Land Preservationist Putnam Livermore Obituary

Read the obituary of preservationist Putnam Livermore as featured in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 12, 2015.

Putnam Livermore, who helped save California public lands, dies

by John Wildermuth, San Francisco Chronicle, December 12, 2015

As a member of a pioneer family of prospectors, Putnam Livermore wouldn’t have been tagged as someone who would devote his life to preserving the state he was born in.

But as co-founder of The Trust for Public Land, first attorney for the The Nature Conservancy in the Western United States and a leader in conservation law, Mr. Livermore, who died Nov. 1 at the age of 93, helped keep the forces of growth and development at bay as he worked to save huge chunks of the state for future generations.

Born in San Francisco on May 29, 1922, Mr. Livermore used his lifetime of family connections and experience to convince wealthy Californians that the state needed their land more than they needed the money it could bring.

Mr. Livermore’s “kindness, patience and thoughtful consideration of others made him a favorite with eccentric donors of large pieces of property and he became a highly effective advocate for preserving open space,” his family said in a notice of his death.

Mr. Livermore attended the Thacher School in Ojai (Ventura County), UC Berkeley, Yale Law School and Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley. A tall, rangy, athletic man, he rowed for a UC Berkeley championship crew team as an undergraduate. A photo of the boat crossing the finish line 7 lengths ahead of the field was featured on his wall for the rest of his life.