John Lapin

John Grattin Lapin was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1951. His mother was Mary Elisabeth Woodcock who worked in bridal fashion after losing her fiancé to World War II. Then she met and married Raymond Harold Lapin.

John’s father Ray was a banking executive who eventually worked under the Nixon Administration. His design and structure of Fannie Mae, the financial instrument that enabled millions of Americans to buy homes, led The New York Times to call him “the father of the secondary mortgage market.” He was also on Nixon’s enemies list. The tumultuous life of Washington took Mary back to San Francisco; her son in tow. Happily captaining a folk boat and crew John sailed into readiness for college. He soon earned a degree in city planning from the University of California at Santa Cruz; but later, coached by his father, worked as an investment banker in New York City, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and London. He moved to Taos County in 1998 choosing to reside in Costilla where he raised cattle and goats; and created the restaurant Latitude 37, hiring the brilliant chef Kathy Brown and providing lots of employment. He also took a position as Mayor Domo and Treasurer on the Acequia Madre de Rio Costilla, a duty he loved and kept at until his death. He was generous, kind, dependable, witty and difficult, an excessively intelligent man.

He is survived by his wife, that poet Deirdra Baldwin (Lapin), and family: Calvin Nall, Anthony Baldwin Horne and wife Samantha Kim, his cousin Dave Woodcock and family, Paris Pacchione, Monica Walker, Cosmo Pacchione and Nicco Pacchione, Jeanette Learn, Cassandra Noel, Jerrod Dustin Elliot, and Kenneth Rowlison.

The family of John Grattin Lapin has entrusted the care of their loved one to the caring staff of DeVargas Funeral Home of Taos. www.devargastaos.com 1-866-657-4019