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Real estate developer John Arrillaga Sr., who has physically transformed Silicon Valley from orchards to tech office parks. A major donor to Stanford UniversityHe died Monday in Portola Valley, California. He was 84 years old.

His daughter, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, announced His death in a post on Medium. His family refused to state the reason.

Beginning in the 1960s, Mr. Arrillaga transformed Silicon Valley’s idyllic farmland into a sprawling network of corporate campuses. At that time, the semiconductor industry in the Santa Clara Valley was bustling with companies like the following. Intel They grow as fast as they can find buildings to expand.

To meet this demand, Mr. Arrillaga and his business partner, Richard Peery, purchased thousands of acres of farmland in the surrounding area. California Towns like Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and San Jose. Even before securing tenants, they created enhancements of low-rise concrete buildings that were inexpensive and easy to construct.

They eventually built more than 20 million square feet of commercial real estate. Many of these developments involved technology companies including Intel, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and Google.

Mr. Arrillaga and Mr. Peery became billionaires as their properties increased in value. Forbes fixes Mr Arrillaga’s net worth 2.5 billion dollars.

As the tech industry grew and Silicon Valley’s population increased, some residents began to voice their opposition to development. Some of Mr. Arrillaga’s projects faced hurdles: Residents protested The height of the proposed 100-meter office towers in Palo Alto and did not agree With the location of a new library in Menlo Park.

Later in life, Mr. Arrillaga also physically transformed Stanford, which he attended on a basketball scholarship. He donated money for more than 200 projects and buildings at the university, including at least nine buildings and rooms named after his family, and 57 scholarships. promised in 2013 $151 million to the university, The greatest gift to Stanford from a single living donor.

Mr. Arrillaga was born on April 3, 1937, in Inglewood, California. His father, Gabriel, was a professional football player who later became a worker in the Los Angeles product market. His mother, Freda, was a nurse.

In 1955, Mr. Arrillaga enrolled at Stanford, where he studied geography. At 6 feet 4 inches tall, he captained the basketball team while juggling chores to cover his expenses.

After graduating in 1960, he briefly played professional basketball. An article on FortuneHe was on the San Francisco Warriors roster for six weeks, but there is no record of him entering a game before entering commercial real estate.

In 1966 he and Mr. Peery founded the real estate company Peery Arrillaga. Their partnership lasted five years. in 2006 they sold It gave about half of its 12 million-square-foot portfolios to a real estate investment division of Deutsche Bank for $1.1 billion.

In 1968 Mr. Arrillaga married Frances Marion Cook, a sixth grade teacher and Stanford graduate. They had two children. He died of lung cancer in 1995. He married Gioia Fasi, a former lawyer from Honolulu, in 2003.

He and his daughter get away with it, as did his son John Jr.; two sisters, Alice Arrillaga Kalomas and Mary Arrillaga Danna; one brother, William Arrillaga; and four grandchildren.

Mr. Arrillaga’s ties to the tech industry grew closer in 2006 when his daughter, a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, married. Marc Andreessena venture capitalist and founder of Netscape.

Mr. Arrillaga began making small donations to Stanford soon after graduating. In the early 2000s, his donations to the school, particularly to the athletics department, over $80 million. gave $100 million to Stanford in 2006; this was the largest amount by a single donor until it eclipsed that with the 2013 donation.

Over 30 years, Mr. Arrillaga has rebuilt and funded nearly all of Stanford’s sports facilities, including the Maples Pavilion in 2004 and Stanford Stadium in 2005 and 2006. The Arrillaga name is ubiquitous on campus, located in the Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center, Arrillaga Family Dining Commons, and both campus gyms.

By avoiding media coverage and avoiding interviews, Mr. Arrillaga has built a reputation for attention to detail in construction projects.

Ms. As he rebuilt Stanford’s football stadium, Arrillaga-Andreessen wrote in a Medium article that he “chosen each palm tree, worked on its best form for each structural element, and created his own designs for the seats.” She added that she is known for “personally picking up every piece of garbage she sees and rearranging the solitaires in the fountains on campus.”