Pine Farm and becoming vigorously involved with land-preservation efforts. He became an proponent of "gentle forestry," a timber-management approach allowing limited lumber harvesting to preserve forests for wildlife, aesthetics and wetlands. Much of his philanthropy and conservation work was done anonymously,
His brother, Peter, said that at the time of his death, Mr. Thieriot was halfway through negotiating, in conjunction with the Berkshire council, for the preservation of a 430-acre milk farm in north Berkshire County. His family and the council intend to continue the negotiations, to buy development rights ensuring the farmland will have logging restrictions and protection from subdivision.
Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci presented Mr. Thieriot with the Governor's Award for Open Space Protection in October.
Mr. Thieriot also had a keen interest in youth issues, founding Janet's Fund with the Berkshire-Taconic Community Foundation to encourage education excellence in the South Berkshire Regional School District. He created the fund in honor of his daughter, Janet Thieriot, who died of cancer in 1989 at the age of 18.
Mr. Thieriot is survived by three sons, William L. Thieriot of New York City and James M. and Michael A. Thieriot, both of Monterey, Mass.; a daughter, Amanda M. Thieriot of Monterey, Mass.; three brothers, Peter, John Dade and George Cameron Thieriot, all of San Francisco; and several nieces and nephews.
The family will receive friends for calling hours on Sunday between 4 and 7 p.m. at the Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home, Great Barrington, Mass. Services will be at 11 a.m. Monday at First Congregational Church, Great Barrington, with burial to follow in Corashire Cemetery in Monterey, Mass.
Donations in Mr. Thieriot's name may be made to Janet's Fund or to the Berkshire Natural Resources Council, sent in care of Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home, 426 Main St., Great Barrington, Mass. 01230. Donors may also arrange, through the funeral home, to have a tree planted in Mr. Thieriot's name.
Nion Robert "Bob" Thieriot, a dedicated conservationist and a great-grandson of Chronicle co- founder Michael H. de Young, died yesterday at a hospital near his home in Massachusetts after a five- month battle with brain cancer.
Mr. Thieriot, 52, had a lifelong passion for the outdoors and for working with his hands, leading many efforts over the years to preserve open space and woodlands in Massachusetts and California.
He cultivated vegetables for sale on his 200-acre Tall Pine Farm in Monterey, Mass., living there in a historic 275-year-old farmhouse and specializing in craftsmanship with antique hand tools. He also maintained a sawmill, and was so skilled in traditional He also maintained a sawmill, and was so skilled in traditional carpentry that when he built a vegetable stand on his farm a decade ago he did the whole thing from scratch, handcrafting the boards out of trees and constructing the sturdy stand with pegs instead of nails and screws. "From a young age, he was enamored of the forest and wild spaces," said his brother, Peter E. Thieriot of San Francisco. In his conservation work, "he tried to move strategically just in advance of the developers" to preserve as much open land as possible.
This effort was so successful that through the Berkshire Natural Resources Council in Pittsfield, Mass., alone, Mr. Thieriot bought and either donated or restricted for preservation more than 4,500 acres of land. Mr. Thieriot was a director of the council as well as a founding member of the Monterey (Mass.) Preservation Land Trust. Through his estate, 3,600 more acres of land will be preserved, including his Tall Pine Farm.
Mr. Thieriot also helped create the Sonoma Land Trust in Sonoma County, dedicated to preserving open land and forests in the county. He ran a vegetable farm on more than 300 acres there, in Cazadero, in the 1970s. When it burned in a forest fire in 1978, he donated the land to the land trust.
Mr. Thieriot was born in San Mateo to Ferdinand "Peter" and Frances Dade Thieriot, prominent figures in San Francisco business and society. His father was an executive at The Chronicle and his mother was featured on the cover of Life magazine.
Mr. Thieriot's parents died in 1956 on the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria when it sank after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm off Nantucket, Mass., and their children were reared by relatives. The young Nion was raised in the Bay Area by his aunt and uncle, Yvonne and Ferdinand Stent.
He attended Canterbury School in New Milford, Conn., and graduated in 1969 from Stanford University. He married Peggy Wilson the year he graduated from Stanford; the two were divorced in the mid- 1980s.
After his Cazadero farm burned down, Mr. Thieriot moved his family to Massachusetts, founding his Tall Pine Farm and becoming vigorously involved with land-preservation efforts. He became an proponent of "gentle forestry," a timber-management approach allowing limited lumber harvesting to preserve forests for wildlife, aesthetics and wetlands. Much of his philanthropy and conservation work was done anonymously,
His brother, Peter, said that at the time of his death, Mr. Thieriot was halfway through negotiating, in conjunction with the Berkshire council, for the preservation of a 430-acre milk farm in north Berkshire County. His family and the council intend to continue the negotiations, to buy development rights ensuring the farmland will have logging restrictions and protection from subdivision.
Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci presented Mr. Thieriot with the Governor's Award for Open Space Protection in October.
Mr. Thieriot also had a keen interest in youth issues, founding Janet's Fund with the Berkshire-Taconic Community Foundation to encourage education excellence in the South Berkshire Regional School District. He created the fund in honor of his daughter, Janet Thieriot, who died of cancer in 1989 at the age of 18.
