Jake Easton IV

You were a free spirit, untamed and ruleless, finding this world difficult to understand.

- LISA BOND EASTON in a posthumous letter to her husband

Obituary - Celebrating Jake's Extraordinary Life

How do you fit on a page the details of a life that was barely contained by the planet? Jake Easton IV, who died at age 57 of a heart attack on October 13, 2025, in Newport Beach, California, lived a sprawling, untamed, adventurous life, and left this world far too soon, with too much yet undone, and too many people who weren’t done loving him.

Jake Easton’s endless hunger for life took him around the world. From Aberdeen to Alexandria, Bhutan to Burgundy, Cancun to Cape Town, Dubai to Domenica, Honolulu to Harare, London to Lusaka, Marrakesh to Milan, Zimbabwe to Zambia. And hundreds of
places in between.

Most of Jake’s last two decades were spent in South Africa, a country he loved with all of his soul. Whenever he talked about his life on the Western Cape, you could see that Jake was transported: to the beaches, the mountains, the skies, the people. It was heartbreaking for him to have to leave. But South Africa never left him.

Jake lived a big life. He was big. His voice was big. His hair was big. His mustache was big. And his joy was big. Indeed, joy was the drug that Jake was determined to peddle to the world.

And he told big stories. Boy, could he tell stories.

Rebel student. Hollywood studio assistant. Beach lifeguard. Bar owner in Chicago. Trapeze artist all around  the world. Surfer dude in California. Surfer dude in France. Wine maker. Coffee magnate. Babysitter. Entrepreneur. Friend. Father. Husband.

You would listen to his tall tales, and you would think, “None of this can be true.” But then you would discover that almost all of it was true.

Yes, he really did work in a circus as a trapeze artist in Club Meds around the world. He was the catcher, the guy who the flyers had to rely on to save them from falling to earth. Jake was good at it. He was always the one protecting others.

He worked for International Productions at the legendary Paramount Studios in Hollywood. The producers of “The Godfather” worked in the office next door, and he worked among the props for “Titanic,” the most successful film ever. His sister Anne remembers Jake getting her and her brother onto the lot for a tour, to see how the magic was made.

He really did open a bar in the upscale Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, having never done more than drink in one before that.

He wanted more life.

While working at Club Meds around the world, he met a French woman, Sandrine, married her, and spent years surfing on the beaches of southwestern France. He moved back to California, they divorced. He worked. He met a woman, Samantha, fell in love, traveled the world, and landed in South Africa, where he hacked and planted in the soil a vineyard that still makes world-class wines today.

He and Samantha had two sons, Keenan and Quinn, whom he adored more than life itself. He and Samantha divorced, she kept the winery, and he started a coffee roasting business from scratch. He had unreliable partners, and the business faltered. Then he met Chris Gaag, and together they built Tribe Coffee into a South African coffee powerhouse.

One night on the Cape, at a babysitting gig for friends who owned a hotel, he met his co-babysitter, Lisa Bond, a designer who had done the hotel interiors. When the parents got back and Jake and Lisa were sprung, they hung out. They ended up talking through the night. Both of them had the grit born of a life lived in Africa. When Jake discovered Lisa had once been a rum runner under, let’s say, extra-legal conditions, he realized he had met a pirate. A fellow risk-taker. Both of them had been bruised by life, and love. But, they had a sense that this chance meeting was different. Sure, they circled each other for a minute. Jake handed Lisa his phone number, and said, “You can call me if you want – but not before a week.”

Lisa, whose early business card logo featured a porcupine, waited exactly 7 days. Then she called. The die was cast. They had found their forever.

“Jake and Lisa were two planets destined to crash together and become one,” said Chris Gaag, Jake’s business partner in Tribe Coffee for more than 10 years, and one of his closest friends. “They never stopped working at it. But they just couldn’t figure out how to get into the same orbit before they ran out of time.”

For the past 16 years, Jake and Lisa were ironclad soulmates. Life buffeted them from all sides. Clients went bankrupt. Economies tanked. Business partners faltered. They moved to France with Lisa’s son Jesse. They tried to make ends meet. Jake headed back to Africa to be close to his sons. Lisa was gaining clients and paying off debts, so she couldn’t follow. Then the pandemic hit, and they were trapped half a world apart.

