1947 �" 2015
Scott Rosien passed away at his home in San Francisco on November 23, 2015. He was 68. The cause was prostate cancer.
An attorney by training, Mr. Rosien was also an uncompromising master contractor and interior decorator by avocation for more than 40 years. With a great passion for travel and adventure, Mr. Rosien visited over 40 countries on four continents. Among his favorite destinations were Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, Greece, and Turkey, but none rivaled Cuba, which he visited numerous times. He also enjoyed traveling throughout the American Southwest. During his travels he pursued his love �" and strong aesthetic sense as a dedicated collector �" of vintage travel and industrial posters, 1940s and 1950s pottery, modernist furniture, Kilims and Middle Eastern rugs and textiles, still searching until the end of his life for new objects of interest, including during his trip of May-June of 2015 to Morocco and Paris. Mr. Rosien, an insatiable reader, was also a passionate food aficionado and his self-designed San Francisco kitchen was filled from his travels.
Scott Rosien was born May 4, 1947 in Los Angeles, California. With a venturesome personality, he was an excellent student, and the envy of his friends and classmates. He attended Westwood Elementary, Emerson Junior High and University High School (class of 1966). Mr. Rosien studied piano and accordion, attended Latin Club, and was a superb writer coining the phrase, "the irony of fate," in a school paper about the Titanic. From his early years he loved cars, politics, fishing, biking, and the beach, travel, and collectibles.
Mr. Rosien attended UC Berkeley (1966-1967) as the politically turbulent era of Mario Savio's lead Free Speech Movement took hold. Returning in 1968 to Los Angeles, he completed his undergraduate studies at UCLA (1969). Thereafter, he obtained his Juris Doctor from Hastings Law School in San Francisco (1972). After admission to the California Bar, Mr. Rosien worked in Washington, D.C. in the legal publishing business, then with the federal government's Social Security Administration in Fresno. He also pursued real estate as a broker in his adopted home of San Francisco.
Mr. Rosien was preceded in death by his father, Nathan Rosien, and his mother, Irma Rosien, a well-regarded artist in Los Angeles. He is survived by his cousins, Judy Sherman of Morro Bay, Jonathan Sommers of Long Beach, Jackie Justman and his aunt Sylvia Gordon both of Los Angeles. In addition to his family, he had many close friends including Robin Rome, Gregory Lind, Stephen Saltzman, Norman Levitt, David Mattingly, Terry Abrams, Alex Andrianov, and Cyrus Frank.
Finally, and noteworthy, Mr. Rosien was a gifted conversationalist for those who had the luck to know and love him. He held strong opinions, had no room for the foolish or irrational, and always kept allegiance to his own sturdy ways of thinking. He could be sardonic �" even acerbic �" though never at anyone's expense, only at the absurdities of life. At times his wit was infectious and laughter and mischief were companions he seldom left behind. And never anywhere in the world would he stay in a hotel with the word "boutique" in its name.
A memorial is planned for Sunday, January 31 at 1:30 p.m. at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park, 1218 Glendon Avenue, Los Angeles, 90024.