Ed Kanan; Blind Ski Champion, Land Developer

Ed Kanan, a Westside builder who became a champion skier and water-skier after he was blinded by diabetes, has died. He was 59.

Kanan died Monday night of heart disease in the Pacific Palisades home he built in 1957.

“Life handed me a challenge,” he said after he lost his eyesight in 1979. “I decided to challenge life.”

He learned to ski on snow and water and began entering competitions, amassing a collection of gold and silver medals.

“I forced myself to recover. I figured if I could ski down a mountain I could do everything I put my mind to,” he told The Times.

Kanan was national champion snow skier for the U.S. Assn. for Blind Athletes in 1983, 1986 and 1987. In 1986 he also won a gold medal and was named world champion blind water skier at the international disabled water ski championship in Oslo.

Kanan created the nonprofit organization American Blind Skiers to raise money for the snow and water sports and to encourage visually handicapped people to take up both types of skiing.

Last year he produced a video titled “Unseen Courage” about blind water-skiers, which was premiered at the Directors Guild Theater in Hollywood.

A native Southern Californian, Kanan played basketball and volleyball at Santa Monica High School and Santa Monica College and was a member of the national championship volleyball team at UCLA in 1954.

But he wasn’t much of a skier. After the family bought a vacation home near Lake Arrowhead in 1974, he tried snow and water-skiing but described his efforts as “klutzy.”

“I never learned how to ski until I went blind,” he told The Times. “It took so long to break the bad habits.”

Instead of increasing his fear, he joked, blindness obliterated it: “With the lack of sight, when you can’t see something to be afraid of, you aren’t afraid.”

Kanan initially worked in insurance and as an appraiser for Los Angeles County.

With his late brother Gil, he formed the Santa Monica-based Kanan Bros. Builders in 1961, and later established Kanan Bros. Realty. The Kanans developed apartment and condominium complexes, shopping centers and chain stores.

After he lost his sight, Kanan cut his workweek from 60 hours to about 30, but still remained involved in all his contracts.

“From experience, I can put together a project that would fit the property, and then I work with the architect,” he told The Times in 1987. “I tell him what I would like and whether I feel good about it after somebody goes over the details. Generally, I have him redesign some of the layouts.”

Kanan is survived by his wife, Sharon; sons Edmund L. and Kevin; his mother, Marie; a brother, Daniel; sisters Nadia Nahass and Amira Stadlbauer, and four nephews and four nieces.

Services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at Pilgrim Lutheran Church, 1730 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica.

The family has asked that any memorial contributions be made to American Blind Skiers, 2325 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, Calif. 90403.