CAYMAN ISLANDS (21 Feb 2004) -- A Pound Ridge man is missing and presumed dead after a scuba diving accident in the Caribbean last week. Armand Benedek was diving off the coast of Grand Cayman Island, where he had been vacationing every February for more than 40 years, when he went missing Feb. 9. Benedek was last seen swimming about 10 feet beneath the boat that was supposed to take him back to shore. He was 72. "He never came up," said his daughter Lia Kaufman of Carmel. "He's where he's always wanted to be forever now." Benedek was born in the Bronx in 1931 and graduated from the High School of Music and Arts in New York City. He attended Cornell University and received a degree in landscape architecture from the University of Georgia School of Environmental Design. He served in the military after college and retired as a lieutenant colonel. Benedek married Phyllis Roby in 1957. The couple lived in Pound Ridge for more than 35 years. Those who knew him remembered Benedek as a true gentleman whose energy and enthusiasm for his work and family did not fade with age. Benedek relished his time away from the office, said Glenn Ticehurst, Benedek's business partner. Kaufman recalled her father's love of the water and the family's annual boat trip up the Hudson River to Lake Champlain. "Everyone knows he loved the boat and he loved the Hudson River," she said. Benedek was perhaps most recognized for his career in landscape architecture. In 1961, he started his own firm in Bedford, currently called Armand Benedek & Glenn Ticehurst, where he continued to work full time. | | One of his early jobs was the Japanese garden at the Rockefeller compound in Pocantico Hills. That helped him land a variety of residential projects, some as far away as Jamaica, Florida and Brazil. His naturalistic work was pictured in various publications, including Architectural Digest, House and Garden, and House Beautiful. He was inducted as a fellow into the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1991. "He was a visionary and a man of great integrity, wit and wisdom, a giant in his profession and a mentor to many," Ticehurst said. "The phone hasn't stopped ringing from clients that go back 20 and 30 years. Everyone is saddened by his passing." In addition to his wife, Benedek leaves behind a brother, Richard of Ann Arbor, Mich.; and several nieces and nephews. He had two daughters, Kaufman and Amanda Soulias of South Salem; two stepdaughters, Carol Bates and Martha Briante, both of Stamford, Conn.; seven grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. Per Benedek's wishes, there was no funeral service. Charitable donations can be made in his memory to either The National Trust for the Cayman Islands, P.O. Box 31116 SMB, Grand Cayman Island, BWI, www.nationaltrust.org.ky, or to Riverkeeper at P.O. Box 130, Garrison, N.Y. 10524, www.riverkeeper.org. SOURCE - The Journal News |
