Chris Baiz died peacefully at his family home in Southold Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025, after a short struggle with metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Chris was born in Warren, Ohio, to Mary Elisabeth Lang and the Rev. John Baiz. The family moved to Pittsburgh in 1962, where his father served as rector of Calvary Episcopal Church. Chris completed high school at Shadyside Academy in Pittsburgh and then received a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University. After college, he worked on the Glomar Challenger research ship, part of the Deep Sea Drilling Project providing crucial data that helped prove the theory of plate tectonics. Subsequently, Chris earned a master’s degree in mining engineering from the Columbia University School of Engineering, after which he pursued a career in finance focused on mining projects.
During the 1980s, he was a vice president and mining engineer in the metals and mining group of the Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company in New York, and then worked for Barclays Bank and other financial institutions through the mid-1990s. He married Rosamond Phelps Dec. 22, 1984. They settled in Bronxville, where he was a loving and supportive stepfather to her two children, Ryan and Perry Weiss.
Throughout his life, Chris spent his summers on the North Fork of Long Island at the Lang Farm in Southold, which had been in his mother’s family over four generations since 1918. Chris deeply loved the land, the village and the North Fork way of life. As a young adult, his special joy was sailing on Peconic Bay and racing in his star boats Mephisto and Syzygy.
A true renaissance man, he kept the conversation lively with interests in geology, oceanography, astrology, mining and engineering.
In 1974, Chris’s interest in wine and viticulture made him the second person on the North Fork to plant a vineyard, at first for personal use. In 1996, the family relocated from Bronxville to the Southold farm. They began growing grapes in earnest, establishing winemaking as their full-time business, which they named The Old Field Vineyards — a name appearing in Southold records as early as 1660. They planted merlot, cabernet franc and pinot noir wine grapes. Rosamond became president of the operation, Chris became vice president and in 2007, daughter Perry joined the operation as a vineyard manager and then winemaker. Son Ryan crossed the country often to help maintain the buildings and with great pride restored the 1885 Icehouse. The Old Field Vineyard has delighted visitors with its good wines, a charming rustic tasting room converted from Grandfather Lang’s prize cock-fighting coop and a beautiful pond-side setting overlooking the vines. Visitors would find Chris working on the vineyard, riding the tractor, mowing the lawns or regaling tasting room visitors with tales of the North Fork.
Chris was a proud member of the Shelter Island Yacht Club, the Rolling Rock Club of Ligonier, Pa., and the Mining Engineering Club of Manhattan. He was a past president of the Long Island Wine Council and chairman of the Southold agricultural committee.
In addition to his wife, Rosamond, and children Ryan Weiss of Malibu, Calif., and Perry Weiss Bliss, Chris is survived by his much beloved grandchildren Rozzy, 13, and Claire Bliss, 10, whom he saw off to school every day and then greeted as they returned on the school bus; by son-in-law Zach Bliss and daughter-in-law Megan Arp; and by his newest grandchild, Kassiani Drew Weiss, 1.
There will be a small private burial for the family and in the spring, during which they will invite those who loved Chris to a celebration of his life on the vineyard that he loved.
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