Island architect and astronomer John Harrison Rudolph died just past midnight Sept. 6. He was 77.

He was born Aug. 14, 1926 in Essex Fells, N.J. to Jean Henry Rudolph and Edith Pierson Rudolph.

He graduated high school just in time to volunteer for service in the Navy in the Philippine Islands at the close of World War II.

After the war he earned a master of architecture degree, magna cum laude, from Princeton University and went to work for the noted Olmsted firm in Boston.

Having dreamt of heading west, he packed his possessions and his new wife, Natalie Wells Rudolph, into his old Woody station wagon and the couple worked their way to Bainbridge Island in 1954.

He started the island’s first architectural firm, John H. Rudolph and Associates, shortly after arriving on Bainbridge and worked in the community for the next 50 years, finishing his last job this past spring when a protracted battle with cancer forced him to retire.

His accomplishments were legion. He was one of the masterminds behind Battle Point Park’s Edwin E. Ritchie Astronomical Observatory, mobilizing scores of volunteers to build the facility.

He also did the original master plan for Battle Point Park itself.

Known informally as the “Park Architect,” he also contributed to the design of Strawberry Hill Park, Manzanita Park, Eagledale Park, and John Nelson Park, and was the prime mover behind numerous baseball and little league fields.

Starting 36 years ago, he saw to it that there was always a band in the Grand Old Fourth Parade, and the Intensely Vigorous Revolutionary Volunteer Dixieland Band was born. Rudolph often said he played fourth trombone in the band, no matter how few trombones were playing at the time.

He loved young people, and when he realized how many of his children’s friends needed summer work, he and a colleague started a card file of work-hungry youths and matched the teens up with friends who needed help at their homes. That still benefits the community as the Bainbridge Youth Services Job Board.

When the Chamber of Commerce was sent a questionnaire asking what festivals the island was known for, no one knew what to answer. Rudolph filled in the blank and the fictitious Scotch Broom Festival was born.

Two years later, some visiting Scots arrived at the Chamber enthusiastically awaiting the start of the non-existent event. John, not wanting to disappoint, roped friends and bystanders into picking the flowering broom and marching boldly down Winslow Way. The “Festival” finale was a Tiddly Winks contest in the street. The departing Scots were heard to say, “That’s it?”

A 50-year member of Kiwanis, he was responsible for the Cow Pie Lottery fund-raiser. And as renovation of an old military building for the Ritchie Observatory got under way, he organized the Dynamite Lottery to blow up the large concrete blocks that had to be removed from the building’s floor.

The aerial photos Rudolph took showing creosote slick oozing across Eagle Harbor from the Wyckoff plant kicked off the EPA cleanup of the harbor.

He designed a host of buildings and homes around the community and beyond. His coup de grace was the elegant building that served as the Bainbridge Library for many years until its recent remodel.

He is survived by his children, Kristi Rudolph, Mikael Rudolph, and Jamaal Forest; his grandchildren, Rio Forest, Zephyr Forest, and Jamila Limbaugh; great-granddaughter Aliyah Limbaugh; his nephew and niece, John and Dee Hetherington; as well as his step-children Daniel and Amelia Patterson; his sweetheart, Sally Metcalf and her daughter Naomi Smith; and the Rinonos family, who considered John their elder.

A celebration of life will be held at 3 p.m. Sept. 13 at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, with a reception following in the fellowship hall.

In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to the Battle Point Astronomical Association’s John H. Rudolph Planetarium Fund.