Ted Stanley Hubbard

Ted Stanley Hubbard, a Montauk landscaper who was inspired by the natural world and all things Native American, died on Monday in Montauk. Mr. Hubbard, who was 49, was “a free spirit,” his family said, who had traveled across the United States and into Mexico. He settled for a time near Gardner, Colo., where he volunteered at a wolf sanctuary, picked sage, lived in a yurt, and embraced a simple life.

A talented woodworker, Mr. Hubbard made his own tools, including bows and arrows, and dabbled in making chairs, even weaving their seats from natural fibers. Eventually, he began fashioning spoons from fallen trees, “using the wood’s natural shape and imperfections to create the essence of the spoon,” his family said, and selling them at craft shows.

As a young man, Mr. Hubbard learned wilderness skills at the Tom Brown Jr. Tracking School in New Jersey. He could tan hides, make buckskin clothing, start a fire from sticks, and do just about anything, his family said. Eventually he found work volunteering on an organic farm, and later moved to New Hampshire where, with a girlfriend, he established an organic farm of his own. 

He was born on Nov. 23, 1967, a son of Theodore Frank Hubbard and the former Margot Fueldner, and grew up in Bay Shore. He attended Sterling College, a small Vermont  school that focuses on environmental studies. 

The family recalled that as a young boy,  in a car with his family passing the Montauk movie theater, Mr. Hubbard had said he saw “an Indian on the hill.” Though no one believed it, the family said an article that appeared in The Star later recounted that others had also reported seeing a Native American there. Mr. Hubbard, who took his own life, was “a pioneer and a free thinker,” the family said. Jeff Monte, a friend, said Mr. Hubbard “was born in the wrong century; about a hundred years too late.” 

Mr. Hubbard is survived by his parents, who live in Miller Place, by a brother, Daniel Hubbard of Pennsylvania, and by two sisters, Lori Hubbard and Amy Hubbard of Montauk. 

A service had not yet been arranged by press time.