Obituary: James Leveillee, 1966-2025

“It was always more fun when we did it together anyway.” — Mr. Fox

An inspired creator of fun and bright light to everyone who knew him, Jim was an artist from a young age who spent his childhood drawing and making things. He attended Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick, R.I., in order to play hockey, but loved creating art and design for the school yearbooks.

Jim studied at Rhode Island School of Design during summer sessions as a high school student and played on the RISD hockey team (Go Nads) for two years, while there as a painting major. Jim finished his undergraduate degree at Hampshire College, where he met his wife, Karyn, in a campus softball game. He made her an eclectic mix tape he called Birds and Poets, his beautiful handwriting meticulously listing the tracks, including ambitious selections for a new friend, like “When Will We Be Married” by the Waterboys. When Karyn went away to British Columbia for the summer, Jim wrote her a gorgeous letter every day. They were married for 32 years.

Jim was a voracious reader and loved libraries. At Hampshire, he relished his low-stress work-study job at the college library. There he found time to read, do the NYT crossword and listen to albums on the third floor. Jim was a lover of many genres of music, especially that which was off the beaten path, and his life with Karyn always had a soundtrack.

After graduating from Hampshire, Jim and Karyn moved to San Francisco. Jim was a lifelong cyclist, from BMX racing as a boy to road cycling as an adult. While living in San Francisco in the ’90s, he was thrilled to be part of the Anchor Steam cycling team, riding across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin on the weekends. He loved films and not only excelled at remembering movie lines, but also had a gift for working them into almost any conversation you had with him. He starred in Bay Area friends’ student films, including The Pugilist and This Fucking Apartment.

In the late ’90s, after the birth of their daughter, Karyn and Jim moved to Essex, Vt., where they found the rustic log cabin that would become their home, Jim saying to Karyn, “This is it” as they drove up the driveway for the first time.

Jim was the best dad, and was the household’s full-time parent for the first five years. The kids spent their days navigating obstacle courses, creating art, building things, hiking, taking trips to the library and town pool, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, listening to music, and reading books, frequently joined by young cousins and friends. He was happily the only guy in a moms’ group during these years, an example of how a man can choose to show up for the everyday needs of his family with love. One of Jim’s proudest moments was when a woman downtown remarked at his ability to deftly change his baby’s diaper while keeping his toddler entertained.

Jim was also a caring dad to the family’s dogs, chickens, sheep and goats, picking up loads of hay each weekend in the old Volvo wagon. Their home on 10 acres gave rise to a vibrant series of annual events, including Ten Acre Egg Hunts, the Rides of March sledding parties, pie parties, Halloween haunted forests, solstice gatherings, wiffle ball tournaments, epic luge runs and more. Jim was a passionate winter luge builder and racer, known for start hills with ladder steps and a relentless pursuit of the perfect banked turn. An extreme amount of snow shoveling was required to both build the luge and keep the long driveway navigable, which he happily did.

Passionate about furniture design and fine woodworking, Jim worked as a builder and cabinetmaker for most of his life, while continuing to make drawings, paintings and woodcuts. Jim was a great person to visit a museum or see a film with because his love of the arts was contagious.

Jim’s laugh was the best — it’s hard to think of him without hearing it in your head. He appreciated funny movies and comedy, and had a gift for finding humor in everyday things, referring to himself as “the comedian’s best friend,” because his laugh was easily won.

He had a way of moving that was athletic and graceful; was raised a hockey player but was a surprisingly beautiful skater. He brought that quality to many sports; was fond of risky moves; enjoyed diving catches and jumping the tennis net backward; and was a proud member of the Buckners wiffle ball team, formed to benefit the Travis Roy Foundation. An enthusiastic and dependable wedding reception dancer, Jim was able to perform seldom-seen moves like the Cossack Dance. Really, he saved more than one wedding from being an awkward dance party. Later in life he became the kinetic lead singer in a band called Cabin Fever.

Jim will be enormously missed by his wife, Karyn, and children, Feora and Bryce, as well as many other friends and family members. Jim died of a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease at age 59. Karyn regrets not making Jim write his own obituary while he still could — it would have been much better. There will be a celebration of life in the summer of 2026.