Jeffrey Bogetti

Jeffrey Steven Bogetti, 46, died of brain cancer in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on May 30 following a four-and-a-half-year illness.

Mr. Bogetti, a roofing contractor who surfed and passed on his love for the water through his work with the East Hampton Volunteer Ocean Rescue Squad and as an instructor of junior lifeguards here, was born on Sept. 25, 1967, in Bronxville, N.Y.

He spent his childhood in Tuckahoe, in Westchester County, and in Montauk, which “he considered his home as much as Tuckahoe, if not more so,” according to one of his close friends, T.J. Calabrese.

After graduating from Tuckahoe High School, he went to the School of the Visual Arts in New York City, and “while he was not a practicing artist, he always had an artistic eye,” said Mr. Calabrese.

Mr. Bogetti and his wife, Stephanie, met in Montauk, and were married in a Greek Orthodox ceremony on the Island of Corfu on Sept. 3, 1994.

They were members of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons in Southampton, and lived in East Hampton and in Rincon, P.R., where they were at the end of May when Mr. Bogetti, who had successfully undergone surgery about a month before, took a turn for the worse.

Following Mr. Bogetti’s death, many of his friends here made a strikingly beautiful casket of driftwood and beach glass and a Greek Orthodox cross encrusted with beach glass from Rincon. A story about that communal endeavor, with photos by Dell Cullum, appears elsewhere on these pages.

The various panels illumined his life. “Jeff was a surfer, a fisherman, and a free diver . . . a unique and really funny guy, which was why he had so many friends,” said Mr. Calabrese.

Among the survivors are his wife, their two children, Zachary, 17, and Georgica, 15, his parents, John and Joyce Greco Bogetti of Tuckahoe, and two brothers, John Bogetti of Great Neck and James Bogetti of Montauk.

He was buried at Fort Hill Cemetery in Montauk.

Memorial contributions have been suggested to Paddlers for Humanity, P.O. Box 2555, East Hampton 11937.