Architect Richard Dorman died Saturday in the Santa Fe home he designed.

Dorman was born in 1922 in Los Angeles.

According to his son, Richard Dorman Jr., he did more in his 87 years than most people do "in three lifetimes."

Richard Dorman was drafted during World War II and flew a B-24 plane named Tropic Knight while in the Army Air Corp.

After the war, Dorman attended the University of Southern California on the GI Bill. He graduated in 1951 with a degree in architecture.

He went on to design dozens of buildings in Southern California, Seattle and elsewhere, for which he won numerous awards, according to an obituary published by his family.

Among the buildings he designed are the married couples' housing on the University of Southern California campus, a Playboy Club office building in Los Angeles and the Honeywell plant in Albuquerque.

He also won a competition to design a trade fair pavilion for the U.S. Department of Commerce in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Dorman was featured in a Life magazine story titled "The Take Over Generation" in 1962.

In 1975, Richard Dorman moved to Santa Fe, where he continued to design buildings — including several office buildings in Santa Fe — with partner Larry Breen.

The Dorman and Breen Architects firm still does business in Albuquerque. Breen said he retained the name "out of respect" for the man who mentored him in the field.

"He was fiercely dedicated to the things that interested him," Breen said. "And he was truthful. You always knew where you stood with Dick Dorman."

It was in Santa Fe, Breen said, that Dorman pursued one of his other passions: railroads.

Dorman researched and wrote 13 books on narrow-gauge railroads. He also spent the better part of 30 years building a miniature railroad model that took up about 750 square feet of space in a specially built room adjacent to his home on Santa Fe's north-east side.

Dorman was married to Jean W. Cates for 64 years and had three children — two sons and a daughter. Following Jean's death, Dorman married Barbara Kenyon in 2008, who survives him.

Kenyon described her late husband as an elegant man with movie-star good looks and an unpretentious manner.

Breen said his former partner was one of the few people he ever met who "became what he could be. He took his God given talents and really realized them," Breen said.

A memorial service for Richard Dorman will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday at the First Baptist Church on Old Santa Fe Trail, where he was a deacon.

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com.