Final Salute

Arthur L. “Len” Brown Obituary

Arthur L. Len Brown, Jr.died April 8, 2020, a few weeks shy of his 89th birthday.

Len was a devoted husband, father and Grampy. Len leaves his beloved wife, Judith (Mahoney) Brown of Plymouth, MA, whom he married on December 26, 1955, and a large family who respected and treasured him.

Born on April 23, 1931 in Winthrop, MA, he was the oldest son of the late Arthur L. Brown and the late Josephine (Kelly) Brown and brother to Charles J. Brown and Thomas M. Brown, who both predeceased him.

Len graduated from Newton North High School in 1949, and attended Tufts College on a Navy ROTC scholarship. At Tufts, Len was invited to join the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society and upon graduating in 1953 with a civil engineering degree, he joined active service in the US Navy Seabees, Civil Engineer Corps. He trained at Civil Engineer Corps Officers School in Pt. Hueneme, CA and the USN School of Naval Justice in Newport, RI. Eventually he was stationed in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where he managed the construction of a Joint Royal Canadian Navy/US Navy Oceanographic Research Station designed to function as an undercover submarine detection station. Lens service with the Seabees had a profound effect on his outlook in life. Can Do is a motto he could remember after many other memories had left him.

After MIT awarded Len an S.M. in Civil Engineering in 1957, his former MIT professors hired him at their engineering firm, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger. Len went on to found or co-found and manage three Boston-area consulting companies: Weidemann Brown, Brown Rona, and Boston Building Consultants, before retiring at the age of 72.

Lens lifelong profession of consulting engineer matched well with his delight in solving complex structural problems in existing buildings, historic renovations and new building construction. Among the specialty engineering projects he worked on, his favorites were the US Pavilion at Expo 67, Pope John Paul IIs altar on Boston Common in 1979, Harvards restoration of its Weld Boathouse, the adaptive reuse of Lowells historic Boott Mills, and the preservation of numerous old covered bridges in Vermont.

Len was an accomplished and competitive athlete who played lacrosse, rugby and soccer in his youth, transitioning to badminton and squash, downhill skiing, sailing and sculling, and the special brand of golf that he played by his own rules. Scores of young soccer players learned the game, and sportsmanship, from Coach Brown. He was indefatigable when it came to tackling home improvement and gardening projects at the family homes in Wenham, Wellesley, and at Boca Royale in Englewood, FL, from constructing a sturdy log trellis for his climbing roses to nurturing annual crops of tomatoes and basil to building his legendary underwater stone wall at Merrymeeting Lake.

In 1952, Len met Judy Mahoney when he was a student at Tufts and she was a student at Jackson College; they were married three years later and in short order were young parents of six active children.

He is survived by Judy, his wife of 64 years, and their children and grandchildren: Jennifer Brown, her partner Finn Sherman of Gloucester, MA, her daughter Codi Haight and her significant other Nickolas Hatch; Wendyll Brown and her husband John Farber of Providence, RI, and their daughters Ellie and Caroline; Sally Vesty and her husband Matt of Norfolk, MA, and their three daughters and two sons-in-law: Lauren and her husband Tom Zayan, Kelly and husband Alex Katapodis, and Dana; Tim Brown and his wife Jean Ann of Pompano Beach, FL, their daughter Meredith and her significant other Alex Howarth; Len Brown III of Merrymeeting Lake, NH, his children Julia, Michael, Hannah and Daniel, and their mother Ruthanne Brown of Weston, MA; Lucy Zeller-Brown, her husband Ernst Zeller and their daughters Sophie and Katie of Chteau-dOex, Switzerland; and the familys former AFS student and long-time family friend Sanne Fejfer Olsen and her family of Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Brown family thanks the staff at Briarwood Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Needham, MA for their compassion and caring for Len while he was a resident there, in particular Dr. Sumer Verma, Dee, Vi, Anna, Anna Sophia, Marie, Nilton, and especially Modeleine.

Len will be interred with military honors at the National Cemetery in Bourne, MA at a future time.

Published in The Wellesley Townsman from Apr. 23 to May 1, 2020