Jon Butler’s passion for the architecture of houses traces back to his youth in Rye, New York. The son of an architect, Jon remembers climbing through houses under construction, inhaling the perfume of freshly sawn lumber, and imagining how the framework of studs and joists could evolve into a happy shelter for a family.
Jon was educated at Rye Country Day School, St. Paul’s, Princeton, Princeton Graduate School of Architecture (Master of Fine Arts in Architecture ’65), with another year at Columbia Graduate School learning the intricacies of medical facility planning (Master of Science in Architecture ’66). He managed to take a year off between undergraduate and graduate schools to travel around the world, immersing himself in the richness that different cultures and religions have contributed to the built environment. Of particular fascination were the geometry, color of tiles and reflections on water in Islamic architecture, and the many ways wood could be used to create settings either imposing or intimate in Japan.
In 1967 he married Deborah Day Rogers, his father’s partner’s daughter and the descendant of two generations of architects. After two years planning medical facilities at Skidmore Owings & Merrill (the tower at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York), he joined the family firm, Rogers & Butler. He remained there for eleven years and was partner-in-charge of many projects. His two favorites were additions and alterations to Southampton Hospital, and the new Calvary Hospital in the Bronx – a facility for terminal cancer patients.
In 1980, he and two colleagues from Rogers & Butler – Jim Rogers and Charles Baskett – founded Butler Rogers Baskett. Together they built a firm of 80 staff and became noted for three specialty areas: Corporate interior architecture, especially for law firms; independent secondary schools, many in Manhattan, and country clubs. During nearly 25 years together, Jon’s partners supported his love of houses by encouraging a continuity of residential work, mostly in the vicinity of his summer home in Southeastern Connecticut.
For most of those 25 years Deborah Butler had been not only an amazing mother of two boys and two girls. She also had a distinguished teaching career, mostly helping third graders at the Chapin School develop self worth and a love of reading. Somewhere along the way she and her husband agreed that when day-to-day childrearing and the burden of tuitions were past she could have her garden and he could design houses full time. In 2003 Jon retired from BRB and they moved permanently to Old Black Point. So today if you want to know the Latin name of any obscure plant that will survive in zone 6B, ask Deborah. If you want a house that will be lovingly molded to suit its setting and be a haven for its owners, talk to Jon.
