Roger Strout Passed Away August 24, 2021

Thanks for the opportunity to offer comments about Roger Strout. I’ll share some specific thoughts below, but the short of it is that Roger was a Gentleman to All, and in many ways, a hero and a legend for me.

I worked for Roger from 1991 through 2009 with a short hiatus when I was away to Denver for about four years for grad school and other life-changing events, so about 14 to 15 years of my life. I’ve seen him a lot less in the past 10 years due to circumstances and altered paths, but like all good friends, my deep respect, admiration, and affection for him and all his varied talents will never fade.

I always knew Roger as one of the kindest and most authentic individuals. He always put everyone at ease with his infectious, unfettered laughter. It is probably the most obvious and wonderful quality that everyone knew and loved about him. Some might say western swing dancing and a smooth two-step were a close second, but I knew him much better as an architect and mentor with an insatiably creative mind that never bent to the traditional monetary measures of success. Instead, he was driven by a tireless and focused commitment to solving challenging design problems for his clients in the best way possible. He loved to design, and he loved to draw. His talent for creating the most beautiful hand-drawn building elevations was unmatched. His artful renderings expressed his complete mastery with a pencil, a skill he would patiently try to convey to new interns striving to emulate his pure talent. He was quick to remind his staff of the importance of sketching ideas by hand on paper to fully explore opportunities and possibilities. Despite his prowess with old-school graphite, he also pushed himself to proficiency with 3D computer software as part of his mission to stay current in his professional practice.

Roger was guided by the design principles of “form follows function,” where the solution grew from the needs of his client’s program and the natural patterns, opportunities and constraints of the specific site. He listened to both and could always find the poetic balance where all the factors were optimized. Roger led his firm, Strout Architects, to complete hundreds of projects over his career, which included countless custom home masterpieces around the area and several larger commercial and civic design projects, such as the Community Counseling Center, Hotel Jackson, The Jackson Lake Lodge Addition, and the Cowboy Bar Steak House. I know there are more that I can’t remember. He also led a big programming and schematic design effort for a new Teton County Justice Center to house a new jail, law enforcement facilities and a new courthouse in downtown Jackson. The timing for funding the much-needed facility came amidst the sudden 2008 recession and was tabled, though energy is building again as the need still grows. The new project will ultimately benefit from the groundwork of Strout’s earlier efforts.

Roger served a full term as President of the Wyoming Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, a position he took only after making a quick pact with one of his contemporaries, Larry Berlin, that they would serve as officers together and share the long rides back and forth to meetings in other parts of the state. The two architects became better friends than competitors and offered a lot of experience, leadership and representation for western Wyoming. Larry remembers you could always see Roger quietly sketching something amazing at conferences or other group meetings while he listened and participated.

As a boss, though I rarely had to think of him that way, Roger always had an open door for his people, and he truly cared a great deal about their lives and career development. When needed, he generously and graciously supported me — and others — through personal challenges while employed with him and beyond. He had a tradition of taking his entire staff on annual long weekend retreats somewhere fun and architecturally relevant, where the group and our spouses could get to know each other better outside the office setting. And he also focused time for the staff to brainstorm about growing and improving the firm. Roger took his people to New York right after 9/11 and toured the devastated site and other significant landmarks. He took his entire staff to national AIA conferences in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Boston for continuing education. And he hosted relaxing firm building retreat weekends at Old Faithful Inn, Brooks Lake Lodge, and Homestead Resort in Utah.

Roger was an active member of St John’s Episcopal Church in Jackson and constantly volunteered to help them wherever and whenever he could. Together with his wife Becky, they made several trips volunteering time and resources to an orphanage with abundant need in Mexico, and they became intimately familiar and attached to the community.