Gerald L. Exline passed away on January 9, 2024.

Gerry’s first 18 years were spent with his parents, Wilbert and Myrtle, and brothers, David and Kenneth, in Moline, Illinois, before he headed to the University of Illinois to study architecture. In 1959, he married Arlene and they made their first trip to Europe.

He chose Columbia University for graduate school over Harvard and Princeton because Columbia sweetened the deal with a trip to Europe, so they packed up their young family, hoped on the Queen Mary and spent four months traveling Europe. The University of Illinois offered Gerry a position as professor of architecture in the Graduate Studio.

He loved teaching and mentoring as well as having summers off to explore. The first few summers of adventure were spent camping along the east coast from Providence, Rhode Island, to Key West, Florida, then we headed west. Summers spent in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Idaho made a lasting impression, and in 1972 we settled in Ketchum, where he started his own firm designing homes and commercial buildings.

In 1976, he was lured back to education when offered a position as the graduate instructor at Cranbrook Academy of Art. But this was short lived as the pull of the mountains was too strong, and in 1978 he moved back to Ketchum.

Throughout his career in higher education, Gerald also did architectural design work for various architecture firms around the country as well as showed his art in galleries in New York, Illinois and Idaho. He eventually became the lead design architect for HNTB in Los Angeles and assisted local valley architects with design.

He spent the majority of his later years on “the farm," his son Eric’s property in Meridian, working in his vast studio with wide open views of the mountains. One of his proud later projects was designing and drawing the stations of the cross, which were transferred onto glass, for Our Lady of the Snows Catholic church in Sun Valley. We urge you to stop in and take a look.

Dad was greeted in heaven by his parents, youngest son Paul and ex-wife Arlene. We are are quite sure he is catching up with those that left before him, with a sketch pad, the perfect pen and a good cup of espresso. One strives for a well-lived life, and in his 86 years dad accomplished this. We love and miss you—Kelly, Eric, Shawna, Alex, Kayla, Sam and Annie.

https://www.mtexpress.com/obituaries/gerald-exline/article_bb759b34-b644...

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