Stephen Kabala, 1954-2015
Stephen Byron Kabala, architect, departed on his next adventure July 4, 2015. He left the worries of this world surrounded in the loving embrace of his family, and will be deeply and forever missed.
Steve was born in Chicago, Illinois, on January 19, 1954. He spent his childhood in Chicago and New York City, before moving with his family to San Francisco in 1969. After his move to California, he met the great loves of his life, his wife Janice and the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Steve earned his architecture degree from the University of California at Berkeley. During his years in the Bay Area, he developed a lifelong passion for rock climbing and mountaineering, primarily in Yosemite Valley. In 1982, he and his wife fulfilled their dream to relocate to the Eastern Sierra, where Steve established his architectural practice, in Mammoth Lakes, which he maintained for over 30 years. He was licensed to practice in several states and completed hundreds of projects throughout California, Nevada, Oregon, Arizona and Utah, including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Headquarters in Bishop, and the California Visitor’s Center in Mammoth Lakes.
Steve can best be described as a man of deep intelligence and tremendous passion. He was dedicated to building a more beautiful world through architecture, and treated each project as an opportunity to share his love of this area through the built environment. He loved the Eastern Sierra – the mountains and the desert – and was a veritable walking encyclopedia of geology, anthropology, mountaineering history and routes, dangerous and lengthy four-wheel drive excursions, and special places. He was an accomplished backcountry skier and mountaineer, and had climbed and skied dozens of Sierra peaks. He was especially proud of his long and disciplined climbing career, spanning from Yosemite, to the High Sierra, to the desert towers of Utah, and fulfilling his lifelong dream of arctic exploration. He loved literature and was profoundly philosophical – he could scarcely ever be found without a book, and would often recite from memory passages of Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, and Miller. He loved art, beauty, and nature. Above all, he loved his family, and found his greatest joy in sharing his love of exploration, adventure, philosophy, and beauty with them.
He is survived by his wife, Janice Kabala, and his children, Elaine Magowan (Kabala), Stephen Thomas Kabala, and son-in-law Colin Magowan, his extended family in the Bay Area, and a lifetime of friends and climbing partners. A Celebration of Life is planned for Sunday, August 9 at his daughter’s home in Starlite.
