MILLERTON — Sam Busselle, Millerton resident for 50 years who dedicated himself to connecting people and improving life in his community, died peacefully July 31, 2026, at Woodland Pond, New Paltz, New York. Born in 1940, he was the son of architect Alfred Busselle and educator Martha Knapp Busselle. He grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, where he graduated from the Lawrenceville School and then Yale University, which he attended on a swimming scholarship, followed by a master’s degree from the Yale School of Architecture. He then taught high school for several years in the Boston area, where he met his wife, Rebecca.
Sam, Rebecca, and her 7-year-old son Wynne moved to Manhattan, quickly expanding their family with the birth of Katrina and Max, all the while gut-renovating a floor of an abandoned SRO on St. Mark’s Place. Weekdays Sam left the lively East Village neighborhood by bicycle to work uptown on Fifth Avenue for the General Learning Corporation in the environmental services division. On weekends he tore down plaster walls, laid flooring, built bookcases, plumbed a kitchen and bathroom, and cut a door to a sizable outdoor rooftop where the family grew tomatoes, and the kids splashed in a plastic swimming pool. Strapped into kiddie seats on their parents’ bikes, with Wynne in the lead, the family explored New York City and picnicked in its parks.
After a few years, time came for a change. The family moved to Bo, Sierra Leone, West Africa, where they spent three extraordinary years as Peace Corps volunteers. As Architect for the Southern Province, Sam taught drafting to young men desperate for skills that might lead to jobs. He oversaw simple construction projects fashioning blocks on site, and built a factory and the first ever morgue for the Bo Government Hospital. The Peace Corps experience permanently shaped his worldview and commitment to making a difference.
Dependent on a small Peace Corps readjustment allowance, with no jobs and no place to live, Sam and family returned to the United States during a recession in 1975. After a year renting in Stanfordville, they turned to Millerton and found a tumbled down house that had been a two-room farmstead built around 1790 and expanded a century later. A weed field with clumps of burdock surrounded the dirt driveway. Dark cement stucco covered the house. Inside were greasy kitchen walls, and a cabinet door dangled by its hinges. A family with 10 children had vacated after two second floor ceilings collapsed. But always forward thinking, Sam noted hand-hewn beams and, under bright red paint, an original brick chimney wall and Dutch oven. Worn linoleum gave him little hope for good floors beneath, but the attic held wide oak boards. Sam knew the house bones were venerable and solid. He had found a lifelong renovation, re-renovation, and maintenance project. He set to work making a home and finding a role in his new community.
He took a job with the NYS Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities as an architect/planner for the Wassaic Developmental Center campus, which had been mandated to upgrade or close. Twenty years later he retired after working tirelessly to move residents out of an isolating institution into community homes. He followed that with a planning role at the Eleanor Roosevelt Center, while giving much time and thought to problems in the Dutchess County criminal justice system.
Sam’s volunteer roles began with a seat on the North East Town Board, followed by years on the Planning Board. But his deepest satisfaction came from co-founding, with Wendy Curtis, the North East Community Council, a group dedicated to improving local access to County agencies in this rural area. That group secured funding, acquired a building and became the thriving North East Community Center.
Sam loved the rural life. He enjoyed splitting logs for the wood stoves, tended a vegetable garden, and got a kick out of briefly owning an aged tractor and a rickety pickup truck. He swam in any body of water he could find, rowed a scull on twin lakes, rollerbladed and biked on the Rail Trail, and hiked the nearby mountains. He loved Tanglewood, Music Mountain, Norfolk chamber music, and opera in Manhattan. He and Rebecca traveled in Europe, Africa, Japan, and Indonesia. He took never ending pleasure in his children and grandchildren. And just as he loved uniting people in a common cause, he loved a good party.
Admired and beloved by many, he is survived by his wife of 58 years, Rebecca, of Millerton, New York; his son Wynne Morriss and wife Suzanne of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York; daughter Katrina Busselle and husband Ney Marks da Silva of Cold Spring, New York; and son Max Busselle and wife Juliet of Los Angeles, California; his twin sister Harriet Barrow of Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, and sister Polly Bishop of Brooksville, Maine. He was predeceased by sister Lucy Myers. He will be dearly missed by his five adored grandchildren, Nick, Julia, Olivia, William and Alexandra, and nieces and nephews, Whit, Steve, Rob, Samantha, and Scott and their families.
A gathering will be held to celebrate Sam’s life at 1 PM on Sunday, August 30, 4511 Route 199, Millerton. Kindly respond to Rebecca, beccabuss@gmail.com. Donations in his memory may be made to the North East Community Center, www.neccmillerton.org. Sam Busselle will be honored at NECC's Fall Event, date to follow.