“At the end of each day, we would talk about our hardships and our accomplishments,” Lisa wrote in a letter to Jake after he died. “We would support each other, share everything, every detail. You were only ever a thought away.”

Whether separated by a moment in time or by half the planet, they were always talking, always building a dream. The pandemic delivered a blow to both of their businesses. But Team Jake-and-Lisa picked themselves up, slapped the harsh South African dust from their clothes, and started over. Often separated, but never apart.The minute the pandemic allowed it, they were married on a beach on the Western Cape. And they were deeply engaged in the fight to build a new life together in America when Jake died.

Lisa recalled the days when she was stuck in France and he in South Africa. More than 9,000 kilometers apart, but only a one-hour time difference. They had breakfast every morning together over video. He’d show her the ocean just below their house. The sunrise, the sky, the waves they had both known and loved for so long. Sometimes during the day, while Lisa was working in a dusty 300-year-old attic in a small French village, Jake would send her “work” pictures, of his feet up on an ottoman, with the ocean waves crashing in the background. Just to drive her mad.

“No matter where they were, Lisa and Jake were communicating,” Chris remembers. “They communicated in the morning. They communicated during the day. They communicated every night. I think they talked more than my wife and I talked. And we lived together. And Jake never stopped talking about her. He showed me pictures of her work. He was endlessly proud of her. To be honest, it was kind of annoying.”

Everyone who ever met Jake remembers how whip-smart he was. Not in a lord-it-over-you kind of way. Jake was more like a sponge, except instead of water, he soaked up knowledge, and squeezed it into the world.

No matter how many books you’d read, there was a decent chance Jake had read more. No matter how many movies you’d seen, he could probably quote from all of them. No matter how many places you had been to in the world, he had likely been to more. And no matter how many languages you spoke, he probably spoke more. His siblings fondly remember tall tales with suspect facts. His friends later in life remember unbelievable stories that turned out to be true. As he got older, and his life got bigger, he embellished less. His real life had become as big as his dreams.

Even if you knew Jake had a degree in linguistics, you’d think: He can’t be fluent in all those languages. Then you'd overhear him having an easy conversation in Japanese, or Spanish, or French. And he could make people laugh in all of them. Occasionally, he’d sprinkle in a phrase in Afrikaans. Or Zulu. Or Xhosa. Or Fanagalo. Languages most of us have never heard of.

"Who knows how many he really spoke?" his brother Terence recalls. “What I remember most was the joy. Singing, dancing and drinking. Whenever we were together, these three came along. It didn't matter if we were in public, with a small group or just the two of us together. We were always joyful and playful together. At 15 years old or 40, it was the same. Endless laughter. He could be destitute or I could be in the middle of a failed marriage, but being together was a time for joy, not sorrow. He always sought out joy.”

When Jake was in a room, you’d know he was there. On first meeting you, he was as likely to hug you as shake your hand. It was easy to misread him, to think to yourself, this guy is a player. But if you paid attention, you realized Jake wasn’t so much a player, as much as he was endlessly playful, in all aspects of his life. He could not drink it in fast enough.

Sometimes his lack of seriousness was maddening. He was the life of any party, a whirling dervish of energy and enthusiasm. But he was at his best when joined with someone who could focus that energy, and temper his dreams.

“You were a free spirit, untamed and ruleless, finding this world difficult to understand,” Lisa wrote to Jake in her last letter. “You lived without limits, without boundaries. That was both your beauty and your burden.”

“What I admired about Jake is that he had the ability to connect with anyone,” his business partner Chris remembers. “And I mean anyone. Unemployed person on the side of the road. CEO of a company. Data scientist. Chemist. Mathematician. Hairdresser. He had an opinion or some form of knowledge of so much. One time I saw him talking to a customer in the café, having a laugh. It turns out the guy was a major arms dealer in the Middle East. And Jake just starts asking him about his business, like they were old friends.

“He was a multifaceted person,” Chris said. “It was why Jake and I worked so well in business together. He would make the connection, and inspire people, get them excited, and then I was able to close the deal and see things through.”

