Roger Cook, a landscaper who worked on the famous PBS show This Old House for almost 40 years and was great at solving problems, has died.
On the show’s main website, it was said that he had died at age 70.
“With deep sadness, This Old House says goodbye to Roger Cook, our friend and longtime landscape contractor. He died on August 21, 2024, after a long illness,” a press statement said.
During its second season, Cook first showed up on the show in 1982. Ultimately, he became the show’s full-time landscaper starting season 10 in 1988. The long-running reality show, which will start its 46th season in September, follows a group of professionals as they fix up homes.
He then joined its sister show, Ask This Old House, when it first aired in 2002. The spin-off show showed different do-it-yourself projects and answered viewers’ unique remodeling questions.
Roger Cook, This Old House star, dies after long illness aged 70 https://t.co/PqbZk3tuJf
— Independent Arts (@IndyArts) August 23, 2024
Cook was in both shows at the same time for years, until he finally left the franchise in 2020 because of health problems.
“I remember everything Roger taught me,” said Chris Wolfe, executive director of This Old House. There are millions of people whose lives have been better because of what Roger taught them.
He was called a “gentle giant,” “big-hearted,” and “America’s landscape legend” by other workers.
Cook was born in 1954 and grew up in Burlington, MA. He got his Bachelor of Science in wildlife management and environmental law from the University of Maine in 1977. After that, he went back to Massachusetts and got licensed as a landscape contractor.
It was in 1982 that he and his wife Kathleen started their own gardening company called K&R Landscape. They focused on hardscaping and plants.
RIP
— BirdieBittern (@BirdieBittern) August 23, 2024
Age 70
Extended illness
This Old House’s Roger Cook Dead at 70 https://t.co/eWsVMrrhqp via @TVLine
Dad always helped people, whether they were family, friends, or customers. “One of the worst things about his illness was that he couldn’t help people as much as he used to,” Cook’s son Jason said in a statement. “That’s why Dad asked us to start a family foundation so that we can carry on his work as a helper over the years to come.”
You can give money here to the Cook Family Giving Fund, which helps protect wildlife and land, fund medical research, improve kids’ education, and help troops.
The person who died before Cook was his wife Kathleen, who died of cancer in 2010. His son Jason, daughter Molly, brother Greg, daughter-in-law Anna, and three grandchildren, Peter, Noah, and James, will miss him.
