Arthur C. Tauck Jr., long-time Westport resident, died on February 11th at his winter home in Vero Beach, FL surrounded by family.
Arthur was born on September 7, 1931, and dedicated his entire professional life to enhancing people’s lives through travel. In 1950, he joined his father’s fledgling tour company, Tauck Tours, as a young tour director, leading Tauck guests through New
England every summer during his undergraduate studies at Lehigh University. Upon graduation, he entered the United States Air Force as a Lieutenant and spent several years stationed in Germany. He returned to the family business in 1956 and was named
President in 1958 at the age of twenty-seven. These formative experiences shaped a lifelong commitment to people, service and hospitality.
Upon leaving the Air Force, Arthur settled his growing family in Westport and became actively involved in the community. He learned to sail on Long Island Sound, joined Cedar Point Yacht Club, and taught himself celestial navigation to pursue his passion for ocean racing. He twice served as Commodore of Cedar Point Yacht Club and had a life- long connection to the local sailing community. Arthur was also an avid skier, bicyclist, golfer, and scuba diver, and particularly enjoyed biking the winding roads of Fairfield County in the early morning. He loved sharing summer evenings with family and friends in his gazebo, savoring a cold, dirty martini, and a smooth cigar.
Arthur reveled in tackling new projects and interesting ideas with a can-do attitude. Over five years from 1987 to 1992, this passion led him to create the National Hall Historic District along the river in downtown Westport, preserving the town’s 19th century history at the corner of Post Road and Wilton Road. He fully restored the 1873 National Hall Building into a Relais Chateaux hotel with 13 exquisite rooms and an award-winning restaurant. The district also included the 1931 Vigilant Fire Station (now Oko Restaurant) and several brick buildings and walkways along the Saugatuck River. Arthur was a devoted alumnus of Lehigh University in Bethlehem PA, graduating in 1953 with a degree in Marketing. In his later years, he supported an endowed scholarship, a Faculty Chair in International Marketing & Logistics, and the Tauck Scholars Program, which has funded hundreds of rising Seniors to complete an international business internship.
Arthur’s curiosity about people and their life stories gave him an uncanny ability to forge long-lasting friendships with people from all over the world and from all walks of life. He was a master storyteller, with keen emotional intelligence, an extraordinary memory, and a great sense of humor. He believed deeply in “doing the right thing” with humility, integrity, generosity, and care.
Over his 75 years in the travel industry, Arthur’s entrepreneurial spirit led to many new and inspiring ways for Tauck guests to experience the world. In the 1960s, with the invention of the jet engine, he recognized the opportunity to introduce his guests to the national parks of the western United States and Canada, the Pacific Northwest, and the five islands of Hawaii. Inspired by his own passions for hiking and bicycling, he pioneered Heli-Hiking in the Canadian Rockies in the 1970s and curated Tauck’s Yellow
Roads of Europe in the 1990s offering authentic European experiences off the beaten path. His love of the sea and the historic waterways of Europe is reflected today in the company’s intimate and culturally rich ocean and river cruise experiences.
While these innovations and many more over the decades earned him recognition as a travel industry visionary and pioneer, his personal motivation was always the guest experience with an unwavering commitment to service, value, and the human touch. He believed deeply in the power of travel as a force for good in the world, whether by building understanding among people, preserving history and culture for future generations, or fulfilling individual dreams.
In 1994, Arthur founded the Tauck Family Foundation as a family endeavor to encourage multiple generations of his family to work together to give back and make a positive impact on the world. Today, the foundation supports communities to maintain healthy, regenerative ecosystems and land use practices through education and engagement. Having lost his mother at age five and his father in his late twenties, Arthur valued family above all else. He taught his young children to sail on Long Island Sound and to ski the challenging terrain of Mad River Glen in Vermont. He took every opportunity to support the interests of his grandchildren, showing up unannounced at sporting events, attending school programs, or just being available for a good talk. He loved working alongside his adult children and son-in-law in the family business and had unwavering confidence in his grandchildren to uphold the company’s values and to steward it successfully in its second century. His greatest joy was sharing life with his wife, Ronni, and welcoming their large extended family to their homes in Westport and Florida.
In addition to his beloved wife, Ronni Tauck, Arthur is survived by his sister, Connie Wright; his former wife Lee Tauck and their five children, Chuck Tauck (Fran), Robin Tauck, Peter Tauck, Kiki Mahar (Dan) and Liz Walters (Fred); four step-children, Bernhard Duerrmeier (Amber), Marina Rizzi (Damian), Christopher Duerrmeier (Laura), and Philip Duerrmeier; as well as twenty-one grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.
Arthur’s family will celebrate his life in a private memorial service later this spring. Contributions in his memory may be made to Tourism Cares, a non-profit dedicated to advancing sustainability and meaningful travel within the tourism industry, or to Fairfield County’s Community Foundation in Wilton, Connecticut.
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