Roberto “Beto” Alvarez, 71, died July 28 at his home in Belgrade after a brief illness. He was born March 12, 1955, in Antonito, Colorado, and arrived in the Gallatin Valley in 1998 with a tool belt and a plan to stay six months.

Beto spent twenty-six years framing houses from Four Corners to Big Sky, watching hay fields become subdivisions he could no longer afford to live in. He measured the valley’s change in stud spacing and permit fees. “Used to be you could build a shed without asking permission,” he would say at the Coffee Pot, stirring his coffee the same slow way every morning. “Now the shed needs a variance and the variance needs a lawyer.”

He complained about the traffic on Jackrabbit Lane every single day and drove forty-five in the fifty-five zone without fail. His children, Isabela in Livingston and Mateo in Bozeman, both work two jobs to keep roofs over heads that cost three times what his did. They visit every Sunday for green chile and the same argument about whether the mountains look different than they used to.

Beto never learned to ski. Said the snow was for water, not playing. He is survived by his wife of forty-three years, Maria; daughter Isabela of Livingston; son Mateo of Bozeman; and three grandchildren who call him Abuelo and ask why the river runs lower each summer.

Services at St. Francis of the Valley Catholic Church in Belgrade, Saturday at 10 a.m.