Former Esprit Exec Turned Environmental Leader Peter Buckley, Founder of the Brower Center in Berkeley, Dies After a Long Life Devoted to Good Works
He and his wife Mimi Buckley started Front Porch Farm, the family's organic farm and vineyard in Healdsburg, among other things.
Peter Buckley, philanthropist and farmer (and a little bit of a vintner), was a force to be reckoned with.
Buckley died on April 29, 2026. Community members said the cause was skin cancer.
A visionary, he leapt from corporate exec at Esprit (run with his friends Susie and Doug Tompkins) to committed philanthropist, creating a critical hub for the environmental movement at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, among his many good works. Located across the street from the University of California, thanks to Peter’s persistence, the David Brower Center also featured an art gallery. Notably, it was also the first LEED Platinum building in Berkeley.
The nonprofit hub is only one part of Peter’s lasting legacy. Thousands will remember him for his friendly and fun personality and the love he created. One late in life project was Front Porch Farm, a diversified organic food and flower farm on 110 acres in Healdsburg.
(To learn more about the farm’s U-Pick schedule, click here.)
I myself had the pleasure of being part of Peter and Mimi Buckley’s Burning Man camp when my friend and colleague Nina Wise and I camped in their six person camp, sharing emollients and sunscreen for days in the desert.
Later, I visited the couple’s Front Porch Farm to write about its wines for Slow Wine USA. It was a dream come true to drive down the lane to their farm below, with fields and fields of flowers–flowers that they sold. Imagine–the foresight to realize that a successful life in commerce need not be a path to overconsumption but to running an organic flower (and food) farm!
They grew many diverse crops, including climate appropriate Rhone wine grape varieties. At one time, the now celebrated winemaker, Matt Taylor was tapped to not only oversee the 12 acre vineyard and winemaking but also manage the farm (currently certified organic).
The Buckleys were part of the extended Patagonia family. Peter’s Esprit enviro connection was initially to North Face founder Doug Tompkins (1943–2015), who married Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, the former Patagonia CEO, who now heads Tompkins Conservation.
Friends, Peter Buckley was a passenger in Tompkins’ tiny plane as Doug flew over prospective land purchases Tompkins later bought in the Tompkins’ massive nature reclamation project. Tompkins Conservation has now protected more than 15 million acres of wild lands, establishing or expanding new national parks. (Enjoy the NatGeo film Wild Life to see the whole story unfold.)
Buckley’s family recently posted this in honor of his memory:
It is the blessing of a lifetime to have known, loved, and been guided by a man of truly epic proportions: Peter Kinzie Buckley.
On April 29th, Peter departed this world and led the way into the great beyond; as always, he was one step ahead of the rest of us. Though he has moved on, he has left behind seeds of wisdom that will continue to root, grow, and nurture us. His foresight, intelligence, creativity, and gift for expanding our moral imagination have made us all more thoughtful, generous, imaginative, and kind people. We will strive to honor his legacy through the ways we live with one another and the planet.
Every day, we continue to love him and rejoice in what he believed to be most sacred in this world: beauty. We will find him mirrored in the sweetest and plumpest blackberry drupelets, in the healthiest blocks of microbe-rich soil, in the abundance of local pollinators parading through flowering hoop houses, and in the joy of community that this beautiful farm enables and reinforces.
The Brower Center in Berkeley is expected to have an event commemorating Buckley. Date to be announced. The farm’s instagram account (@frontporchfarmer) is a good place to keep up with farm announcements.
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