Meet Walter

Walter Stahr and his family moved to Newport Beach in 1972. Walter’s parents, John and Elizabeth, were active in various community projects, including Girl Scouts, Pacific Symphony, South Coast Repertory, and the Newport Beach Central Library, for which they served as the fundraising chairs. John and Elizabeth were honored as the Newport Beach citizens of the year in 2016.

Walter has continued his late parents’ tradition of civic engagement. He serves on the boards of the Pacific Symphony and the Library Foundation of Newport Beach. He was a leader in the successful campaign to save St. James Episcopal Church from sale and destruction. He was a leader again in defeating a proposed change in the city charter that would have weakened term limits and excessively increased the powers of the mayor.

Walter received his undergraduate degree from Stanford, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, his law degree cum laude from Harvard Law School, and his Master’s in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government. He practiced law for more than two decades, working for a major international law firm, for the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, and as the senior lawyer for Fidelity Investments in Asia.

In his second career, Walter is the author of biographies of American leaders, ranging from John Jay, the first chief justice, to his current project, William Howard Taft, the only man to serve both as president and chief justice.

Walter and his wife, Dr. Masami Miyauchi Stahr, a retired mathematics teacher, live in the Castaways neighborhood. They have two adult children and a recent grandchild.