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Two months after I started working in Robert A.M. Stern’s New York City office, Bob gave the staff his customary holiday gift: his latest book. Mine was inscribed: “For Dan Lobitz. Student, colleague. We shall see.” Little did I know that “we shall see” would turn into a nearly 40-year collaboration.
I came to understand that “we shall see” captured Bob’s essence—his belief in potential. Bob was a gifted architect, but above all, he was a teacher and mentor. He looked at people with a simple question: How can I get them to do their best? And he did, relentlessly, pushing us toward excellence.
I arrived at Bob’s office on my 26th birthday in October of 1986, wet behind the ears from the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture. I was hired for a two-week stint to design custom furniture for a house in New Jersey, and nervous about how my first big commission would work out. The two weeks eventually evolved into four decades.
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The office was located at 211 West 61st Street, just behind Lincoln Center. It took up most of one floor in an industrial loft building. I was impressed by the witty postmodern design, characterized by a central axis of reception area with classical columns opening into a library with classical millwork—the heart and soul of the plan—which in turn opened to Bob’s office and the view beyond. This central enfilade of three house-like honorific rooms was painted a classical color scheme of terra-cotta, sky blue, and pale grey with glossy off-white trim. It was flanked by open-plan design studios on the left and right, with low partitions surmounted by overscaled classical table lamps that seemed to be marching through the space. Bob’s office was also open-plan—albeit with high partitions—which allowed him to call out to summon any member of the architecture staff without getting up from his desk. Bob had obviously given the layout of the office a lot of thought, and it perfectly reflected his design ethos and collaborative academic working method.
I jumped into the work and quickly settled into the fast-paced rhythms of the office: Two weeks on furniture, one week on a pool house for a seaside villa, six months on a resort in Vero Beach. I loved the range and variety of high-quality projects and the amazing team, but what struck me most was Bob’s extraordinary level of engagement. He carefully reviewed everything and made copious suggestions, feedback that could be alternately constructive and cutting. He liked to shake things up; on more than one occasion, he took what we thought was a strong concept, turned the model upside down, and said, “OK, that’s better now—see if you can make it work.” I was the most junior person on the team, but he was still interested in my ideas and contributions. And he never lost that instinct of seeking out fresh voices and young talent.
Bob’s approach was scholarly, and the starting point of any project was research; we studied what had been done successfully in the past to inform our projects. Bob had a photographic memory, and he often referred us to books in the library or meticulously organized slide photos he had taken during his travels around the world.
When I joined the firm, the focal point and heart of the office was the extensive and beautifully designed library. Bob continued to expand our collection, acquiring any and every book on architecture and design that might inspire or inform our work. We eventually hired a full-time librarian, and the library repeatedly outgrew its space. Today we have one of the largest privately held architecture libraries in the world.
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Bob’s lessons were not just architectural. My own drink had been bourbon on the rocks, but he taught many of us to love a vodka martini—very dry, shaken, and straight up with a twist. Ever the student, I soon became his preferred bartender; he would seek me out at our many office parties to mix his. For my own cocktail, I added a spin: a twist and an olive.
Bob loved film and theater and would delight in recalling a song or image that related to whatever project we were discussing at the moment. New York City was most definitely his home, but his favorite holiday was Thanksgiving in London at Claridge’s, to take in West End shows and have lunch with Zaha Hadid. Can you imagine?
When traveling for work, he insisted on staying in the best hotels so that we might apply their lessons to our work. We walked endlessly on our trips and photographed every significant building for inclusion in the slide library.
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Bob assembled and cultivated a group of talented partners, and we worked with him to build an incredible variety of projects that encompassed superlatives. He liked to say, “We design everything from towns to tabletops.” And he always asked himself, “Who is the best person for a given task?”
When he assumed the deanship at Yale 18 years ago, he checked in by phone on his days in New Haven to monitor our progress. More recently, when he stepped away from day-to-day involvement in our work, he loved to get frequent updates on our progress via Zoom.
The last time I spoke to Bob was by telephone from a site visit to our 1 Mayfair project in London the day before he died. I gave him updates on various work on the boards and under construction. He listened intently while I told him about projects in New York, Newport Beach, Palm Beach, the Bahamas, and London. When I finished, he said, “Thank you for the call—I’m glad to hear that everything is moving forward.”
We later learned that on his last evening, Bob had a glass of scotch and listened to Sinatra. I like to imagine it was “New York, New York” or “My Way”—or both—and that he stepped gracefully (and contentedly?) into the next world, meeting Zaha in time for one more wonderful Thanksgiving lunch.
Dan Lobitz is a RAMSA partner and chair of the firm’s Management Committee