Mr. Thieriot is survived by three sons, William L. Thieriot of New York City and James M. and Michael A. Thieriot, both of Monterey, Mass.; a daughter, Amanda M. Thieriot of Monterey, Mass.; three brothers, Peter, John Dade and George Cameron Thieriot, all of San Francisco; and several nieces and nephews.
The family will receive friends for calling hours on Sunday between 4 and 7 p.m. at the Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home, Great Barrington, Mass. Services will be at 11 a.m. Monday at First Congregational Church, Great Barrington, with burial to follow in Corashire Cemetery in Monterey, Mass.
Donations in Mr. Thieriot's name may be made to Janet's Fund or to the Berkshire Natural Resources Council, sent in care of Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home, 426 Main St., Great Barrington, Mass. 01230. Donors may also arrange, through the funeral home, to have a tree planted in Mr. Thieriot's name.
Mr. Thieriot, 52, had a lifelong passion for the outdoors and for working with his hands, leading many efforts over the years to preserve open space and woodlands in Massachusetts and California.
He cultivated vegetables for sale on his 200-acre Tall Pine Farm in Monterey, Mass., living there in a historic 275-year-old farmhouse and specializing in craftsmanship with antique hand tools. He also maintained a sawmill, and was so skilled in traditional He also maintained a sawmill, and was so skilled in traditional carpentry that when he built a vegetable stand on his farm a decade ago he did the whole thing from scratch, handcrafting the boards out of trees and constructing the sturdy stand with pegs instead of nails and screws. "From a young age, he was enamored of the forest and wild spaces," said his brother, Peter E. Thieriot of San Francisco. In his conservation work, "he tried to move strategically just in advance of the developers" to preserve as much open land as possible.
This effort was so successful that through the Berkshire Natural Resources Council in Pittsfield, Mass., alone, Mr. Thieriot bought and either donated or restricted for preservation more than 4,500 acres of land. Mr. Thieriot was a director of the council as well as a founding member of the Monterey (Mass.) Preservation Land Trust. Through his estate, 3,600 more acres of land will be preserved, including his Tall Pine Farm.
Mr. Thieriot also helped create the Sonoma Land Trust in Sonoma County, dedicated to preserving open land and forests in the county. He ran a vegetable farm on more than 300 acres there, in Cazadero, in the 1970s. When it burned in a forest fire in 1978, he donated the land to the land trust.
Mr. Thieriot was born in San Mateo to Ferdinand "Peter" and Frances Dade Thieriot, prominent figures in San Francisco business and society. His father was an executive at The Chronicle and his mother was featured on the cover of Life magazine.
Mr. Thieriot's parents died in 1956 on the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria when it sank after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm off Nantucket, Mass., and their children were reared by relatives. The young Nion was raised in the Bay Area by his aunt and uncle, Yvonne and Ferdinand Stent.
He attended Canterbury School in New Milford, Conn., and graduated in 1969 from Stanford University. He married Peggy Wilson the year he graduated from Stanford; the two were divorced in the mid- 1980s.
After his Cazadero farm burned down, Mr. Thieriot moved his family to Massachusetts, founding his Tall Pine Farm and becoming vigorously involved with land-preservation efforts. He became an proponent of "gentle forestry," a timber-management approach allowing limited lumber harvesting to preserve forests for wildlife, aesthetics and wetlands. Much of his philanthropy and conservation work was done anonymously,
His brother, Peter, said that at the time of his death, Mr. Thieriot was halfway through negotiating, in conjunction with the Berkshire council, for the preservation of a 430-acre milk farm in north Berkshire County. His family and the council intend to continue the negotiations, to buy development rights ensuring the farmland will have logging restrictions and protection from subdivision.
Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci presented Mr. Thieriot with the Governor's Award for Open Space Protection in October.
Mr. Thieriot also had a keen interest in youth issues, founding Janet's Fund with the Berkshire-Taconic Community Foundation to encourage education excellence in the South Berkshire Regional School District. He created the fund in honor of his daughter, Janet Thieriot, who died of cancer in 1989 at the age of 18.
Mr. Thieriot is survived by three sons, William L. Thieriot of New York City and James M. and Michael A. Thieriot, both of Monterey, Mass.; a daughter, Amanda M. Thieriot of Monterey, Mass.; three brothers, Peter, John Dade and George Cameron Thieriot, all of San Francisco; and several nieces and nephews.
The family will receive friends for calling hours on Sunday between 4 and 7 p.m. at the Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home, Great Barrington, Mass. Services will be at 11 a.m. Monday at First Congregational Church, Great Barrington, with burial to follow in Corashire Cemetery in Monterey, Mass.
Donations in Mr. Thieriot's name may be made to Janet's Fund or to the Berkshire Natural Resources Council, sent in care of Finnerty & Stevens Funeral Home, 426 Main St., Great Barrington, Mass. 01230. Donors may also arrange, through the funeral home, to have a tree planted in Mr. Thieriot's name.
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