John DeSantis gave the best advice.

“Growing up, my friends would always ask my dad for advice and my sons always asked him for advice. They felt comfortable around him – and he gave great advice. They would talk to him in confidence and know he wouldn’t tell anyone what they talked about,” said DeSantis’ son, Mark Moore.

Those words of wisdom will carry on through DeSantis’ memory.

DeSantis, the creator of the Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show, a shopping marketplace for 39 years, died Saturday from brain cancer. He was 69.

Slater Funeral Service on Greentree Road is handling the arrangements. Viewings will be held Friday and Saturday with a funeral on Jan. 10 at Calvary United Methodist Church on the North Side.

His death comes two months before the show will celebrate its 40th anniversary – March 4-13 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown. The show was more than a place to find the state-of-the-art kitchen appliances and bathroom fixtures and the latest in furniture and landscaping for DeSantis.

It was his passion.

DeSantis organized the more than 1,800 vendors that filled the convention center. He hosted the event during the beginnings of the pandemic in March 2020, closing a few days early because of the spread of covid-19.

“It will be so difficult doing the show without him,” said Moore, who has been the associate director and will become executive director. “The show will keep me immersed and consume me the next few months, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s a living legacy and a tribute to my dad.”

He, his wife Kimberly and their sons, Shane, 18, and Riley, 16, were DeSantis’ world, his son said.

Courtesy of Mark Moore John DeSantis, (back) creator of the Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show, is pictured with his grandsons, Shane and Riley. DeSantis died on Jan. 1.  

The spring show will be a celebration of the event’s 40th anniversary and will include some form of a memorial to DeSantis, Moore said.

They plan to continue the fall show. Moore said DeSantis never planned on retiring from the show.

“He always wanted this show to continue,” Moore said. “He had a deep love for the show and said he would do it without getting paid – he loved it so much.”

Moore, 52, of the North Side, spent the final few weeks caring for his father, who lived in the same neighborhood. He said his dad didn’t want people to know he was ill because he didn’t want to ruin their holiday. He loved celebrating the new year, so a friend of Moore’s said his dad dying on Jan. 1 means that he made sure every year there will be a “toast to John.”

He had three weeks of radiation prior to the fall show but didn’t tell anyone at the event. This was his second bout with cancer. He was in remission from kidney cancer in 2018.

DeSantis and Moore saw 88 Jimmy Buffet concerts all over the world.

“My dad was a ‘Parrot Head,’” Moore said. “We saw concerts in Paris and London and Dublin.”

Moore noticed his dad losing his balance on a trip to the Bahamas in August. When they returned home, a scan showed brain lesions. Surgery was out of the question.

Moore said his father did the show for the vendors and the people who attended as a way to connect homeowners with contractors and other businesses to help make their living spaces better. Pittsburgh was the go-to show, said Moore, who is president of the Home & Garden Show Executives International, an organization of show producers.

Calls and emails and text messages have been coming in from all over the world offering condolences, Moore said.

“One of the vendors left a message saying ‘Your father cared about us, and always treated us fairly,’” Moore said.

The convention center reached out and said “it has our back with the upcoming show” and they will do whatever Moore needs, he said. Moore has received messages saying the organization lost a “true talent.”

He said he picked up things just by being around his dad. Moore’s oldest son is also part of the business.

Moore said he hopes to show his son the same things his dad showed him.

JoAnne Klimovich Harrop | Tribune-Review John DeSantis, creator of the Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show, died on Jan. 1.  

Matt Hillebrand, one of the co-owners of Don’s Appliances, a home show vendor, said via email that he met DeSantis and Moore during the first year he had a booth at the home show in 1998.

“What I found very memorable was how he wanted us to succeed in our display and carry that momentum through the year. He cared about us, and how our show was,” Hillebrand said. “As the years passed, I grew to know John and Mark on a personal level and found that his life focused around his kids and grandkids. John is a person this city will truly miss.”

Linda Barnicott, an artist from Brentwood known for her portraits of Pittsburgh, has been a vendor for 26 years. She recalled her first conversation with DeSantis when she asked to be a part of the show.

“He was so welcoming,” said Barnicott, who dreamt about seeing DeSantis at the home show on Sunday night after she heard the news he died. “He gave me an opportunity that changed the trajectory of my career. I wasn’t sure I would sell much but I sold enough to pay for the cost of being there in the first two days. I am so grateful for him. When he stopped by during the show, he always made me feel like I was the best person in the world. He made me feel special. He was such a good man.”

She said on a North Side house tour she was invited to see DeSantis’ home, including the train display. It was spectacular, she said.

“Our hearts are with the DeSantis family during this difficult time,” said Hollie Geitner, director of communications for Duquesne Light Company, a title sponsor of the home show via email. “John’s energy and enthusiasm brought so much life to everything he planned. We enjoyed working with him over the past two decades on the annual Home and Garden Show. He will be greatly missed in the region.”

DeSantis often took his grandsons on vacations and would go for frequent walks with them, where they would collect sticks and pretend sword fight. He had one of those sticks resting near his fireplace that Moore noticed right after his dad passed away.

DeSantis took the boys to Gus & YiaYia’s for an ice ball treat in West Park. An avid train collector, DeSantis and his grandsons visited the Carnegie Science Center to watch “The Polar Express.”

The three watched it on his iPad in his final days. “Tears rolled down his face,” Moore said of DeSantis as he sat with his grandsons.

“My dad is irreplaceable,” he said. “There is a huge void that can never be filled. After hearing all of these kind words, I pulled my phone out to call my dad because I wanted to tell him that there has been such an outpouring of love.”

DeSantis was appointed by then-Mayor Sophie Masloff to lead the city’s Historic Review Commission.

“The North Side is such an unbelievable neighborhood thanks to my dad’s enthusiasm for preserving it,” Moore said.

DeSantis helped restore Moore’s house. On Thanksgiving, DeSantis looked around and said, “What a great room,” according to Moore. “It was like he was taking it all in for one last time.”

In his last few days, when DeSantis was too weak to talk, they communicated via a whiteboard, where Moore wrote questions.

“I would ask what he thought about this and that concerning the home show, and he would write an answer because he always had so much to share,” Moore said. “He was always ready to tell me what he thought. When I asked about doing the home show without him, he wrote, ‘Son, you’ve got this.’”

Those were his final words of advice.

---

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---