Like everyone who loved Jake, Chris remembers the fun times the most. The craziness. The laughter, the joy.

Jake turned Chris on to surfing, something Chris still enjoys today. He remembers how when work was stressful, Jake would tell him to grab the boards, and they would head down to Muizenberg Beach, and surf their lunch break away, making fun of each other, telling jokes, blowing off steam.

Often on those surf trips, their friend Dave Jones joined them. In 2018, Dave got sick, and spent time in a coma. Every day for weeks, Chris and Jake would visit Dave in the hospital, sit with Dave’s brother Jef, and just be present for their friend. Each day, Jake and Chris would make a video and send it to Dave’s phone, with the idea being to convince Dave, when he awoke, that decades had passed, Rip Van Winkle style, and that the world was completely different. Unfortunately, Dave never woke up, a devastating loss to them all.

“Jake was with us every moment, there for all of us,” Dave’s brother Jef recalled. “And when Dave died, Jake delivered the eulogy at his memorial. It’s just who he was. We couldn’t have managed without him.”

Chris remembers countless times running a business together, when Jake put relationships over everything. Sometimes, it would drive him mad.

“He had such a deep caring nature for people,” Chris recalled. “He wouldn’t show up for a meeting. It would be infuriating for me. But then he’d tell you, ‘This person found out their father died, so I stayed with them.’ He would do that for anyone. And if it involved Keenan and Quinn, everything else in the world would stop. When he could see them, nothing else mattered.”

[Written by: James O'Byrne and continued at www.travelersforlife.com/2025/11/21/jake-easton-iv-he-always-sought-out-joy]

Gallery

Memory wall

November 30, 2025

L’annonce du décès de Jake m’a profondément émue . Lorsque j’ai rencontré Jake, il croquait déjà la vie à pleines dents ; notre histoire a commencé sur une scène, , sous un trapèze et à l’époque , Jake a su me faire partager sa passion pour le cirque .
Ton âme artistique, ta sensibilité, ce regard différent que tu pouvais poser sur le monde , ta joie de vivre communicative, ainsi que cette bonté et sincérité , ne pouvaient qu’illuminer la vie de ceux et celles que tu croisais sur ta route . J’ai eu cette chance de faire un bout de chemin avec Jake ; même si nos chemins se sont séparés , sans auncune animosité ,ni rancoeur , je te remercie pour tout ce que j’ai pu vivre à tes côtés . Et je garde de précieux souvenirs que je chérirai pour toujours . Repose en paix ,Jake .
Avec toute mon affection et mes condoléances les plus sincères à sa famille et ses amis .
Sandrine

Sandrine Renoux

November 15, 2025

Very saddened about this news. Jake and I worked on film together, he believed in me and gave me so much confidence in myself. He was very talented. During our filming he was so informative he wore more than one hat. It was a film that was a time in his life that i portrayed him, what an honour. He was a kind and great man. Jake you will always be in my memories brother. I love you brother. My deepest condolences to his family. God bless you, and may the Holy Spirit comfort you with love. RIP my brother Jake. 🙏🏾❤️🕊

Pope Jerrod

November 15, 2025

My deepest condolences to you and your whole family. I’m grateful to have shared my youth with you and your brother.

Tim

November 14, 2025

Dear Jake
You special man
Our first-borns were first friends (Keene and Ben)
Your humour
Your vibes
Sending love
Always loved you as a friend
Always attracted to you as a women
You were never available
You were great
You will never be forgotten or unremembered
You special man
RIP,
Xx Christiane

Christiane Mohrstedt

November 13, 2025

Jake took a little tour in the Mini-Cooper in the early spring of '25, I think, and stopped in at My sisters's house in Tacoma, WA. Jake loved to travel and he loved meeting FAMILY. This is Charles, married to my sister, Julie. So Charles is Jake's Step-Uncle. They had a really great time together.

Laurie Easton

November 12, 2025

Dear Lisa,
I share your grief in the face of this immense loss. All my thoughts of courage and affection are with you during this painful time.

Tahar CHEREF

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