Photos: Dennis Holland | 1945-2014

Dennis Holland and his wife, Betty, are shown aboard the Pilgrim of Newport in 1993. Holland spent almost two decades sailing the ship before selling it to the Ocean Institute in Dana Point in 2001. The ship still sails there, under the name Spirit of Dana Point. (Gary Ambrose / Los Angeles Times)

May 14, 2014 6:56 PM PT

Dennis Holland, a legendary Orange County boat builder who simultaneously battled cancer and city hall as he tried to knit together one last vessel, has died. He was 68.

Dennis Holland holds the wheel of the 72-foot Shawnee, which he was seeking to restore in his Newport Beach backyard, in 2012. He’d admired the 1916 sailboat since he first caught a glimpse of it as a child. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The Shawnee, the boat Dennis Holland sought to restore at his Orange County home, can be seen peeking out from the back of Holland’s property in 2012. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

In 2012, Dennis Holland takes in the view from the scaffolding surrounding the Shawnee, the 1916 wooden sailboat he sought to restore at his O.C. home. After neighbors complained, Newport Beach sued Holland, saying a residential neighborhood wasn’t the place for the project. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Master shipwright Dennis Holland, shown in 2012, sits in the cockpit of the Shawnee, the 1916 sailboat he sought to restore. “Once you’re committed to a boat like her, it’s like a marriage,” he told the Los Angeles Times. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

A detail of the automatic pilot steering station in the Shawnee’s cockpit is shown. As Dennis Holland embarked on the boat’s restoration, doctors discovered that he was suffering from late-term prostate cancer. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The rotted hull of Dennis Holland’s Shawnee is shown. “Working on that ship was his therapy,” a family friend said of Holland’s labor of love. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

A view of the propeller drive shaft and rotted hull of Dennis Holland’s Shawnee. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Dennis Holland looks over a 1959 Los Angeles Times Home Section article featuring the Shawnee. “What he wanted to do was just be left alone to work on his boat, to do what he loved until the day he died,” a family friend said of Holland. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)