Skip Sigler, 85, proprietor of Marblehead’s iconic Seagull Inn B&B for 27 years, passed away peacefully on April 10 from complications of social distancing. He was surrounded by his loving family responsibly standing six feet away.
Skip was born March 3, 1935 to Ernest and Sara (Patterson) Sigler of Upper Red Hook in New York’s Hudson River Valley, where at age nine he was an honor guard at Roosevelt’s funeral. He graduated from The Ohio State University in 1957, later spreading the Buckeye gospel around the world as an unpaid zealot. In 1958, while putting his life at risk for his country on Pentagon snowplow duty for the Army Corps of Engineers, he met his wife Ruth on a blind date. Fortunately for posterity, he agreed to meet her despite being told her best attribute was that she made her own clothes.
He developed an almost-mythic reputation as party host in Detroit, Cincinnati, Toledo and Indianapolis as he climbed the corporate ladder to become a sales manager at Owens Corning Fiberglas. He remarked that the hours were long as a drunk and you often had to play hurt. The opportunity to be transferred to Boston in 1969 allowed him to achieve a childhood dream of settling his family in Marblehead. In fact, he left his corporate nest to stay in his home by the sea, embarking on a series of enterprises that unfortunately were decades ahead of their time, including alternative energy, house flipping, house husbanding and dating clubs. It wasn’t until 1994, when he reconstructed his home on the Neck as an inn to annoy his neighbors, that he finally found his true calling. Being able to tell the same jokes to different, paying guests each night was Skip’s idea of heaven on earth.
As host of his Seagull Inn, the New England Travel Guide honored him as the Boston area’s best, “a natural-born host with a remarkable gift of gab.” His door and bar were always open to the free spirits, unfettered dignitaries and world-class drinkers who gathered round his kitchen island to be fed, entertained and made to feel special in a safe and nurturing environment of complete debauchery.
He was a President of the Marblehead Chamber of Commerce, a charter Tennessee Squire, a short-lived member of the Corinthian Yacht Club, and a decades-long contributor to the Piss and Moan Club. In addition, Skip was a gourmet chef, an accomplished painter and furniture maker, hypnotist, record producer, and author of the popular cookbook series The Best of Skip, The Rest of Skip, The Last of Skip Parts 1 and 2 and the uncompleted What’s Left of Skip (to be published posthumously).
Preceded in death by his brother, the renowned wood artisan Doug Sigler, Skip is survived by his wife of 61 years, Ruth (God bless her), three sons Bill, Randy and Eric (God bless them), and six (confirmed) grandchildren who will forever miss their one-of-a-kind “Skippy.” He also leaves behind 6,000+ inn guests and uncountable jokes, stories, unverifiable facts from Skip’s Almanac, and aphorisms such as “the only thing that kills you is guilt,” and “everything I know today I’ve learned from listening to myself talk about things I know nothing about.”
He was happiest when enjoying a finger-stirred Manhattan while conducting business from his kitchen swing, which he still guards from beyond the veil.
Needless to say, any celebration of Skip’s life will have to be postponed until stadiums can be re-opened. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the American Association for Mediocre Red Wine (AAMRW).
