November 14, 1958 – May 6, 2026
SERVICE DETAILS
Star of David Chapel Date: May 8, 2026 Time: 10:00 AM
CEMETERY DETAILS
New Montefiore Cemetery: 1180 Wellwood Ave., West Babylon, NY 11704
November 14, 1958 – May 6, 2026
Star of David Chapel Date: May 8, 2026 Time: 10:00 AM
New Montefiore Cemetery: 1180 Wellwood Ave., West Babylon, NY 11704
My name is Jack Perry, a Landscape Architect by training, and a friend to Boris Reyt the last 29 years. In 1997, I moved to New York City to work at Robert Lamb Hart and my window seat was right behind Boris’ seat…and I spent seven years talking to him…overhearing his phone calls, him overhearing mine, laughing with him…yelling at him, and being yelled at by him! Boris’ thick curly hair and thick Russian accent prompted me to call him Boris Badinov…which he hated.
I loved to watch both Boris and Min prepare beautiful hand-drawn renderings of the projects, especially the snowy Colorado efforts in Vail and Breckenridge. We sometimes grabbed lunch with the team and we both often took pics of the World Trade Center pm Sunsets – always brilliant. On 9/10/2001, we both took a photo of the twin towers, and he said…”should take pictures, never know how long they are there!” A stunning recall the next day, as we all watched the towers collapse from our conference room.
I moved from New York to Florida in 2004 and there was a period where I stayed in touch with Boris…but then it seemed like the distance made the connection slip away. Then, when I was living overseas in Asia for 11.5-years, we restarted our communications and spent many hours on the phone, Facebook and emails, reviewing each other’s art, current projects, personal and work lives.
Boris would ask me to look at a contract and reword it for him or review a response to a difficult NJ or Long Island Developer. I urged him yearly to increase his billing rates for consulting efforts, which were even recently, embarrassingly low…but he always declined…he never fully accepted his incredible talent and value to the profession!
We considered each other as a muse for our creative efforts and Boris would often send me an original watercolor…the Delaware Crossing, an ocean scene, a merry-go-round, or some small block print. His “on-the-train” sketches of perfect strangers were always entertaining as were his
“INK-tober competitions, shared in many emails.
In 2023, I returned to the USA and settled in Chattanooga and would suggest that we visit together when he was in Atlanta visiting his daughter and grandkids, but his trips were always too short and made it impossible to arrange.
Boris was incredibly creative. A fantastic watercolorist, and one of the last things we worked on together was born from my teaching grades kindergarten to 8th grade…and my suggestion in the summer of 2025, that he create an alphabet poster that could be sold at some of his local art shows. He did end up creating individual watercolor images of animals, one for each letter of the alphabet, and eventually he put them together in a poster…and then a book, each letter accompanied by a poem. The name of the book is “Alphabet Zoo…A-to-Z”…written and illustrated by Boris Reyt.
I was missing our communication and wondering why Boris was not responding and eventually he did respond, simply saying: “he had a family emergency and didn’t want to communicate for a while”…I honored that but when I pressed some of our former associates several times about Boris, I was informed that he was in Hospice. I was shocked! Upon contacting his daughter, I learned that he was not only in Hospice, but unresponsive, and he died shortly after that.
We lost a gentle and creative soul, sometimes hard to communicate with, always focused on his wife, their trips, his daughter and her kids, his artwork, and working hard to provide for he and Nadia…and always producing great personal and professional work. Missing him! ~ J. Perry
My name is Jim McRobert, and like Jack Perry, knew Boris from our time working together as architects at Robert Lamb Hart and later at Hart Howerton. Boris was a wonderfully talented and creative designer and renderer. He was able to create marvelous architectural renderings which were invaluable in communicating ideas for a particular project to our clients. Soft-spoken, but always very kind and caring, it was a pleasure to work with him over the years. We also spent time together walking to Penn Station to board NJ Transit trains to commute back and forth to NJ from Manhattan. It was on those train commutes that Boris created his amazing series of passenger portraits. Over many years, he would sketch cameo portraits of seated passengers and I believe that he was able to exhibit them in a gallery show. He was also a great photographer and posted many photos on social media. Boris was a regular at our office social events – crabbing trips to the Jersey Shore, alumni lunches, etc. A wonderful friend and colleague, so sorry to hear of his passing. Condolences to his wife, children and family. Jim
Jim, you are SOOO right…Boris’ work would be welcome in any gallery…then and now. His speed in sketching was impressive and loved watching him make snowing architectural scenes for the CO projects. A testament to his skill was that just prior to his illness, he was being hired and paid to DRAW for clients…when the rest of the profession was waist-deep in computer renderings!
