Darrel Downing Rippeteau of Delray Beach, Florida died peacefully at home on February 8, 2016. He had celebrated his 99th birthday on January 14, 2016.
Mr. Rippeteau was born in Clay Center, Nebraska in 1917 and was a prominent architect in the Northeast. He was a long-time resident of Watertown, NY. He married Donna Doris Hiatt of Odell, Nebraska in 1939; she died in 1988 and in 1991 he married C. Joyce Spencer of Washington, D.C.

Mr. Rippeteau graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1941, with a BA degree in Architecture. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and went on active duty in May 1942. His military duty included service based in the Pentagon and he was involved in development of a secret deception warfare program at the Army Experimental Station at then Pine Camp now Fort Drum near Watertown, NY.

Following WWII, Mr. Rippeteau settled in Watertown to run the regional office of the architecture-engineer firm Sargent Webster Crenshaw & Folley of Syracuse, NY. He rose to Managing Partner of this awarding-winning firm, which was active mainly across the Northeast. Projects notably included the Justice Building on the new New York State Capitol campus (Empire State Plaza) in Albany. He was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

His career and impact were described in a February 10 article by Richard Moody in the Watertown Daily Times of Watertown, NY entitled Man who helped build Watertown, Jefferson County civic leader, dies at 99 . In the article, Mr. Rippeteau was described as having been involved in more than 3,000 projects, including schools across the North Country, as well as the Dulles State Office Building, the Watertown Municipal Building and the Watertown Daily Times building in Watertown, NY. He was made managing partner of the firm in 1974.

The article further related that St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY, gave Mr. Rippeteau an Outstanding Citizen Award in 1971 for his service to the North Country, and listed some of Mr. Rippeteau's numerous civic and professional posts: president of the Greater Watertown Chamber of Commerce, director of the National Bank of Northern New York (now Key Bank), board member of the Empire State Chamber of Commerce, president of the Northern New York-Fort Drum Chapter of the Association of the United States Army,  president of the local Reserve Officers Association and trustee of the Jefferson County Historical Society. -WDT

Mr. Rippeteau also was a founding member of the Shipyard Museum, now the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY. Mr. Rippeteau remained in the U.S. Army Reserve and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. When his secret WWII service was eventually declassified, his war role was described in the book, Secret Soldiers: The Story of World War II's Heroic Army of Deception by Philip Gerard (Dutton, 2002). Mr. Rippeteau often stressed the beneficial connection between his military training and his professional success. Mr. Rippeteau was active in the First Presbyterian Church of Watertown, NY, Watertown Rotary and the Republican Party.

He was an outdoorsman who hunted on his tree farms on the Tug Hill Plateau. He was a pilot who enjoyed happy hours in his Piper Cherokee, which his children named The Pterodactyl , and he spent joyous summers at his 1907 home on the St Lawrence River, known as River Oaks.

Mr Rippeteau is survived by his wife, Joyce, of Delray Beach, Florida, by his two sons and daughter by Donna: Dr Bruce Estes Rippeteau (Sandra) of Lincoln, Nebraska and Cape Vincent, NY, Mr. Darrel Downing Rippeteau, Jr. (Judy) of Washington, D.C. and Wellesley Is., NY and Mrs. Jane Rippeteau Heffron (Kevin) of London, England and Wellesley Island, NY, by six grandchildren and by seven-and-counting great grandchildren. He was predeceased by his brother, Malcolm.

The family is planning a memorial service in the summer in Watertown, NY, with burial of the ashes in the family cemetery plot. Details will be announced later.