Rick Chesmore is a celebrated architect and partner at Chesmore/Buck Architecture. The Bellevue design firm was established in 1993, with clients ranging from residential to commercial projects. Learn about Rick Chesmore…
Hometown: Bellevue, Washington
First job: At age 15 I worked weekends as a dishwasher in a small restaurant in Spearfish, South Dakota.
Favorite ways to spend your free time in WA: Chasing the elusive best IPA at all the local breweries, walking different neighborhoods of Seattle viewing the beautiful northwest scenery, and spending time with our grandkids.
Your biggest accomplishment and why: My wife and I raising three children that all have different interests and passions. Watching them bloom brings great joy.
The biggest obstacle you overcame: Finding my first architecture internship job in the Seattle area during a recession in the late 1980’s.
Someone who inspires you and why: Modernist architects of the past like John Lautner, Eero Saarinen, Kevin Roche and Louis Kahn because they all had such great passion for thought process creating wonderful spaces.
Advice to someone pursuing a career path in what you do: If you have the passion and work ethic to create better architecture then you should have what it takes to have a long-lasting career doing what you love to do–creating great spaces to live, work and play.
Favorite quote: “Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.” –architect Louis Kahn. Also, follow-up to his playful quote that “the sun never knew how great it was until it hit the side of a building.”
Something someone would be surprised to learn about you: From ages 5 through 15, my family moved about every two to three months as my father was the concrete batch plant supervisor for the I-90 road construction from the mid-60’s through the mid-70’s. This required me to attend about 30 different schools during that 10-year span of time.
What makes someone fabulous: A fabulous person is someone who has a positive outlook on life even after overcoming negative obstacles, and someone who can easily overcome the fear of failure and trying something different that they have not done before.