Many members of the West Hollywood community are remembering John Leighton Chase, an urban planner for the city, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack on August 13 at the age of 57.

John Chase, an urban planner in the City of West Hollywood, died unexpectedly last Friday. (photo courtesy of Richard Settle)

Chase worked for the City of West Hollywood for the past 14 years, and was involved in major projects such as the reconstruction of Santa Monica Boulevard and the La Brea Gateway project. He was also an accomplished author, having written books on urban planning and preservation including “Exterior Decoration: Hollywood’s Inside-Out Houses” and “Glitter, Stucco & Dumpster Diving: Reflections on Building in the Vernacular City”, for which he won a PEN American Center Best Book award in 2000. In addition to his work with the city, Chase also taught planning courses at several colleges and universities, including the University of Southern California. He was also the chair of the editorial board of ArcCA, a publication of the American Institute of Architects California Council, and was a member of the Board of Directors for the California Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians.

John Keho, planning manager for the City of West Hollywood, said Chase was an important contributor to the modern aesthetics of the city.

“It is a devastating loss. We are going to miss him a whole lot,” Keho said. “His work can be seen everywhere you look. When you look at Santa Monica Boulevard, you see John Chase’s work. When you look at the parks, you see John Chase’s work. All of the buildings in West Hollywood, he reviewed for design recommendations. He pushed architectural designs to make the buildings the best they could possibly be.”

Chase grew up in South Pasadena and graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz, where he studied urban planning and architectural design. He later attended graduate school at UCLA. Prior to joining the staff at the City of West Hollywood in 1996, he was employed by Disney and also ran his own architectural consulting firm.

West Hollywood City Councilmember John Duran said Chase was an integral part of the West Hollywood landscape, and added that Chase challenged developers to design buildings that were extraordinary and unique.

“The fact that we don’t have shoe box-looking buildings is because John would insist that we have creativity and style, and John would insist it look beautiful,” Duran said. “Anything outlandish or creative in appearance, it probably had John Chase’s touch.”

Duran said one of the things about Chase that was most memorable is his contributions to the Santa Monica Boulevard project. Chase advocated for having doublewide sidewalks, color-coordinated bus stops and other amenities that were eventually adopted into the plan.

“John had this real sense of beauty and style, and I think a lot of what people now associate with West Hollywood looking so beautiful can be attributed to John Chase,” Duran added. “The wider sidewalks and the colorful bus stops and the canopy of the trees all had to come together in a picturesque way. With John, we couldn’t just repave the boulevard, we had to redo the boulevard and make it beautiful.”

City Councilman Jeffrey Prang also lauded Chase’s work, and added that he was very personable.

“He was really a remarkable person, not just because he was a talented employee, but he was a wonderful and generous human being,” Prang said. “He loved the city, he loved his profession and he was just a larger than life figure in the City of West Hollywood.”

Chase is survived by his husband, Jonathan Cowan, and sister, Laura Chase. The city has scheduled a memorial for Chase on Tuesday, August 24 from 4 to 7 p.m. in Fiesta Hall at Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd. For information, visit www.weho.org.