Robert Pike, Riverhead environmentalist, dead at 57

Robert Pike, a Riverhead attorney who successfully fought against developing Robins Island in Peconic Bay and led efforts to preserve open space on the East End, died Sunday, his family said. He was 57.

The cause was complications from colon cancer, which Pike was diagnosed with five years ago, said his brother, Douglas Pike of Paoli, Pa.

Instilled with a love for the outdoors and politics by his father, Otis Pike, the former Democratic congressman and environmentalist, Robert Pike displayed both in his quest to keep Robins Island free from residential development in the 1980s and early '90s.

Representing the Save Robins Island Committee, Pike wrote letters, twisted lawmakers' arms and attended countless community forums as several developers tried to put housing on part of Robins Island's 435 pristine acres. More than one cited Pike's advocacy work in decisions to step away from development deals.

Pike's vision for Robins Island became a reality in 1993 when it was bought by a wealthy businessman who turned it into a private wildlife preserve overseen by The Nature Conservancy.

Pike served one term on the Riverhead Town Board, from 1986 to 1989, and advocated limiting the number of homes that could be built on farmland sold to developers. He succeeded in getting land near the Pine Barrens zoned to one house per five acres. Other ideas, such as a master town zoning plan, came to fruition after he left office.

"That was absolutely his passion, to preserve open space and farmland," said Denise Civiletti, who served on the Riverhead Town Board with Pike. "He changed the conversation in Riverhead . . . without him, the town would be much more densely populated than it is now."

Born and raised in Riverhead as the youngest of three children, Pike received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Stanford University in 1975 and a law degree from American University in 1979. He then moved back to his hometown.

Nicknamed "Joy Boy" as a child, Robert Dudley Pike was remembered Sunday as an adventurous spirit. In the last decade, Pike started a company that refurbished mountain houses for vacationers and embarked on a cross-country boat trip for a book he was working on, "American Passages."

His father, Otis Pike, 88, of Vero Beach, Fla., who represented the First District from 1960 to 1979, said, "He wanted to prove that anything I could do, he could do better. He had a great imagination and great ideals."

Pike is survived by his wife, Carol; daughter Julia McGann; son Otis Pike III; sister Lois Pike Eyre, all of Riverhead, and his brother and father. Funeral arrangements were incomplete. The family asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the American Cancer Society.