I also met Boris working as an architect at Hart Howerton, and also sat near him, in my case across the aisle. He was always in the middle of drawing a beautiful ski resort bridge or drawing pine trees on a hill.
When we discovered that I was his younger brother’s age and he was my older sister’s age and we shared an interest in model drawing, swimming and fishing, we became fast friends. We ate lunch together in Bryant Park and often invited other coworkers to join us. We spent one memorable lunch hour visiting Christo’s The Gates with a group that winter in Central Park.
After I left HH, we stayed in touch and often went to professional events or to museum shows together. He was a fun person to look at art with as he always had insightful and knowledgeable opinions. He was also an outgoing personality who kept in touch with many people.
Echoing Jack Perry’s comment (who knew?) Boris often called me to help him word a contract, as English was not his strong point (nor his first language). I also encouraged him and told him he was worth more than he was charging! These requests became less frequent, and I wondered if he had discovered AI!
After I left HH, when I found myself at a couple of other offices in need of someone to do architectural renderings, I was happy to recommend Boris. His work was so excellent and he was so professional it was great to be able to work with him again. Other coworkers later also remembered his excellent abilities and also brought him into additional offices. He also did many renderings for designers in the Kips Bay showhouse, his drawings and watercolors always among the best in the catalogue.
A year or so ago, Boris took me to see furniture that he had helped to design at the Ralph Lauren showhouse on Madison Avenue. In one room on the top floor, he had done the design drawings of almost every item in the room. He had not seen the collection in person yet, and was excited and proud to see the furniture and then find his rendering on his phone and show it to me.
Boris was a unique creative talent who was always busy doing something fun and interesting or meeting new people, often while exhibiting his art or photographs, or while spear fishing or surf casting on the jersey shore. I loved hearing of his playful adventures and seeing his latest artwork, or hearing of his adventurous travels, one in particular when he and his best friend drove all over Italy to visit all of Palladio’s villas.
He always gave good advice, one quote I will always remember him telling me is that “ a painting is always a bad painting until it is finished,” encouraging words.
I loved hearing about his family, including his wife, his daughter and three grandchildren and his brother and niece. Boris lived life to the fullest and it is so hard to imagine that he is gone, he was taken away way too soon. I thought he would live forever like his mother and grandmother who both lived to ripe old ages. This is so unfair. I am sending my deepest condolences to his family and numerous friends.
What a lovely note!
Thank you Jack, I loved reading your post, so many similarities! Still shocked, I had no idea he was sick, he kept cutting my calls short, and thought he must be mad at me, until I finally called again to see if he wanted to go to the ICFF with me last May and his wife texted me a reponse that he had died the week before. So saddened and shocked that he was sick and went downhilll so fast.
Jennifer…I totally understand the sad frustration…I was wondering why he had been so abrupt in the ending of his WhatsApp and calls…suffering in privacy…not sure I will ever get that…so like you to finally hear some news and that “he is in a coma” or “he died a week ago” is still a bit surreal. He spoke well of his work with you often! jp
I met Boris at a beach in my early 20’s. We chatted about art and the rest was history. Boris and I stayed in contact periodically sharing life’s milestones, challenges and of course art! He taught me painting techniques and would send me his latest sketches.l and projects he was working on. Boris was an interesting man. From spear fishing to his culinary skills. He knew me through many of my transitions as a young woman. Becoming a mom, getting engaged, moving states, traveling abroad. I had the pleasure of visiting a hotel that Boris helped design and I was so proud to tell everyone there that my friend Boris, was the architect behind the design! I missed the very last call I ever received from Boris and it pains me, feels like unfinished business, friendship really between us. I wish I would’ve answered that call, I cannot believe I’ve come to find out that Boris had passed on, my heart aches for this loss and his wife and daughter. May he be in eternal paradise. Thank you Boris for an unconventional friendship and for your kindness and friendship.