Derek Huntington, September 19, 2011
Published in The New York Times on Sept. 21, 2011
HUNTINGTON–Derek Updegraf, 64, longtime Manhattan resident and former President of ZZZ Carpentry Inc., died on September 19th at home in the West Village.
Son of John Willard Huntington and Patricia Shaffer Huntington, Derek was born on 26 February 1947 and grew up in West Hartford, CT. He graduated from Phillips Academy Andover in 1965 and Yale College in 1969. At Yale he was a nationally ranked lacrosse player, and a member of Fence Club and Scroll & Key Senior Society.
Music was always a vital part of Derek’s life. Throughout the 1970’s he was a professional singer, songwriter, music producer and sound engineer, living and performing in Los Angeles, Boston and across New England.
In 1980, Derek moved to Manhattan and in 1982 he founded ZZZ Carpentry, a high-end residential construction firm, collaborating closely with a number of notable architects on both traditional and modern renovations.
Derek was an avid fresh and salt water fly fisherman, an enthusiastic tennis player, and an all-around athlete. He was a summer resident of Saltaire on Fire Island.
Derek had many friends whom he loved and who loved him. He is survived by his wife and partner of 21 years, Caroline Northcote Sidnam, son Samuel Dworkin Huntington, stepdaughter Emma X Sidnam Pucci, stepson Samuel Northcote Pucci, former wife Elizabeth Dworkin, sister Sara Huntington Ohly of New Haven, CT and brother John Willard Huntington of Chicago IL. The time and place of a memorial service have not yet been determined. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Natural Resources Defense Council or The Wildlife Conservation Society.
[in_memoriam_closing]
I’ve been asked to post my eulogy at Derek’s memorial service; I will, since it may jog others’ memories pleasantly.
November 12, 2011
Derek had some real fans on the folk circuit but he never had an audience this big. Before today. And everyone here—plus many more who could not come—valued Derek Huntington, or loved him, for different reasons. In my case, I’d say, after thinking about him daily since last summer, that I loved him for something I’d sum up as heart.
We met at Yale. He was a singer and played the flute, wildly like Pan. He asked me to give him guitar lessons. Picture the two of us in my college room—Derek delving into the music, working out chords and struggling with picking patterns, serene, concentrated, screwing up and laughing when he screwed up—that gust of laughter he had.
He had not just the skill of an athlete but the heart of a competitive athlete. You don’t get All-American honors without that, and I was still to learn you don’t get much of any honors without that.
He was unique in having a tattoo. Times change. Certainly I would never have gotten one. And I was way too timid to try LSD. I was not even bold enough to date a townie, but remember him saying, “Tonight I find out if she’s a good Catholic girl or not.” And his history with girls back in Hartford and at Andover had me thinking, this guy is bold.
I made a 10-minute film starring Derek and no one else, a burlesque of “Nanook of the North” in which Derek‘s Eskimo hunter way outdid Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin. I always wanted to direct Waiting for Godot, just so I could cast Derek as Lucky. He was so free, unlaced.
You liked to be with Derek. Yet that was only half: in his company, you liked yourself. You enjoyed yourself, literally, and you liked how he saw you.
We were both in Boston at the same time, and while I, once marked by friends and teachers as a creative writer, instead held an establishment job and in a fit of timidity went to Harvard Business School, Derek was starting and running Perfect Crime Productions, and writing beautiful songs. It was not easy for him to perform in public and to perform songs of personal feeling; but he did perform, with élan as well as bravery. Simple bravery, as when his beloved black lab, Ben, fell sick and Derek wrapped him in a blanket and held him till his drugged heart stopped. And the beautiful songs kept coming.
Later, in New York, when I first saw “ZZZ Carpentry” on his car, I thought the door panel was a tombstone for his music. I’d never started a business; I didn’t know this was what an unafraid person does. Holding onto music was that timid impulse, moving on was the vital impulse. I did not foresee his happy clients, his company of fulfilled people, his handsome and difficult projects–for him all so natural.
When I started to get the hang of right living and fell in love with a woman who would really help me live, Derek knew it. But as my best man, he did something showing his drive for the real and his perfect willingness to upset things. He drew me aside in the midst of the festivities the day before and said, “You certain you want to do this? Now is the time, because if you don’t want to go through with it, just tell me. I will handle everything.”
But as a story of loyalty that has nothing on the help he offered a convicted murderer, an immigrant, who worked for him. This seemed to me not just bold but in fact the true charity many devout people fail to attain.
At my 45th birthday in Chicago Derek showed up, as a surprise. At his 50th birthday I wanted to pay this back, with a toast, but there were too many people, too much music, too much vitality to be heard. So I gave it to him the next morning at breakfast, hoping for gusts; luckily he always made a great audience. At his 60th birthday, he toasted his wife by saying with great ease, “I plan to die in her arms.”
He pretty much did. A week before the tumor cropped up, I got an email saying “It’s time for you and me to take a high-altitude fishing trip.” He meant trout casting up in the Rockies. It was not time. And never will be. Or it will be an extremely high-altitude fishing trip.
So rather than spend August days learning from the expert angler, I was teaching him—words. Asked the color of a blue napkin he could not say; the color of butter, he could not say. Yet when asked the color of his sweater, he immediately said, “Aubergine.”
Our last, best time together, during his last month alive, turned out be—picture it–the two of us playing guitars in his home office—Derek delving into the music, working out chords and struggling with picking patterns, serene, concentrated, screwing up and gusting laughter.
To say, “When Derek died a part of me died with him” is not sentimental, it’s factual. The part of you he brought out has died; the part of you he prized has gone away, and you will not see yourself in his eyes, anymore.
On his deathbed he looked at me and uttered unintelligible sounds ending clearly with, “part.” Something, something part… Are you saying, “The best of friends must part?” “—Yes.” So I touched his chest. He moved my hand to his heart. That heart. And held it there.
Then we did part. I walked away, down Bank Street, under a dark, cloudy September sky. But, luckily, a warm wind came up, in a quick strong gust.
I knew Derek only slightly through Keys, but liked him. I admired his chutzpah in singing Dylan’s ‘I’ll be Your Baby Tonight’ a cappella at one of our meetings. Equally, I was moved by Tom Weber’s tribute to a man who was clearly a very close friend. I can only wish his wife and family my sincere condolences, late and in absentia. Reading Weber’s beautifully-expressed words, I was struck by how singularly multi-faceted Derek was – truly awe-inspiring. HE DIED YOUNG BUT HE BURNED VERY BRIGHT, IN A NUMBER OF SPHERES. This is no mean achievement at all.