Brad

My friend Diane lost her brother much too soon. We gathered at a most special place to remember him.

April 14, 2026

Brad, Diane and me at a party in Tallahassee in 2023.

On a Saturday afternoon at the end of March, I was among friends at Spring House in Tallahassee. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the home for George and Clifton Lewis, influential activists who were among the first whites in the Florida capital to break with Jim Crow and embrace the civil right movement.

The couple had told the visionary architect that they had “a lot of children and no money.” Wright produced an unconventional design and the Lewis family moved into their new home in 1954. Wright died four years later without ever laying eyes on this most unusual house that sits on a northern edge of town. Many a known person visited the Spring House over the years; it became a haven for progressives who sought change in the South. But slowly, the Spring House fell in dire need of repairs. My dear friend Brad Roberts was helping restore it.

We gathered to celebrate Brad. It should have been because this very special place would not be standing without him. Because so much history and so many memories would have been lost without Brad. But quite sadly, that was not the reason.

Brad died most unexpectedly in December. He fell off the roof of his mother’s house, which he was also renovating, and suffered a brain bleed.

I had just seen Brad weeks before the accident. I was visiting Tallahassee for another — more joyous — gathering of those of us lucky enough to have once worked at The Florida Flambeau, the newspaper that launched my career in journalism. Brad’s sister, Diane, is one of my closest friends who I first met in the Flambeau newsroom. Diane went on to become the Flambeau’s most famous alum, having penned several books as well as her acerbic and witty columns and commentaries for myriad publications near and far. Through Diane, I got to know Brad pretty well over the years. He wasn’t always the easiest with whom to carry on a conversation, but I learned I could always break the ice by talking about his construction projects and, of course, his love of animals. Brad adored my furry son, Gizmo.

The morning sun gave way to clouds that afternoon and rain threatened, as though God was about to cry. About 50 of us crowded into the great room of the Spring House, its enormous floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking majestic oaks and magnolias. I don’t usually shed tears on such occasions, but I felt myself reaching for a tissue as I listened to Diane talk about her brother. Their cousins followed, each with vivid stories about Brad’s passion for restoring lovely old homes. I had not planned to speak but the night before, after Eileen Drennen and I dined with Diane and ended up drinking a glass or two of wine at her house, Diane asked if I would say a few words of remembrance. How could I refuse?

So, when it was my turn, I fumbled my way to face the crowd and uttered these words:

If Brad were here today, I know he’d be standing at the back of the room, in jeans and a t-shirt, most probably with a Diet Coke in hand. He would also probably bristle at the fact that we have gathered here in his honor. He was not a man who liked to be at the center of attention.

I knew Brad because I was his sister Diane’s friend. I knew him because of his family’s kindness to me. I sat at the dinner table with him at Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter when Betty or Diane insisted I not be alone on holidays. More than once our names appeared together on a cake to celebrate our birthdays, only three days apart in October. We shared a love of animals, and he adored my little 7-pound dog, Gizmo, as though he were his own.

Words seem never enough in moments like these. So, I will just say this: Over four decades, I watched Brad grow into an artist, carpenter and builder of all things. I, like all of you, marveled at his talent and skills. Most of all, I admired how Brad spent his days making beauty out of places and things other people overlooked. He understood something about time that the rest of us often miss. That the past is never completely gone. It lingers in the grain of aged wood, in the bones of vintage houses, in the things someone cared enough to save.

There’s a bookcase in my study that stands as testament. It’s made of white oak. Brad salvaged it from a once-magnificent house here in Tallahassee, restored it and brought it over to the little townhouse I lived in a few years ago. When I moved back to Atlanta, I left behind most of the furniture from that townhouse. But I took that bookcase with me and filled it with my favorite books. It sits in my tiny office, a silent sentry behind my desk. It sits steadfast, like the man who gave it new life.

We tend to remember people by grand gestures. But sometimes, it is the ordinary things that remind us. Or the steady presence of something they once touched.

Every time I open the glass doors of my bookcase, I think of the hands that rescued it. I think of Brad. And I miss him.

Brad showing me a construction project in 2010.