Jan Joseph Kalas

Jan Joseph Kalas, an architect who split his time between Brooklyn and East Hampton for many years and continued to keep a sailboat here, died on Oct. 31 after being struck by a car in Long Beach on his way to work. He was 70. 

Mr. Kalas practiced architecture for 40 years, 20 of them at the engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti, where he was a senior vice president. The firm said he was “known for his problem-solving ability and eye for detail.” Colleagues described him as quick-witted and full of energy.

He earned his B.A. in architecture from the University of Miami and a graduate certificate from the energy and engineering policy program at the Polytechnic Institute of New York in Brooklyn. Mr. Kalas was an advocate of sustainable design, his firm said, and was “a skilled diagnostician.” 

“Because of his background in design and construction, he understood how buildings are constructed and how they fail,” Gary Mancini, a managing principal at Thornton Tomasetti, wrote on the firm’s website. “It was this perfect balance of expertise that made him so good at litigation support.” He specialized in condition assessments, remediation, and litigation support for a wide range of building types, according to the firm, and had worked on such projects as the Chrysler Building, the Harry Winston store, and the New York State Supreme Court Building in New York City. 

He was a visiting professor at Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture for nearly 25 years. Before joining Thornton Tomasetti, he was a design architect with the Eggers Group, where he worked on a number of projects at the Military Academy at West Point. 

Outside of work, Mr. Kalas loved to sail. He collected vintage model trains and enjoyed reading, art, and spending time with his family. He was “a selfless man,” they said, who “always wanted to make sure you were okay before he was.” Seeing his family happy always “brought him joy,” they wrote. 

Mr. Kalas was born in Queens on Nov. 28, 1945, to Jerry and Mildred Kalas. He grew up in Queens and attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. As a boy, he paid frequent visits to the East End on fishing trips with his father. A dedicated sailor, he sailed and raced out of East Hampton starting in 1980, at first spending weekends aboard a boat and later buying a house here with his first wife, the former Debra Kahn. They were members of the now-defunct East Hampton Yacht Club. 

The couple reared their two sons in East Hampton and Brooklyn. 

After marrying Maggie Schelle, his second wife, and relocating to Northport, Mr. Kalas became stepfather to her daughter, Brigitte, and then father to a daughter, Anna. 

Mr. Kalas had lived in Long Beach with his girlfriend, Linda Peters, for the past year and a half. 

In addition to Ms. Peters, Mr. Kalas is survived by his children, Jan Kalas of Santa Barbara, Calif., Kristofer Kalas of New York City and East Hampton, and Anna Kalas of Northport, and by his stepdaughter, Brigitte Schelle of Oahu, Hawaii. His first wife, Debra Kalas of East Hampton and Palm Beach, Fla., and his second wife, Maggie Kalas of Northport, also survive.

Services were held in early November at St. Paul’s Methodist Church in Northport and the Metropolitan Pavilion in Manhattan. Mr. Kalas was cremated.