Greatest Person: The Late Peter Carter

Editor's Note: Several months before his March 6 death, the late Los Gatos resident Peter Carter had agreed to allow Los Gatos Patch to profile him for our Greatest Person of the Day feature. I spent a whole afternoon with Peter learning about his life at his 45 Broadway home. Here's what I learned during that interview.

Peter Carter was born in San Diego on Feb. 20, 1943 during the middle of World War II.

His family went back some six generations in San Diego to the late 19th century. His great uncle Joe was a harbor master who developed Mission Bay. His mother, Sally Lisewski, was born in Yonkers, NY and raised in Pawling.

His father, Joe Carter, was a war hero, "a fearsome paratrooper" who moved the family to the Santa Clara Valley in the early '50s.

"I did anything and everything to make a buck … picking strawberries, blackberries, cherries, prunes, apricots, walnuts, string beans and cutting cots.  Every one of these jobs was really hard, especially for a sixth-grader," he said about his childhood.

He also cut lawns, delivered papers, sold lemonade to construction workers while collecting their soda bottles for refunds. He even got a rancher to let him split his remaining unpicked walnuts 50-50.

He was accepted into the Bellarmine College Preparatory Class of ‘61. His family moved to Los Gatos where his parents purchased a home at 66 Ellenwood Avenue for $20,500. 

He remembered them being astounded when he purchased 45 Broadway 16 years later for nearly three times that much.

66 Ellenwood Avenue was his family home for the next 40-plus years until it was sold after the death of his parents in the late '90s. The home was for sale for $7 million after being remodeled.

He joked that he was mindful of the fact that his days of making old friends had passed, hence he stressed that it was important to "carefully nurture the friends we have."

He felt his greatest achievement in high school was getting into Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where former President Bill Clinton had also attended.

He began taking photos while in college, sharing his pictures with the editor of the campus magazine and then joining the school's photography staff having access to the student darkroom shared by the yearbook. By mid-year, he was photo editor and by his sophomore year, he had become yearbook editor in chief and managing editor of the magazine. 

A Georgetown University press pass proved beneficial, he recalled. He was about 10 feet from Martin Luther King in the Lincoln Memorial when he delivered his “I have a dream” speech, sat behind Chief Justice Earl Warren during President Lyndon B. Johnson’s inaugural, rubbed shoulders with Jackie Kennedy at chic Georgetown events and gained entrance to The White House and special areas of the Capitol.

His first car was a Chevrolet Corvair, which he drove back to school through New Orleans, where he was introduced to an incoming Georgetown freshman and his future wife. 

Michelle Villere was an 11th-generation New Orleanian whose ancestor, Jacques Phillipe Villere, had been the first governor of the Territory of Louisiana under President Jefferson.  

They were married while still in college and had a son they named Scott. He supported his family with a variety of jobs such as waiter and elevator operator in the House of Representatives. 

He graduated in the top quarter of his class and began working as a professional photographer in New Orleans where assignments included the newly franchised New Orleans Saints.

He returned to Los Gatos where he worked on an MBA at Santa Clara University and had his second son Shawn. San Jose Assemblyman Earle Crandall hired him as his administrative assistant. 

He headed marketing for a mobile home park developer and created ads on country western stations. From there, he started his own advertising and public relations agency with his first client, the Bay Area Mobile Home Dealers Association and joined the San Jose Rotary Club as its youngest member.

For more than 30 years, Carter's agency Carter, Callahan and later, Carter Waxman, represented hundreds of clients in commercial and residential real estate, banking and insurance, health care and technology, energy and politics. His company grew to a point where one year it was rated the largest agency in Silicon Valley by the Business Journal. 

The work, he said, was stressful and played a role in the failure of his first marriage.

But he gained friendships he cherished. He served on the San Jose Symphony Orchestra and the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce boards of directors and as five-year chair of KTEH. 

In December of 1987, he married Dennise McNulty, whom he said returned his home at 45 Broadway to "a measure of respectability from a den of iniquity populated by a rotating cast of bachelor friends."

Family and friends celebrated their marriage at the estate of Larry Arzie and David Stonesifer with 800 guests in attendance.

After retirement, he joked that he had mastered Photoshop and Lightroom and had traded in 46 employees for one—himself—in his home-based architectural photography business.  

Half his photo activities were pro-bono, or for fun. "I get great satisfaction when Rotarians tell me that one of their favorite photos is one I took at a Rotary barbecue or dinner dance."

Politics was always a major interest of Carter's. He coined San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s campaign slogan from his first campaign—“Restore the Pride” and from his second, “Strong Leadership for Tough Times.”

He hosted Reed, San Jose Councilman Pete Constant and Meg Whitman at fundraisers at his home and he served on the Chamber PAC board.

He also served on the boards of Jazz on the Plazz and the Los Gatos/Monte Sereno Police Foundation. 

His other hobbies included gardening, cooking, music, entertaining, grandchildren and travel.

" ... Life’s most important lesson involves how I’d like life to end. Accumulating wealth, chattels, power, influence, prestige, professional accomplishments and acclaim may all be worth pursuing, but in the end what matters most of all is friendships and relationships.

"An exercise I try to do regularly is imagine myself as an observer at my own funeral … who bothered to attend, who really cares? And with this in mind, where am I focusing my attention because in the end, it’s the people who really matter that should matter." 

RELATED COVERAGE:

• Beloved Los Gatos Resident Peter Carter Dies
• Remembering Peter Carter: How Do We Keep The Music Playing?
• Remembering Peter Carter: A Tribute to My Father
• Remembering Peter Carter: A Great Loss
• Friends Remember Peter Carter at Los Gatos C.B. Hannegan's Wake