Dmitri Vedensky (1930-1997)

Dmitri Nicholas Vedensky, Jr. was born in Berkeley in 1930, the son of metallurgist Dmitri Nicholas and Helen Montmorency Vedensky. Raised in Berkeley, he attended Stanford University for one year before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley were he received his bachelor’s degree in 1951. After an interruption in his graduate education to serve in the Korean War from 1952 to 1954, he returned to Berkeley, finishing his Masters Degree in Architecture in 1955. Upon graduation he went to work in the San Francisco office of UC professor, Joseph Esherick, Esherick, Homsey, Dodge & Davis (EHDD). He worked there for eight years on some of Esherick’s most notable houses, such as the Lurline Roth House in Hawaii, until he left to open his own practice in 1964. Working mostly as a residential designer he completed six houses at The Sea Ranch, including his own residence, which received the Architectural Award of Excellence for Design and was published in Architectural Record’s 1975 Record Houses Issue. Other notable projects include a collaboration with the late Charles Moore on two homes for Mr. and Mrs. Henry Shinefield – one at Sea Ranch (The Sea Ranch Design Award 1978) and the other in San Francisco’s Presidio neighborhood, the Blanchard Residence in Anchor Bay, and the McIntyre House in Pebble Beach.

From 1964 to 1967 Vedensky lectured and taught design at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design. In 1970 he served as a juror for the Awards Program of the A.I.A. Chapter of Portland, OR. In 1976 the then-Mayor George Moscone appointed Vedensky to the San Francisco Art Commission and he chaired the civic design committee for 10 years. In 1986 Vedensky joined the design review committee at The Sea Ranch and served as chairman from 1988 until his death from heart failure in 1997. Sources: “A Brief Resume,” by Dmitri Vedensky San Francisco Chronicle, November 4, 1997 Obituary.