By PRISCILLA TRIPP

The Belvedere City Council last week named Anne Kasanin as Citizen of the Year and Wendy Buchen as Citizen Emeritus.

They were chosen unanimously by the Citizen of the Year Committee, which consists of past designees, and was chaired this year by Justin Faggioli.

Both long-time Belvedere residents, Kasanin and Buchen have the same approach to their contributions to the community. They go quietly about their many volunteer activities, not beating their own drums and not seeking recognition while insisting on giving credit to others involved. The council started the drums rolling in honoring the two ladies for their decades of service to the city and to the community at large.

Anne Kasanin

“I’m walking on air-I can’t believe it happened to me,” Kasanin said, beaming after she learned that she had been chosen Citizen of the Year. Over the years, her name has appeared frequently in The Ark’s “Go-Getters” pages, and with good reason.

Though it is one of her most recent endeavors, it is one of the most visible. Kasanin is in charge of the gardens at the Landmarks Art & Garden Center on Tiburon Boulevard. As a member of Master Gardeners of Marin, she, Nena Hart (Belvedere’s 2002 Citizen of the Year), and other volunteers have created the beautiful landscape at the garden center overlooking Richardson Bay.

Hart described her successor as quiet but “extremely tenacious in a very quiet way.” She doesn’t just join organizations, but ends up in leadership positions. “She’s a doer,” Hart said. Kasanin tends to immerse herself in projects. “She doesn’t just go to Japan, she takes Japanese lessons.” In anticipation of a trip to Mongolia where there will be some mule riding, Kasanin is taking riding lessons.

Kasanin has been a member of the Landmarks Society board since 1999 and is currently its vice president. She is also treasurer of the Garden Club of Marin.

For the past eight to ten years, Kasanin has also been in charge of book repairs at the Belvedere-Tiburon Library and along with Sally Moltzen and Dorothy Trezevant, has repaired hundreds of books.
Kasanin spent many long hours considering building and remodeling proposals in Belvedere between 1989 and 2002, where she served on the planning commission.

Her interest in fine art and music is evidenced in her participation in San Francisco’s museum and opera groups. Kasanin is a founding member of the Tour Committee for the Performing Arts Center in the City. She is also a past president of the San Francisco Opera Guild and has served on the Board of the Merola Opera Program for the past 14 years. She is a long-time member of the Belvedere-Tiburon Museum Society, an auxiliary of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

The past Labor Day weekend, it was Kasanin who chaired the committee for Corinthian Island’s block party.

Kasanin grew up in Richmond, Virginia, but her father was in the tobacco business and spent time in the Far East, so the family moved several times. She attended high school both in Santa Barbara and Louisville, Kentucky. She then earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia, a small liberal arts school for women.

Returning to the West Coast in 1959, Kasanin taught Latin for two years at the Katherine Delmar Burke School in San Francisco, and in 1960, married her husband, Mark, an attorney. They moved to Belvedere and lived in an ark that used to be on Beach Road and then bought the house on Corinthian Island where they have lived for 40 years. In 2002, the house was declared an historic landmark by the city. The Kasanins have two adult sons. Marc is an artist and lives in Tiburon, and James works for Time Warner in New York.

The Kasanins like to travel and Anne likes to study languages. In preparation for their trip to Egypt in January, Anne is taking immersion classes in Egyptian Arabic, of course.