Former Santa Rosa Planning Commissioner Shaun Faber dies at 50

Former Santa Rosa Planning Commissioner Shaun Faber, a self-taught designer and one-time candidate for City Council, died Saturday after what his residential architecture and design firm described as a “private battle” with diabetes and Valley fever.

Faber, a married father of three college-age children and a longtime community volunteer, was 50, according to an announcement by his firm. According to Sonoma County voter registration records, he was 51.

His premature death shocked those who knew him, many of whom apparently didn’t know he was ill.

“Everybody’s stunned,” said Scott Bartley, a former mayor, friend and colleague who served alongside Faber on the Planning Commission. “It sure knocked the wind out of my sails today.”

A lifelong Santa Rosa resident, Faber dated his love of residential design to his youth, stating in the biography used for his 2006 council run he was prone to “drawing houses every chance he got” as a youngster. The 1984 Montgomery High grad also was a born entrepreneur, delivering newspapers as a 12-year-old and then raising rabbits to earn money for his first car, he said.

He was 23 when he joined with Kevin Farrell to form an architecture and design firm in 1989, launching a career that would leave its mark on housing around Sonoma County and the North Bay, the Farrell-Faber and Associates company statement said.

The firm designed large, high-end custom homes that graced hillside developments around the area, as well as tract homes for more modest consumers, Bartley said.

In 2009, Faber and Farrell co-founded hybridCore Homes, where Faber served as creative director.

The innovative hybridCore sought to marry the affordability and efficiency of manufactured homes with the desirability of stick-built construction, selling modular, factory-built housing cores that include kitchens, bathrooms and potentially other rooms, around which the balance of a home could be built on-site.

The firm’s announcement of Faber’s passing described him as “the spark of innovation that drove us to be on the forefront of the housing industry.”

Faber was “a very creative guy,” said Bartley, an architect. “He was amazingly talented.”

He also was dedicated to his community, friends said, serving on both the city Planning Commission and the Design Review Board, where he and Bartley became close.

Faber also served with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program for 10 years and was a leader in the Active 20-30 Club of Santa Rosa for eight years, in addition to coaching his kids’ sports teams.

Faber served on the city’s Design Review Board for six years, beginning around 2000, and then served for four years as a planning commissioner, during which he ran for council unsuccessfully in a 10-way race for three seats.

About a year after his commission term ended, he was reappointed to fill the vacancy Bartley created when he resigned to seek election to the City Council, serving two years before the launch of hybridCore and related commitments prompted him to resign.

Political consultant Herb Williams, who managed Faber’s council run, said one of his former client’s attributes was an ability to approach political disagreements with respect, as a gentleman.

“He was a good guy,” Williams said. “He was a good community guy.”

Faber loved spending time with his wife, Karin, two sons and daughter. They traveled around the western states in a recreational vehicle, as well as camping, hiking and bicycling.

It is not clear when Faber contracted Valley fever, a fungal infection spread through spores commonly found in the soils of certain arid regions.

The spores become airborne and can be inhaled when the soil is disturbed through farming, construction or other activities.

Individuals with diabetes are known to be at higher risk for serious illness and complications from Valley fever than most others.

Bartley said Faber was hospitalized when recent wildfires swept across Sonoma County, prompting his evacuation to another hospital outside the county. The circumstances of his death were not entirely clear.