Bill Lane 1919-2010
Publisher’s note: Bill and Jean Lane have had a home at Cascade Lake for many years.
Bill Lane, who built Sunset magazine into an icon of Western living, helped found the town of Portola Valley and donated millions to Stanford University and environmental causes from open space preservation to restoration of Yosemite National Park, has died.
Bill Lane
With family members at his side, Lane died of respiratory failure at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Stanford Hospital. He was 90.
Lane and his brother, Mel, who died in 2007, ran Lane Publishing from the late 1950s until 1990. Mel Lane oversaw Sunset books, while his brother was publisher of Sunset magazine. From their Menlo Park headquarters, the brothers turned their father Laurence’s 1928 investment of $65,000 into one of the nation’s leading regional publishing companies.
“He saw incredible possibility in the West. It was a can-do place. That’s what Sunset stood for — build your own house, make your own food, hike a trail,” Bill Lane’s daughter, Sharon Lane of Nevada City, said Monday. “He saw himself and the magazine as an ambassador for the West.”