Deceased August 23, 2013
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In Memory
A decade has passed since our classmate Samuel Young Harris succumbed to esophageal cancer. Ten years earlier, Sam and Celine, Amy and Charlie Roehrig ’67, Arlene and I had met in a Philadelphia restaurant for an evening of reminiscing and renewal. Conversation details are long forgotten, but Sam remained that smooth southern gentleman with a mischievous and seductive smile we had known at Amherst.
A fine arts major, Sam earned master’s degrees in architecture and in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a law degree from the University of Maryland. He lived and worked as an architect and structural engineer in Philadelphia for more than 40 years, specializing in historic preservation. A founding partner of Kieran, Timberlake, and Harris, he was also the principal of S. Harris Ltd., a preservation design firm.
Sam’s career had been interrupted years earlier by Vietnam where he had served as a medical evacuation helicopter pilot. He flew more than 600 rescue missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star and multiple Air Medals for bravery under fire. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve as a lieutenant colonel.
Sam taught what he practiced as an adjunct faculty member at Penn in the Architecture and Historic Preservation programs. Teaching seemed to suit him. In 1994, he was an Eero Saarinen Distinguished Visiting Professor at Yale. In 2000, he received the G. Holmes Perkins Award for distinguished teaching at Penn. His book, Building Pathology (2001), was an authoritative text on the nuts and bolts of building deterioration, diagnostics and intervention. One pet long-term project was the restoration of the famous Eastern State Penitentiary in North Philadelphia. Once home to Willie Sutton and Al Capone, it is now a National Historic Landmark. It was the site of Sam’s 2013 memorial service.
Dave Andrews ’67